Bringing New Meaning to Community
The NBC comedy Community is back from hiatus after a mid-season break in 2011. The story line is about a lawyer who returns to community college after his degree gets revoked. After I watched the most recently released episode called “Pillows and Blankets,” my first response was “wow.”
Ranking right up there with American Pie or Big Bang Theory, the show satirizes community college life in a way that probably only works if you need a little brain relief. It does make you giggle, though.
The one episode I watched was about a pillow fight that turned into a war between two pillow forts which characters set up on campus. One fort was called Pillowtown, and the other was called Blanketsburg. It was one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen in my life.
The 50 or so community college students, a.k.a. pillow warriors, even set up a medical station for the wounded, who included students with broken glasses and other somewhat unmentionable “injuries.” Tim Surette of tv.com, states in an April 6 article that “Pillows and Blankets” is all about realizing a concept (some might find it a stupid concept) that has no business being on television.
This show obviously does not resemble real life college. It is strictly for entertainment purposes. My brother Josh Barklow, who has watched every episode, says that the show is basically about a study group who never seem to be studying. We all know, as real college students, this is entirely inaccurate for a show about community college. Yea.
When Josh gave me a list of some of the more extreme occurrences that take place on the show, I couldn’t help but think that college would actually be more fun if these things happened. In fact, I bet that more people would enroll if events like school-wide paintball wars (awesome!), blanket and pillow cities, a hidden trampoline, a Halloween zombie epidemic, a chicken-finger mafia (I don’t get it, but it does sound intriguing) and a lot of musical numbers actually did take place on this campus. I personally would love a monkey in the ventilation system named Annie’s Boobs (you have to watch the show to get it).
As you can see, this show has pretty much turned community college into a big joke. We know what college is really like, but I am also sure that some, if not all of us, have fantasized about ways to make it better, funnier, more enjoyable. C’mon people…who would not love a monkey?
| The Mainstream is a student publication of Umpqua Community College. | About us | Advertising | Archives |