In the past few months, Dartmouth has seriously upped its facetime in the media. In its spew of movie and television appearances, the College has pulled off the student equivalent of walking the Foco runway in a sexy formal dress, arms linked with a hot date.
Superbad provided the most visible factime; the movie was released in over 3,000 theaters across the country and promises to impact future generations in its second life as a DVD the way Animal House still impacts us. On my Dartmouth tour, someone asked about Animal House, a question that the guide seemed very used to. Now the questions on tours have changed. "There have been more questions, every third tour, about Superbad, or one kid will whisper under their breath to his parents, 'This is where 'drinking time' was filmed," tour guide Allison Miller '10 said.
Students applying to the College now have a new image of the place. "One of my favorite questions came from this little tiny boy, who could have passed for eight years old, who was with his dad," Miller said. "The kid asks his dad, 'Can I ask it?' The dad says 'What?' And he says, 'You know.' The kid then raises his hand and asks 'Does anyone named Mclovin' go here?" To which I responded, 'No, but I wish.'"
For those of you who think you're above summer comedies, the movie focuses on three friends -- two of them Dartmouth-bound -- and the one crazy night they spend trying to procure alcohol and woo their crushes. The film was written by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogan, writers for Da Ali G Show, and produced by the same people who worked on Knocked Up.
"I think Superbad was the biggest thing [for introducing people to Dartmouth]. First off it kind of idealized Dartmouth, and it showed it as a really good school to get into," Lindsay Van Landeghem '11 said.
Although the nationally popular television show Grey's Anatomy doesn't reach quite as wide of an audience as Superbad, it references Dartmouth consistently in its episodes. Meredith Grey, the main character of Grey's Anatomy, is often shown wearing a Dartmouth t-shirt or making other references to her alma mater. Shonda Rimes, the creator and executive producer of Grey's Anatomy, actually was a Dartmouth student, Class of 1991.
The references to Dartmouth on The Colbert Report are more subtle than those in Superbad and give the school negative facetime --instead of walking the FoCo runway in a formal dress, think walking through Collis the next morning in a formal dress. Dartmouth is listed on Colbertnation.com as the alma mater of Stephen Colbert the character, and Stephen Colbert also occasionally makes references to himself as a Dartmouth graduate on his television show, although Stephen Colbert the actor in fact went to Northwestern. Since his character is meant to satirize conservative television pundits like Bill O'Reilly, this actually serves to reinforce the stereotype of Dartmouth as a conservative bastion that the school is so desperately trying to shed. Colbert's recent entrance into the 2008 presidential primary election, where he is running as both a Republican and a Democrat, has recently further complicated Stephen Colbert's person /character divide.
Colbert, fortunately or unfortunately, entered the primary too late to particpae in the 2008 Democratic primary debates hosted by Dartmouth in September. From the candidates' repeated thanks to the school for hosting the debate to the political pundits and reporters opining against the backdrop of the campus, Dartmouth was everywhere in the media that day.
The new television show Gossip Girl also presents a mixed image of Dartmouth. The episode called Poison Ivy that aired on Oct. 3, 2007, on the CW network focused on the ordeals the main characters go through to impress the Ivy League representatives who visit their schools. One of the main characters, Dan Humphrey, desperately wants to attend Dartmouth but loses a coveted usher position at Ivy Week to an academically unqualified legacy, Nate. Nate's father, "The Captain," often wears Dartmouth t-shirts and was revealed in a later episode to have a cocaine addiction and money problems.
On the Upper East Side, Dartmouth is just another desired brand name, and this perspective seems increasingly true for the rest of the country. Although the College hasn't appeared as prominently in youth-oriented media in the past, Dartmouth is often the subject of more traditional news stories.
"I can't recall a day there has ever been when there wasn't something about Dartmouth in the news to report," Roland Adams, Dartmouth's director of media relations, said. He creates Dartmouth In The News, a digest that compiles all media mentions of Dartmouth each day.
On Oct. 26, for example, the digest included six different articles that mentioned Dartmouth. The day before, there were 13 different mentions, many of them dealing with the high grade Dartmouth earned on the college sustainability report card.
"There are literally thousands of higher education institutions in this country. Dartmouth is among the literal handful of high-level institutions in this country and in the world that have widespread name recognition and widespread respect. I think that the fact that these institutions are always in the news one way or another is a reflection of that respect," Adams said.
The perception of the College may be changing with the recent wave of popular media references, or at least the school is getting increased attention from people who never would have noticed it.
"I don't think it has changed their perspective, but because it is in such mainstream shows, in such box office hits, I think it has allowed students to hear about the school more," Miller said.
At her high school in Nevada, not many people knew of Dartmouth, Sapna Chemplavil '11 said.
"I'm not sure if people's perception of the school has changed, but they became aware of it. People who didn't know of it through academic venues now know of it through Grey's," she said.
The references to Dartmouth in the popular media are difficult to quantify, especially with Internet and blog mentions. Some students and alumni value facetime for their school as much as for themselves by creating the media that references it.
"Another consideration is that Dartmouth produces a fair share of those who shape media outlets. This creates media attention." Adams said.
"On one of my tours, someone brought up the "Drinkin' Time" video when we were in front of Rocky," Jon Hopper '08 said. "They had started to laugh and I asked them why they were laughing. They recognized the building from the video."
