2008 Woodie Awards
Irish adviser fighting mad over Webbies
By: Don "Paddy" O'Corrigan
Issue date: 4/5/07 Section: Letters to the Editor
- Page 1 of 1
For close to a year now, this Gorlok Professor has been a little cranky. Some of my colleagues blame it on acid reflux, or sleep apnea, or the spiraling insurance co-pays I cough up for ineffective prescriptions to address these ailments.
Still others blame my crotchety behavior on the mandatory class disturbance policies that I must now graft to 17 journalism course syllabi to meet the higher education demands of a North Central Accreditation team.
In truth, my irritation can be traced to the Webbies production of last year when the School of Communications sanctioned a film depicting the stereotype of a drunken college newspaper adviser. No one raised any objection to this ridiculous and hurtful portrayal.
To add insult to injury, I am an Irish college newspaper adviser, and the portrayal only serves to buttress another odious stereotype - that of the red-nosed, drunken "Paddy" who is constantly in his cups. To add more insult to more injury, some faculty are now upset at this year's Webbies film production because it portrays an Austrian villain.
Somehow, it is okay to slight an Irish college newspaper adviser, but it is xenophobic and insular to depict an Austrian as a common villain. Excuse me, but at the risk of being xenophobic, let me offer a little lesson on the cultural contributions of the Irish as compared to the Austrians.
The Irish have given the world U-2, James Joyce, Guinness and the Blarney Stone. Austrians have given us a third-rate artist who inspired a Chaplin movie, a second-rate musical about a lonely goat herd in the Alps, and a monument to Saint Wolfgang in the marketplace near Salzburg. With all due respect, does an Austrian really merit more multi-cultural sensitivity than an Emerald Islander?
The public relations gurus and specialists at Webster should know better than to cross the Irish. PR Crisis Management is not so easily accomplished with us. We sport the sharp wit and wordsmithing of W.B. Yeats and Maude Gonne; the anger of Michael Collins and Patrick Pearse; the vengeance and capacity to hold a grudge of the Orangemen and the Fenian Brotherhood. Anger a villain from Vienna, and perhaps you'll be forced to dodge an airborne apple strudel.
Don "Paddy" O'Corrigan
Irish College Newspaper Adviser
Still others blame my crotchety behavior on the mandatory class disturbance policies that I must now graft to 17 journalism course syllabi to meet the higher education demands of a North Central Accreditation team.
In truth, my irritation can be traced to the Webbies production of last year when the School of Communications sanctioned a film depicting the stereotype of a drunken college newspaper adviser. No one raised any objection to this ridiculous and hurtful portrayal.
To add insult to injury, I am an Irish college newspaper adviser, and the portrayal only serves to buttress another odious stereotype - that of the red-nosed, drunken "Paddy" who is constantly in his cups. To add more insult to more injury, some faculty are now upset at this year's Webbies film production because it portrays an Austrian villain.
Somehow, it is okay to slight an Irish college newspaper adviser, but it is xenophobic and insular to depict an Austrian as a common villain. Excuse me, but at the risk of being xenophobic, let me offer a little lesson on the cultural contributions of the Irish as compared to the Austrians.
The Irish have given the world U-2, James Joyce, Guinness and the Blarney Stone. Austrians have given us a third-rate artist who inspired a Chaplin movie, a second-rate musical about a lonely goat herd in the Alps, and a monument to Saint Wolfgang in the marketplace near Salzburg. With all due respect, does an Austrian really merit more multi-cultural sensitivity than an Emerald Islander?
The public relations gurus and specialists at Webster should know better than to cross the Irish. PR Crisis Management is not so easily accomplished with us. We sport the sharp wit and wordsmithing of W.B. Yeats and Maude Gonne; the anger of Michael Collins and Patrick Pearse; the vengeance and capacity to hold a grudge of the Orangemen and the Fenian Brotherhood. Anger a villain from Vienna, and perhaps you'll be forced to dodge an airborne apple strudel.
Don "Paddy" O'Corrigan
Irish College Newspaper Adviser
Viewing Comments 1 - 3 of 5
Fannie Farkle
posted 4/04/07 @ 7:42 PM CST
The Sound of Music is not about a goat herd. Just thought I'd make sure you knew that.
Jennifer Daigle
posted 4/06/07 @ 5:39 AM CST
Quite frankly, based on your crude assessment of what Austria "gave the world" (as you seem to think it is a valid assessment of a country's merits to look merely into its intellectual and cultural contributions rather than addressing the issue at hand, namely the problem of stereotyping), I wouldn't hesitate to suggest that you must have been high on something when you disregarded such momentous references as Freud, Mozart, Schubert, Strauss, Lorenz, Porsche, etc. (Continued…)
Nick Gartner
posted 4/06/07 @ 5:32 PM CST
I found this letter incredibly awesome. Don manages to capture the hypocrisy and absurdity of the webbies decision quite concisely. Good one! Go irish!
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