Word: functional
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...HAVE TO ADMIRE the British: when they make a movie featuring a potentially cute, domesticated animal, they don't flinch at decapitating it and serving it up on a platter. A Private Function, touted as the resurrection of classic English comedy, is not for those who feel squeamish at the thought of a diarrhetic pig in their living room. Like a London bag lady who still bothers to curtsy, though, this film carries itself with a reserved sense of class, quite above movies like Bachelon Party or Porky's. Clearly the cardinal sin for British funnymen...
Basically a "Revenge Of The Rarified Nerds," Function is a tale of social scatology. The hero, Gilbert Chilvers (Michael Palin of Monty Python fame), is a man shat upon. His story is a struggle for status, which in the throes of postwar means meat All the town aristocrats are dining on veal and steak while poor Gilbert meekly spoons Spam from...
...PRIVATE FUNCTION...
Screenwriter Alan Bennett has described A Private Function as "the fulfillment of his long-held desire to write about a chiropodist and (Director Malcolm) Mowbray's wish to direct a film about a pig." In fact, they have larger issues to lance. Although the film is set during Clement Attlee's Labor reign, it applies just as ferociously to Margaret Thatcher's pinchpenny Britain. With its double-edged title and its tone of bitter whimsy, A Private Function asks to be taken as a hymn to the meanness of the human spirit, in ) which the one decent soul...
While the tutorials and offerings of the women's studies program would themselves satisfy a significant need, the existence of such a centralized academic resource would serve an equally important function: it would signal to other, traditional departments that Harvard is finally serious in its commitment to women's studies-- an indication that should spur these departments to increase the small number of courses they offer which examine women at all. And important scholars like Showalter might finally be persuaded to teach at Harvard...