Good issue and very much a real one in teaching film. I have to admit though that much as it would be best to just screen away as long as the film is appropriate for class, I often had to temper my choices. I still have doubts though on whether I should have had. In any case, I hope to at least temporarily resolve this dilemma before I teach again next semester. I live in a country with a very strong element of the conservative in its particular brand of Catholicism. Aside from that, I also came from a University run by the Opus Dei, who probably have the winning edge if we're talking about conservative Catholics. I've learned (or been brainwashed, for those who may not agree with my decisions to take student reaction into mind) to take note of the sensibility of my potential audience then when I select films for screening. Not to do so would usually end with them closing their minds (and eyes) to whatever I was planning to teach them--no one wins in such a case. This isn't the only factor, however. I also have to contend with the fact that most students in the University which I teach (run by relatively more liberal Jesuits, incidentally) take the film courses under the assumption that they're easy-A courses, which is why a lot of them ended up surprised with the workload I gave them. Case in point: There was one time when I was watching people register for their classes. I'm only a few years older than these people and since I was new, no one knew that I was a teacher. I actually had a girl promise her boyfriend, who was considering enrollment in my class, not to worry because "Everyone gets A's in film theory, and I can give you my papers on Kramer vs. Kramer, Amadeus, and Rashomon," which is a good way to illustrate the reputation the class has acquired and the wrong assumption that the films taught by one teacher would also be taught by another. In this sense, although I boldly began with Lumiere and Company, which I thoroughly enjoyed but which I now realize shouldn't have been the first film screened for students who at the time had no real experience as of yet in academic film discussion, I had to adjust my schedule and screen Run Lola Run the next meeting. Barton Fink had a violent reaction, so I may choose another Coen film next time--Fargo, most likely. I chose not to screen Gregg Araki's Nowhere even though it suited the reading, because of the rather explicit content, although I did end up with Velvet Goldmine, which also had its share of shocked sensibilities in my class. I was going to screen the unpopular Spiceworld for a discussion on celebrity, but ended up with Being John Malkovich when I finally saw it on DVD and after worrying about the potential riot that the Spice Girls may cause in my class. I don't see anything wrong in my doing this, since, like Sandy, I also asked myself first if I wasn't compromising the syllabus by screening a less offensive film, and I made sure never to. I've been rewarded, funnily enough, by being proven wrong at times. I thought for instance that my students would find Masculine-Feminine difficult, but they were well-prepared for it that a significant majority enjoyed it. Things however were not always as rosy as that: I was surprised that Miller's Crossing didn't quite capture the students' attention the way it did my friends and I, but The Big Lebowski was rather popular. In any case, a little leap of faith is involved in programming the film schedule for a class. I try to expose them to films they wouldn't otherwise see and just take it from there. At the very least, if they end up hating a particular film, I could always ask them, "At least you were able to see a film like that, right?" (This is also why I sometimes change film schedules if most have already seen the film I'm screening, but this is rare.) My reputation now for relatively quirky choices in films for class is hopefully enough for me to counter the dread that students feel towards the film teacher who heavily assigns readings and writing assignments compared to the others, as well as to introduce some variety to the usually limited expectations of what a movie should be like that a lot of my students have (through no fault of their own). What makes my situation here simpler is the fact that the students make up a relatively homogeneous group, and so I don't have to take note of every individual sensibility as I would have if I had a strong heterogeneous ethnic/religious/etc. mix. I only assigned a different film to a small group once, but only because they saw it the week before in another class they were taking. Still, there were some who took offense at Life of Brian, which I decided to screen instead of The Seventh Seal, but not so much as to feel violated, so I feel no guilt there. :-) Andrew p.s. Incidentally, I just noticed Ed's email address. You're the John Carpenter fan from Cine-L, right? ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.tcf.ua.edu/ScreenSite