Give me Sloppagees, or give me death

Last Thursday, I picked up the Campus for a leisurely morning read in Proctor. I was in the mood for some good quality snark, so I flipped immediately to the Best Week Ever column. Jaime did not disappoint, and I enjoyed a lovely article in which she advocated the establishment of herself as a new dean at the college: Dean of Sarcasm and Snarkiness. I was slightly sad that she didn’t name any other awkward dean positions (Dean of Undergraduate Emissions, anyone?), but I was satisfied and began to close the paper and return to my meal. Then I stopped. As I dropped my potato wedge on my not entirely closed newspaper, I came to the sad realization: I had to write about Aunt Des again.

I had seen, of course, last week’s article about the latest controversy surrounding our beloved dish baron. Apparently, some group that calls themselves the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or “FIRE,” objected to the College’s use of Aunt Des, because her “specifically Greek mannerisms and accent … [violate] the College’s anti-harassment policy.” Now, before I continue, I’d like to say that I am all for protecting individual rights in education, and I apologize in advance if anyone agrees with FIRE that Aunt Des unfairly offended their culture. That being said, LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME.

This is absurd. Aunt Des was a lighthearted creation of dining services to broadcast their desire that students return the dishes they have taken from the dining halls. Matthew Biette has lost thousands of dollars to the greedy hands of Middlebury students. He has every right to be mean to us. He could send us campus-wide passive/aggressive emails to us every week. He could deactivate the IDs of everyone he catches walking out with a plate. He could hide Asian carp in every dish and leave it off the ingredient lists. Instead, he commissions a series of humorous YouTube videos chronicling the efforts Aunt Des, a memorable and at times hilarious character, and her absurd detective efforts to hunt down the lost dishes.

Aunt Des has a catchy accent and silly mannerisms, but how her depiction could possibly offend anyone is totally beyond me. The author of the FIRE article, Samantha Harris, claims that Aunt Des uses “a stereotypical New Jersey accent interspersed with the occasional Greek word.” Ouch, that’s harsh. I sure hope no one speaks with a Boston accent and says “pub” instead of “bar,” because that would be a serious assault on my heritage. To support her cause, Harris mentions only two things listed as interests on Aunt Des’ Facebook page that identify her as Greek, one of which is “bouzouki,” a traditional Greek instrument. The other is “nail polish,” which I did not know was a Greek stereotype. Look who’s being offensive now, Ms. Harris.

Ok. In the most literal, unfunny interpretation, the Aunt Des videos might brush up against Middlebury’s anti-harassment policy, which prohibits “stereotypes” and “circulation of written or visual materials” based on “ancestry, ethnicity” or “national origin.” But come on! Aunt Des is funny because of the premise of the videos, not her taste in vocabulary or musical instruments. FIRE has an admirable goal to protect students from any kind of racial harassment, but there was no harassment here until they invented it. They created controversy so that they could claim the moral high ground, but at a cost of the actual (and well-executed) purpose of the videos: humor. Humor is one of the most important things in life — laughter is the best medicine, after all — and I have little tolerance for people who destroy that for a superiority complex. So take it easy, FIRE and Ms. Harris. Sit down, have a popsicle or something, and let us deal with our dish problem in our own amicable way. We already have enough Sloppagees to deal with.