A few weeks later on the announcements I got some more complaints.
This time it was really a surprise to me and I really didn't see what
was wrong. Instead of the live announcements we prerecorded them a
few minutes early starting with me wearing lots of coats and jackets
and behind me on the white board the rather obscure lines of
pseudo-Norse Monty Python moose jokes that runs under the credits on
'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'. This, among other things, is what
it says:
“A Møøse once bit my sister ...
No realli! She was Karving her initials on the møøse
with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given
her by Svenge - her brother-in-law - an Oslo dentist and
star of many Norwegian møvies: "The Høt Hands of an Oslo
Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Mølars
of Horst
Nordfink".
We apologise for the fault in the
subtitles. Those responsible have been
sacked.
Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti...
We apologise again for the fault in the subtitles. Those
responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked
have been sacked.”
Every time I would finish and announcement I would take off a hat or
coat and we would change the line of moose jokes behind me. When we
played the tape back it was a fast paced, entirely modest, disrobing
in front of inoffensive 20-year-old jokes. We got a couple of
comments from students who liked or were confused by the jokes and we
thought that it went pretty well. Wrong. The next morning as I was
coming into school I was accosted by the vice principal who said he
had to meet with me immediately. There was a parent who had been so
offended by what her daughter had seen on the announcements that she
had come to the school personally to have a little fluster about it.
She was in his office waiting for me to explain why she thought I
thought it was funny to put references to pornography on the morning
announcements. Her daughter had watched the announcements read all of
the jokes that were rapidly flashing behind me and picked up on the
dentistry double ententes and got her sensibilities tarnished by
reading “Fillings of Passion”. Which was a joke name for a joke
movie about a joke dentist who gave a joke toothbrush to a joke girl
who used it in a joke to carve her initials on a joke moose who bit
her in a completely made up joke. I didn't get the problem at all. We
had not shown the film, we had not read the name and pointed out that
the word 'fillings' could have two meanings and one of them could be
naughty. We had not even said, “Wink, wink, nudge, nudge – know
what I mean?” I said the closest thing I could muster to an
apology, the classic non-apology – I am sorry that your daughter
was offended. That was not going to cut it for the mom whose daughter
now had been irretrievably soiled and dragged through the filth that
I choose to inflict on her against her will. She wanted me kicked off
of the announcements and punished because she was mad that I wasn't
even remotely remorseful. She was right, I wasn't. She left still mad
and the other vice principal came in and we all had a chat about what
a crazy prude that lady was and then we talked about how I should
leave out anything that could seem offensive in the future. I agreed
and went about my business for a bit.
