Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Reports that a group of basketball players disrupted an open dress rehearsal of a musical set to open next week has sent shock waves through the Southern Michigan University community. Allegedly, the perpetrators used catcalls, thrown objects, sarcasm, and pathos to disrupt the University Players’ production of Penis! The Musical. Penis!, which was written in 1995 and has won every award for which it has been nominated since, is based on the true story of a Milwaukee gynecologist and plastic surgeon who performed their own sex change operation in 1987. The Anthony Award telecast called it both “a bitingly satirical take on the male member” and a “plea for tolerance of pre- and post-op trans-everythings.”

This is not the first time the play has attracted controversy; a student newspaper reviewer at the University of Northern Mississippi called the play’s centerpiece number, “The Scrotum Song,” “over the top and disgusting” in a 1998 op-ed. In turn, they were accused of “holocaust speech,” “insensitivity on a Novocain level,” and being a “‘lil Hitler.” Every issue of the offending newspaper was then stolen and destroyed by campus activists as a “response to the columnist’s attempt to silence free speech through intimidation.”

The SMU Guardian published a story on the disruption which soon became national news, with the students’ reporting and sound bites picked up and recirculated without any original reporting on the part of the other news outlets. In an attempt to head off a reaction, the SMU athletic department forced a representative of the players to issue an apology and attempted to suppress the Guardian article, calling it “biased and one-sided.” The apology, delivered by the assistant captain of the lacrosse team, was rejected by the SMU Theater Department, which noted that the wording of the apology, (“we are sorry that some students’ actions were interpreted as causing offense”) was “insulting.”

Eventually, the ensuing outcry, led by sarcastic Twitter statuses and angsty Facebook vagueboking, led to a more official, organized response. “We deplore these actions,” said university president Cynthia Mayfield in a statement. “We fully intend to spare no effort to release apologetic and self-flagellating rhetoric until this whole thing blows over. In addition, I have formed a committee of administrators who have no real function due to administrative bloat, and asked them to come up with a delayed and fully rhetorical response to the incident in six to eight months which will only serve to make things worse.”

Since the riots that led to the closure of the Southern Michigan University several times in its history, most recently in 2007, it has been under increased scrutiny by the news media, says Dexter Hauser, one of the many unnecessary VPs pulling six-figure salaries despite the core instruction at SMU being done by graduate students who are indentured laborers in all but name. “This is the kind of magnifying lens that is normally put only on southern schools that resisted desegregation or places like Kent State where there was some other traumatic event,” said Hauser. “Just like the mainstream media pounces on any incident at a southern school to portray them as a bunch of vicious unrelenting bigots, or calls any stubbed toe at Kent State a ‘massacre,’ any disturbance of any kind here at SMU is termed a ‘riot’ or a ‘new Days of Rage’ regardless of the actual facts of the case.”

The SMU Fighting Grizzlies, for their part, have promised a thorough investigation. “The Fighting Grizzlies believe strongly that athletes need to learn how to repress their natural instincts and learn not to say anything that represents their true feelings,” said head coach Austin Winters. “If these boys expect to go pro, they need to master the art of giving vapid, content-free interviews and press conferences about hustle and giving 110%. Sometimes, in the rush to recruit athletes who have been granted untouchable status and special privileges since middle school because of their top position on the totem pole, we forget that not getting caught in an embarrassing position is almost as important as catching the ball in the right position.”

Cynthia L’Overture, Grand Czar of University Diversity and Guilt, had this to say: “We certainly need to contain this issue as soon as possible with as much boilerplate diversity talk as possible, to plaster over the deep fissures it exposes in our carefully maintained facade–fissures which exist in every school but which the subsequent rhetoric from students, faculty, staff, and outsiders will paint as unique to SMU.” Every special interest group that can associate itself with the wronged party in any way whatsoever, she added, will attempt to twist the incident to their advantage.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!