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Monday, August 28, 2006
The Use (and Misuse) of Song Lyrics and Movie/TV Quotes During Class
Am I the only one or do other law professors end up peppering their classes with various song lyrics and movie/TV quotes? I like to say I do this to better relate to my students, but more often than not my students just look at me the way I use to look at my parents when I was a teenager.
Here's just a few recent examples from my classes:
1) When asked what the name of the case was, I answered "Rush," as in the Paula Abdul song. Thankfully, I did not break out into song.
2) When discussing the fact that general jurisdiction makes individuals "automatically" subject to court jurisdiction in states in which they reside, I ended up quoting the Pointer Sisters' "Automatic": "No way to control it . . . ." My students were so perplexed that one ended up looking up the song on iTunes during class just to make sure I didn't make it up (I know this because a student's computer was playing the song as we packed up at the end of class).
3) And, of course, no class would be complete without a Monty Python quote or two, most recently: "Run away, run away," and "Go away or I shall taunt you some more." And although I didn't say it, I recently almost threatened to turn an unprepared student into a newt (he would have got better!).
I have many more examples, but am I alone in engaging in these gratuitous (nay, bizarre) pop culture digressions?
Posted by laborprof lpb on August 28, 2006 at 03:18 PM in Life of Law Schools | Permalink
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Comments
When talking about the Saturday Night Massacre in Con Law I, I usually refer to the various scenes in "The Empire Strikes Back" where Darth Vader does that neck-choking-Force thing of his whenever one of his subordinates has failed him. Then I realized that a good number of students probably weren't even born when that movie came out (1980).
One time I remarked in class that they hadn't seen "Star Wars" in the theater. One student raised her hand and said she had. I responded, "Uh, no, not the 20th anniversary Special Edition."
Posted by: Tung Yin | Aug 28, 2006 3:29:05 PM
Well, you could have said "Rush", as in "Fly by Night," and really lost your students...
Posted by: anon | Aug 28, 2006 3:31:21 PM
So far this semester I've invoked the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, Mad Max 3 ("bust a deal, face the wheel"), the Paper Chase, and the Verdict, but all except the Mad Max quote I prefaced with a citation, which helps cut down on the weird looks. I'd like to say that there's a generational divide at work, but frankly, most of those shows/movies are too old for *me* to have seen in their first runs as well. The fact is, I've just watched a lot of TV.
Posted by: Bruce Boyden | Aug 28, 2006 3:55:17 PM
I sometimes throw in quotes from "The Simpsons," although I think that was more hip when I started teaching in 1999 than now. Homer's union, the International Brotherhood of Jazz Dancers, Pastry Chefs, and Nuclear Technicians always appears in some form on my labor law exam (I tell the students they can just call it "the union"). In class, I've been known to quote catch-phrases from pro wrestlers, which results in blank stares from people smart enough to avoid wrasslin' shows, and genuine shock and amusement from folks that get the references.
My proudest pop culture reference moment involved an essay question that focused on rules from a labor law case called Beck. I snuck the names of about half a dozen song titles from the musician Beck into the text of the question. And -- in one of the highlights of my teaching career -- I got an answer back that not only had the substantive law right, but itself contained several other Beck song titles.
Posted by: Joseph Slater | Aug 28, 2006 4:04:26 PM
Ever had to explain the concept of the New England town meeting, say for purposes of discussing the Meiklejohn conception of the First Amendment, or to explain republican theory? Gilmore Girls does the job nicely -- "Just like a Stars Hollow town meeting, only less zany."
Posted by: Paul Horwitz | Aug 28, 2006 4:05:35 PM
One of the few drawbacks of not having watched TV for more than a few hours totaly in about 8 years is a lack of appropriate pop-culture references. Once, in a class I was TAing a few years ago, I tried to illustrate a point with a reference to "Quincy". Not a single person had any idea what I was talking about, but I guess that's understandable since I think even I watched it only on re-runs.
Posted by: Matt | Aug 28, 2006 4:20:44 PM
My Real Estate class seemed to get a good kick out of my asking them if they'd seen Napolean Dynamite, after I'd mentioned that the class would give them some skills. "Law firms are looking for people with skills--bow-hunting skills, computer hacking skills, real estate transactions skills."
No one recognized Nixon: "We could do it, but it would be wrong."
I couldn't tell if they would have recognized the Godfather reference, since I telegraphed it: "In my home! Where my wife sleeps, where my children come and play with their toys!"
Posted by: Chris | Aug 28, 2006 4:31:22 PM
I recently read a final exam given by a colleague (an excellent teacher, which is why I asked for his exam). I could barely read through the long hypo! Names of the characters were completely bizarre: Thumbledore or something like that. I couldn’t keep track of characters and kept getting confused about the facts. It then turned out that the names and some of the facts were the play on Harry Potter – the book that I, being over the age of 16, have never read. Needless to say, I would have been extremely unhappy if I were in that class and discovered that my grade suffered because I haven’t read Harry Potter! I think I would have had a non-trivial complaint.
Lesson: pop-culture should be used sparingly. Better yet: not at all. Even beyond exams. Especially if you have a diverse student body where you can’t assume common references.
Posted by: Kate Litvak | Aug 29, 2006 12:17:06 AM
I'm with Kate. Of course, in class, pop culture references are always fun.
Posted by: Orin Kerr | Aug 29, 2006 1:03:38 AM
There is a case called Lasma v. Arabian Score in the Whaley case book, about a horse who tragically dies. I started class by playing the theme song from Mr. Ed, and nobody laughed. Oh, Wilbbbbbbur.
Posted by: Jeff Lipshaw | Aug 29, 2006 9:54:36 AM
One can certainly go overboard in using cutesy names/facts in exams, but I've never had a problem or complaint about that. One should make sure the names in any given problem are sufficiently different so they aren't confusing. Obviously, an exam question shouldn't test on knowledge of the underlying pop reference, but I don't see any problem in getting character names from a TV show, book, or movie.
Posted by: Joseph Slater | Aug 29, 2006 9:54:47 AM
Oh, and I do a truly horrific impression of Strongbad. If you know who Strongbad is, you are really cool. If you are stupid enough to imitate him in front of 50 law students, (a) you have more guts than brains, and (b) you end up sucking on sore throat lozenges for about three days.
Posted by: Jeff Lipshaw | Aug 29, 2006 9:58:03 AM
Uh oh. I am prepping for class, and this is what happens when you have an overactive mind. I am going to do a short lecture on the nature of long-term debt and short term or working capital borrowing, so they have some idea of the context.
If I refer to Frank Zappa and "moving to Montana soon, gonna be a dental floss tycoon" will anybody understand it?
Posted by: Jeff Lipshaw | Aug 29, 2006 10:13:46 AM
Okay, I'm back from class, and I have a question and a comment.
1. What percentage of blog comments are made in the hour after class when you are too fried to do anything else? I think this is a fruitful field for empirical study.
2. In explaining financing on the backs of your vendors, I used the phrase "I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." NOBODY knew what I was talking about.
That was actually two coments and question, but I'm too fried to get it right.
Posted by: Jeff Lipshaw | Aug 29, 2006 12:48:51 PM
I'm thinking "Deal or No Deal" may be helpful for my class on risk.
But the other day, I referred to "A Civil Action" and I just got blank looks. Are the students really that young? I even mentioned the movie as well as the book. Maybe it's a John Travolta thing.
Posted by: ACW | Aug 29, 2006 1:38:41 PM
Goodness--I used the "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday" line on Monday, and I thought everyone understood the reference, but I guess they were just smiling and nodding in order to humor me. Sigh. I guess not knowing about Blimpy wouldn't affect the point, though.
Posted by: Chris | Aug 29, 2006 5:25:31 PM
On the first day of Legislation one year, I played the video of "I'm Just a Bill." No one in the class had ever seen it before . . . .
Posted by: Howard Wasserman | Aug 29, 2006 8:04:56 PM
Be careful what you use "trying to look cool" - you may not actually know what it means. Take the TRUE story of my admin professor. She started explaining the interaction between agencies, congress, and the president by saying that it was like a threesome. (Clearly thinking it meant something non-sexual)
The class just snickered at first, but we quickly told her to choose a new word when she started to explain how agency directors were often like "children that wanted to join into the threesome...."
I swear, I'm not making this up.
Posted by: Chris Bell | Aug 29, 2006 10:01:50 PM
That was Wimpy, not Blimpy. See here and here. Proves my point about not needing to know who said it, I suppose. I did know it was from Popeye, though.
Posted by: Chris | Aug 30, 2006 12:40:25 PM
A former student recently emailed me that one of his most memorable moments in law school was my rendition, in Civil Procedure class, of Spinal Tap's "Gimme Some Money." I wish I could remember the context--these things tend to just pop into my head in the middle of class, which makes them very dangerous.
Posted by: Jeff Cooper | Sep 6, 2006 12:46:13 PM
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