I was a teenage pornographer
In 1989 I lived in Cologne in Germany for a year. I was 18/19, and worked as an English Language teaching Assistant in a grammar school in the outskirts of the city. I had, when all is said and done, a pretty good year. I met lots of great people, did lots of great things and generally had a bit of a laugh at the expense of the, as it was then, West German government.
The fact that I had to show up for five and a half days and work at a grammar school, was only a minor inconvenience. The fact that most of my students were the same age as me caused a couple of problems. I may tell you about the more obvious one some other time…..
However, today I am reminded of one particular problem as I read a news item today on IMDB about a teacher who showed the film “Brokeback Mountain” to her high school students. The female teacher is being sued by the grandparents of some of the teenage kids, as the film contains scenes of homosexual lurve action. Here’s the link, if you’re interested in the details. it’s four or five stories down the page:
http://www.imdb.com/news/wenn/2007-05-14/#3
Well, been there, done that! I showed “My Beautiful Launderette” to my Year 8 class (18 year olds). Here’s a quick summary for those of you who don’t remember or maybe haven’t seen “My Beautiful Launderette”.
The film stars Daniel Day Lewis and Saeed Jaffrey and is set in Thatcher’s Britain. It concerns the dealings of an Indian ex-pat entrepreneur (Jaffrey) and his nephew (Gordon Warnecke) whom he places in charge of his latest business acquisition; the launderette. Behind the scenes Uncle is trying to marry off Nephew to other Cousin, unaware that Nephew is getting it on in the back room of the launderette with local skinhead sexy-pants, Daniel Day Lewis.
My reason for showing the film? Well it was, your Honour, entirely innocent. I had, in consultation with the head of English, decided to deliver a project on British culture in the political climate of the eighties. Up until that point we had looked at music, specifically the more intelligent lyrical efforts of “The The”, “The Waterboys” and “The Smiths”. We had watched some excellent TV programmes, like “Boys from the Blackstuff”, “Edge of Darkness” and before-it-got-shit Brookside (it used to be great, honest!). Basically it was a thinly veiled ruse to play music and watch telly and chat about them afterwards.
I decided to show Hanif Kureishi and Stephen Frears “Launderette” because it was about multicultural eighties Britain. Oh… and it was cracking, to boot.
The students loved it….until the English Head walked into the class just before the gay sex scene came on, cueing the longest five minutes of my life. After the scene got going he switched off the TV.
MisssyT, as I was then, was summoned to the Headmaster’s office the next day. Early. He was the only person that called me Fraulein T. Everyone else used my first name.
I was to have all video privileges suspended indefinitely. I would consult my Mentor (teacher in charge of me) on everything I gave out to the students. I was made to feel like a porn peddler. I tried to put it in context. He wasn’t interested.
The next week the students asked to see the end of the film. I told them that we couldn’t and I wasn’t allowed to show any more films. They were a bit fed up about it, but not enough to ask their headmaster for an explanation, or fight my corner. It was only school after all, and watching a video was better than doing real work. But if real work had to be done, they would get on with it.
I saw the film a few years ago on telly and was surprised at how tame that scene was. Perhaps I should be glad that it was 1989 and not 15 years later when I would’ve had “Queer as Folk”, “The L Word” or “Sex and the City” to choose from!.
Apparently the year I left, the headmaster had opted not to take on an English Assistant for the foreseeable future.
I must have hit a nerve…..
