Updated 17 December 2019 at 11:27 IST
US University professor removed for screening Hitler parody clip
A University of Massachusetts professor has been suspended for the rest of the semester over a parody video which she screened during her accounting class.
A University of Massachusetts professor has been suspended for the rest of the semester following a controversy over a parody video which she showed during her accounting class. Catherine West Lowry had been teaching at Isenberg School of Management for the past 13 years which enrols around 400 students every year.
Lowry screened a parody video of the 2004 German movie, Downfall (Der Untergang in German), created by five of her students in 2009. The original movie, created around the final days of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler in a bunker at the end of World War II, was nominated for “Best Foreign Language Film” at the 77th Academy Awards in 2005. But the screening of parody, deemed offensive some of the students, landed Lowry in a soup. Lowry reportedly holds an extra credit video contest where students create a parody of various music videos and film scenes on subject matter from the class.
In the parody of the Downfall clip, Lowry’s students added English subtitles to the video, earning them high credits.
"Don't you dare finish that sentence or I'll send you to a chamber and it won't be the chamber of commerce," part of the subtitles read.
Talking about a review session, the subtitles read, “If you were nervous about your grade you should have attended the review session, you know review session was held in SOM. If you look on the map you can see that it was just a short walk from Southwest. Oh I know exactly where SOM is. Don't mock me. I didn't need review session.”
Showed another parody clip of Thotiana
According to the campus newspaper, Lowry had screened another video in which former students parodied the song Thotiana by the rapper Blueface. Later, it was taken offline because students felt it was "derogatory towards women”. Though the students said that the videos were largely for entertainment purposes at the end of the semester, someone, anonymously, reported the incident to Isenberg administration.
Published By : Kunal Gaurav
Published On: 17 December 2019 at 11:07 IST