Friday, August 13, 2010

Know Your LGBT History - Up the Academy

Up the Academy  (1980) is probably one of the most offensive movies ever made and that's not in a good way.

Don't get me wrong. I love blue comedy and I also think that we all need to make fun of ourselves. However there is a fine line between good comedy and things that rob folks of their dignity.


Up the Academy crosses the line and does its best to erase it.

Many of you probably never heard of it so allow me to give a brief plotline. Four young men enter a military academy and have "madcap hijinks" there.

And there are a few more bits of trivia about this movie. It was one of Ralph Macchio's first movies and it was so bad that both one of the producers - Mad Magazine - and the actor who played the villain - Ron Leibman - demanded their names removed from it.


Up The Academy is just bad. It insults African-American, Italians (apparently all of them belong to the Mafia), the elderly (old soldiers don't die, they just get very, very flatulent), pedophilia (who knew scenes showing preteens and teens masturbating in classrooms would be "hilarious"), people from the Middle East (apparently they like to eat pig testicles), etc. etc.

The less said about the bowel movement in the punch bowl scene the better.

And, I am getting there, the crowning achievement of all offensiveness is the portrayal of late actor Tom Poston as Master Sgt. Sisson.

Poston, who was an excellent comedian, really should have known better, even in the early 80s.

His portrayal of a gay man can be best described as someone plugging "Porno Peter" LaBarbera to a virtual reality machine.

I mean really when this guy isn't pushing the stereotype of a gay man being overly feminine, he is pushing the pedophilia lie pretty hard.

But the following clip best describes what I am talking about. Poston's character is peppered throughout and you can't miss him. TRUST ME when I say you can't miss him:




Past Know Your LGBT History Posts: 

Know Your LGBT History - Don't be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood

Know Your LGBT History - A Different Story

Know Your LGBT History - Victim

Know Your LGBT History - The Color Purple

Know Your LGBT History - Making Love

Know Your LGBT History - A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge

Know Your LGBT History - Noah's Arc

Know Your LGBT History - Ode to Billy Joe

Know Your LGBT History - Adorable Adrian Adonis

Know Your LGBT History - The Night Strangler

Know Your LGBT History - All in the Family

Know Your LGBT History - Tongues Untied

Know Your LGBT History - The Celluloid Closet

Know Your LGBT History - Querelle

Know Your LGBT History - Theatre of Blood

Know Your LGBT History - Strange Fruit

Know Your LGBT History - Designing Women

Know Your LGBT History - The Children's Hour

Know Your LGBT History - Sylvester

Know Your LGBT History - Once Bitten

Know Your LGBT History - The Boys in the Band

Know Your LGBT History - Christopher Morley, the crossdressing assassin

Know Your LGBT History - Midnight Cowboy

Know Your LGBT History - Dracula's Daughter

Know Your LGBT History - Blacula

Know Your LGBT History - 3 Strikes

Know Your LGBT History - Paris Is Burning

Know Your LGBT History - The Women

Know your LGBT History - Soul Plane

Know Your LGBT History - The Player's Club

Special Know Your LGBT History - Fame

Know Your LGBT History - Welcome Home, Bobby

Know Your LGBT History - Barney Miller

Know your lgbt history - The Jerry Springer Show

Know your lgbt history - Martin Lawrence and that 'gay guy' on his show

Know your lgbt history - The Ricki Lake Show

Know your lgbt history - Which Way Is Up

Know your lgbt history - Gays in Primetime Soaps

Know your lgbt history - Boys Beware

Know your lgbt history - The Boondocks

Know your lgbt history - Mannequin

Know your lgbt history - The Warriors

Know Your LGBT History - New York Undercover

Know Your LGBT History - Low Down Dirty Shame

Know Your LGBT History - Fortune and Men's Eyes

Know your lgbt history - California Suite

Know your lgbt history - Taxi (Elaine's Strange Triangle)

Know your lgbt history - Come Back Charleston Blue

Know your lgbt history - James Bond goes gay

Know your lgbt history - Windows

Know your lgbt history - To Wong Foo and Priscilla

Know your lgbt history - Blazing Saddles

Know your lgbt history - Sanford and Son

Know your lgbt history - In Living Color

Know your lgbt history - Cleopatra Jones and her lesbian drug lords

Know your lgbt history - Norman, Is That You?

Know your lgbt history - The 'Exotic' Adrian Street

Know your lgbt history - The Choirboys

Know your lgbt history - Eddie Murphy

Know your lgbt history - The Killing of Sister George

Know your lgbt history - Hanna-Barbera cartoons pushes the 'gay agenda

'Know your lgbt history - Cruising

Know your lgbt history - Foxy Brown and Cleopatra Jones

Know your lgbt history - I Got Da Hook Up

Know your lgbt history - Fright Night

Know your lgbt history - Flowers of Evil

The Jeffersons and the transgender community 



Bookmark and Share

2 comments:

Bill S said...

What a waste of time and talent. I managed not to see this thing when it came out, but I remember it being heavily promoted as a successor to "Animal House". I also remember seeing it lampooned as a bomb in the pages of MAD. (I might still have that issue, but probably not.)

Penny Marie Sautereau said...

I'm just old enough to remember seeing the ad for it on MAD's inside cover. Even then I thought it looked stupid. Though now I wish I still HAD it. For both the fact of MAD denying any involvement in it now, plus it was the very first and only ad ever in MAD that wasn't a parody until MAD went corporate a decade ago, the issues containing the movie ad are probably worth a great deal more than this piece of shite ever was.