Columbia In Open Revolt As Dr. Jack Shepherd Chosen As Class Day Speaker
Just as every year the senior class is obligated to select a Class Day speaker, so are students equally obligated to hate on said speaker (unless his name is a) Bill Clinton or b) Bill Clinton). But when Columbia's orator was named last night, the student body went above and beyond, descending into something out of 28 Days Later. It's been a while -- well, maybe only a year -- since a Columbia speaker caused such a ruckus. Who could rile up Columbia students so much? Jerry Falwell? Jim Gilchrist? John McCain again?
Nope. The guy who has twisted Columbia's panties all knotty is none other than actor, model, heartthrob Matthew Fox. Major accomplishments: being hot as Charlie Salinger on Party of Five; being hot as one of People Magazine's Most Beautiful People in 1996; being hot as Dr. Jack Shepherd on Lost. Oh, and he helped win the football game that ended Columbia's 44-game losing streak in 1988.
Bwog's commenters are characteristically livid:
- "disgust disgust disgust. this is an outrage, a travesty."
- "Was gideon yago unavailable?"
- "the fucking PRESIDENT OF ESTONIA is a CC grad, and is even trying to make the core part of the national education system there. did anyone even think about contacting him?"
Sure, there are a few dissident Fox apologists, but they're not very funny. Read the healthy debate here.
Senior class president David Chait, who oversaw the 20-student committee that helped pick Fox, told us (We interviewed him! We totally did reporting!) there's no way Columbia will rescind the offer. The best thing people can do, he said, is discuss how to change the selection process in years to come -- particularly, whether to start offering speakers money. (Class Day speakers have always appeared for free.) In the meantime, he said, he hopes for "constructive criticism." Somehow, Bwog comments don't seem to count.
UPDATE 11:54 a.m.: We just got word of the video they screened at the announcement. Hard to say whether using "The Final Countdown" is the best way to win respect; was G.O.B. the backup choice?
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March 6th, 2007 at 9:29 am
I’d rather have Matthew Fox than Fareed Zakaria. Yale keeps picking journalists, and it is VERY VERY boring. Also Zakaria was the head of the Party of the Right, which blows and sends out spam emails. Comparatively, “former Party of Five star” is far, far preferable.
Seriously, I’m jealous.
March 6th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Zakaria is a pretty interesting guy at the end of the day, his identity as journalist and former PoR member notwithstanding. Matthew Fox..is not. Although I do sympathise with you seniors; he was clearly a last resort, being, as he is, on the Yale Corporation. But I don’t think he’ll be uninteresting, if it makes you feel at all better.
March 6th, 2007 at 11:01 am
Come on, y07. Zakaria is pretty good as a speaker – I heard him when he came to campus a couple of years ago, and he was a rather engaging speaker who made a lot of sense. Of course the senior class council could have done better than that, but given the quality of said council’s membership, one has to be glad they at least pulled of Zakaria. I don’t remember who spoke at Class Day last year, and that’s because the speaker was almost totally unknown. So not everything is so bad.
March 6th, 2007 at 11:03 am
ahem, pulled *off* Zakaria.
March 6th, 2007 at 11:20 am
Anderson Cooper last year, I think. And Eleanor Holmes Norton, who I will agree was completely unknown, but at least she was a big civil rights peep back in the day. And Ken Burns before that.
Party of the motherfucking Right? Toooooooolbox.
March 6th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Having a Yale Corp member just smacks of talking about your backpack on Show and Tell day because you forgot to bring in something interesting.
“Uh…it has a zipper…and…a bunch of pockets in the front…”
March 6th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
the facebook group of people pissed about fox has all of 75 members… hardly an open revolt. it’s the same 20 people posting back and forth on bwog.
March 6th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
a stage storming.
You heard it here first.
March 6th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Penn wasn’t too happy either when Jodie Foster was selected as commencement speaker last year.
March 6th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
p07, but I heard she ended up delivering quite a palatable address which people actually liked. true or not?
March 6th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
I heard Jodie Foster’s address went well, too. And Bono’s (at Penn in ‘04) was truly outstanding.
March 6th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
the difference is, foster and bono are actually smart–
bwog has a snapshot of all these matthew fox quotes posted, and all i can think is, ‘how did this guy go here?’
still, it atually didn’t bother me too much until i just watched that video. wow. embarassing…
March 6th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Matthew Fox is a C-list celebrity, though. Also, I find it incredibly hard to believe that people would be unhappy about Jodie Foster being selected as a commencement speaker.
March 6th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
bulldog–Unfortunately, I missed the address. People had mixed opinions about rapping Eminem, but I heard the rest of the speech was pretty standard.
March 6th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
fox is not a c-list celeb. he’s sort of an a minus. c-list is, like, larry birkhead.
March 6th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
This is the reason I want to strangle so many people in class. GET OVER YOURSELVES!!! People at this school take themselves too damn seriously. I think it’s great to have Matthew Fox speak. Must we talk about the fucking war and the fucking elections every single fucking minute of our meaningless, immature, undergraduate lives???
And who the freaking hell are you to say he’s dumb?? Being on TV doesn’t make someone dumb. He got into Columbia and graduated. You’re acting as if he had gotten a degree from an online diploma mill… Is that really how you feel about Alma Mater?
March 7th, 2007 at 11:25 am
I would sort of love for GOB to be our commencement speaker.
March 7th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
If you haven’t noticed, Columbia08, the reason why people are so upset isn’t because we’re taking ourselves too damn seriously or because we think we’re too good for actors to come speak to us. People are angry because of the ridiculous rules that we have restricting who can come and speak at Class Day. And people are angry because of the highly sketchy way in which Fox was chosen by Chait and the Committee.
And you probably haven’t paid attention to this since you consider your current life to be meaningless and immature, but Columbia has done an awesome job of bringing great speakers to campus these past few years–and not all of them have been politicians. The past semester alone we had Vaclav Havel and Orham Pamuk. The past few Class days have included John McCain and Tony Kushner. With Columbia’s ability to bring in these figures, who (regardless of whether you agree with their views or not) are groundbreakers and people who have really shaped their fields, it is shocking and disappointing to many seniors that the best we can do for Class Day is bring in someone whose contribution to to Columbia seems to be limited to playing in a football game that we actually won (someone correct me if I’m wrong), and whose contribution to his field is (as of yet) meager.
March 7th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Jodie Foster’s speech at Penn was TERRIBLE. It was embarrassingly bad. It seemed only marginally better due to the truly horrendous speech the night before at the Arts & Sciences graduation ceremony. Bono in 2004, however, was really great at my graduation. I had my doubts, but he pulled out a good/entertaining speech. (It did not involve rapping from an Eminem song. I SEE YOU, JODIE! For shame!)
March 8th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
WE WANT JEREMY PIVEN. — Columbian
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