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 ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]