(Not) Every Movie Where Brown University is Mentioned…
Hello, fellow Brunonians! It has recently come to my attention that our beloved school has appeared more times than I had initially realized in film. While this may seem commonplace in modern media, the shocking part to me really lies in the fact that none of our appearances ever seem to… do us justice. So I took it upon myself to compile a list of movies (no, not every movie) that Brown has appeared in… for research purposes… and to discuss.
The Menu– known for its mouthwatering food, disgustingly accurate commentary, and… Chef Slowik condemning a poor woman to death because she went to Brown without student loans (how could she?!).
How to Get Away With Murder– Laurel Castello: daughter of a billionaire, easily underestimated, sensitive, and of course a Brown graduate.
Iron Man 2- Christine Everhart: a Brown alum, Tony’s one night stand, and so easily charmed and deserted it's almost sad…
Gossip Girl: Serena and the infamous “Brown is an Ivy League school.” Apparently, in this universe the only “real Ivies” are Harvard, Princeton, and Yale.
Just off these four movies, I’ve noticed a theme: Brown alum are often written off as… well, unimpressive, easily tossed around, and the target of many jokes surrounding the prestige of Ivy Leagues. The stereotype going around seems to be that people who attend this institution are either rich nepo-elitists or easily manipulated hotties. Either way, these stereotypes drastically undermine the characters’ actual talents and skills and, overall, the image of our school. It makes me wonder if they took “Happy Ivy” a bit too far. I mean, could you imagine someone being happy AND smart? Pssh, unheard of. But what isn’t quite so unheard of? The same three Brown stereotypes…
You– Guinevere Beck: a struggling writer trying to complete her MFA; she’s kind, but easily lost and rather naive.
Yellowjackets– Shauna Shipman (precrash): a high school senior and Brown admit (though she never gets to attend for…unfortunate reasons), with many insecurities, many secrets, and many feelings.
Bojack Horseman– in Season 2, Kelsey Jannings says "Indie darling daughters don’t go to Brown, okay? They end up at cute, little pat-on-the-back factories like Vassar, and then they move back in with their indie darling mothers and make weird puppet shows with their tampons and get a profile in New York Magazine, and the horrible cycle continues."
And here we go again with more examples of the same stereotypes. It really makes me wonder whether they even know anything about Brown…That is to say, while these stereotypes may not necessarily paint Brown in a negative light, they’re still common overgeneralizations that don’t necessarily convey the extent of our potential. Some would argue these are the most accurate representations we have; after all, none of these characters seem that happy with their life despite the common “Happy Ivy” stereotype. Yet, it almost seems they’re using the stereotype as a way to force a character that is the opposite. To me, it’s like these characters, while not directly acting as the stereotype, are still furthering the same messages. After all, even if you fill in all the space around a silhouette, it still makes the same silhouette… I might be rambling, but I’d be curious to hear more thoughts about this.
These next few examples are not very telling about character, per se, but let’s see if you notice any trends:
Letters to Juliet– Sophie says that she double majored and Brown and minored in Latin… Seriously, Brown doesn’t even offer minors.
The Devil Wears Prada– while in the film adaptation the main character Andrea is a Northwestern alum, in the source material she was actually a Brown alum! I guess they just didn’t even want to try…
The X-Files– Monica Reyes is an FBI special agent. Can you guess what she studied at Brown? If you guessed folklore and mythology, you’d be right!
24–Bill Buchanan has an English degree from Brown.
Notice how out of all of the concentrations I’ve listed thus far, not one of them is STEM…
New Amsterdam–Max Goodwin, a Brown alum and an attending physician, has to defend his alma mater (Brown) to the Hospital Board (Harvard alums).
Anger Management– Linda and Andrew are Brown alums, and Andrew tells Linda that “I thought it [a party] would be fun if it was just us Brown alums."
What’s so wrong with the Brown STEM departments (as a proud Bio concentrator)? People always seem to have a lot to say about STEM at Brown… grade inflation this, pass/fail that. But hey, they can talk all they want if it means inflating their egos to balance their deflating grades…
That’s all the examples that I could piece together cohesively for the time being, though I’m sure there are plenty of examples that I’ve missed. More examples that likely follow many of the stereotypes I’ve consolidated above. Why must we always be defending our academic reputation? Beats me, but I hope that if there is one thing to take away from this, it’s that we can get some better representation in the media. I reckon it’s about time we see an actual Brown alum character on the big screen.