My sense, from the language of the rest of the narration, is that the term
"idiots" is more descriptive than disparaging, not as insulting as it is
when used by, for instance, young people.
 
But the word does bring up an interesting point about today's student
audiences. I too have taught the movie recently. My students (and they were
not appreciably different this year than in previous years) almost
immediately fixate on that word "idiots" when I ask them to comment on the
voice-over--as they ALWAYS fixate on the falling goat when I ask them about
the visuals. It's getting so that I feel that these are things I have to
GET PAST in order to deal with the film in anything more than obvious ways.
 
Gene Walz
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg
 
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