PCU (film)

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PCU is a 1994 comedy film. The movie follows in the footsteps of Animal House, showing college life at the fictional Port Chester University in Connecticut.

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[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The story involves preppy pre-frosh Tom Lawrence (Chris Young) who visits a college where fraternities have been outlawed, and political correctness is rampant on campus. The film makes heavy use of the political correctness movement as a comedy device. The initials PCU actually stand for "Port Chester University", but the implication made by the film's title is that is can also stand for "Politically Correct University".

During his visit, Tom manages to make enemies with nearly every group of students on the campus. Getting caught in an infamous "meat tossing incident" (where tubs of raw meat were dropped on a group of animal rights protesters) angers the "cause-heads" (the name given to a group of students who jump from cause to cause protesting), and while hiding in the computer lab, he trips over the power cords and accidentally crashes all the computers, angering all the people working on their thesis papers.

During his visit, Tom also gets in the middle of the war between "The Pit" and "Balls and Shaft", two rival groups on campus. The latter group (officially known as "The Order of Balls and Shaft") is a parody of the Skull and Bones secret society and fraternity culture generally. Among its members is Rand McPherson (David Spade). Balls and Shaft members want the outlawed Greek system to return. Members of "The Pit", led by James "Droz" Andrews (Jeremy Piven), just want everyone to get along. The movie is in part about the battle between Droz and Rand.

Besides Balls and Shaft, the other great nemeses of The Pit are a radical feminist group on campus known as the Womynists, and the college president, Ms. Garcia-Thompson (Jessica Walter), who is obsessed with enforcing "sensitivity awareness" and multiculturalism to the point where she proposes that Bisexual Asian Studies should have its own department. The Womynists' entire worldview revolves around a paranoia about "rape culture" and all things phallic, and they are known to hold protests at parties chanting "hey hey, ho ho, this penis party's got to go!" Ms. Garcia-Thompson conspires with the conservative Republicans of Balls and Shaft to get The Pit, their mutual nemesis, kicked off campus.

The Pit responds by throwing a party to raise funds to pay off their debts and keep their house. The Womynists take offense to The Pit's flyers advertising the party, and hold a protest outside. The party at first appears to be a failure. However, a series of unlikely events results in George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic performing at the party. Students begin streaming in and the party successfully raises the funds to keep the house. After Garcia-Thompson decides to throw The Pit off campus anyway, using the history of complaints against The Pit as her reason, the members of The Pit plot their ultimate revenge at an alumni gathering the next day. They succeed in provoking the other students into an impromtu protest, causing the alumni to demand that Garcia-Thompson be fired due to her inability to control the students.

Spoilers end here.

PCU was based on Wesleyan University, the alma mater of the screenplay's two writers, Adam Leff and Zak Penn, and was shot primarily at Wesleyan and on the campus of the University of Toronto, although the film also features buildings from other colleges, such as the Olin-Rice science building at Macalester College. In one scene, the building referred to as "the freshman dorms" is actually the Ontario Provincial Legislature.

[edit] Cast

The following is a partial list of the cast:

[edit] The Caine–Hackman Theory

The "Caine–Hackman Theory" is a concept mentioned in the movie. According to the theory, there is a 100% statistical probability that at any given moment in time, a film starring either Michael Caine or Gene Hackman will be showing on television.

The theory was developed by a member of "The Pit" named Pigman. Pigman based his senior thesis on proving this hypothesis. The culmination of this thesis is when the movie A Bridge Too Far, which is the only film starring both Michael Caine and Gene Hackman, aired. At that point, Pigman had his closing arguments and could end his marathon session of watching television. (The exact time Pigman spent continuously watching television working on this thesis is unknown.)

The "Caine–Hackman Theory" was presented in a book by Roger Ebert, Ebert's Little Movie Glossary, listed among many other similarly satirical movie "rules".

[edit] "That guy"

In the film, the character Droz (Jeremy Piven) says the line:

"What's this? You're wearing the shirt of the band you're going to see? Don't be that guy."

According to the DVD commentary for the film, Piven stated that, despite his being hired for his improvisational skills, this was the only line in the film the director allowed him to improvise.

The line has since become heavily quoted in popular culture, especially on the Internet, and is generally intended as a statement disparaging one's desire to outwardly show enthusiasm for something when that enthusiasm is made clear by one's very presence. [1]

[edit] Trivia

  • Nirvana was the original band set to play in the first-draft of the script.
  • The character of "The Naked Guy" is based on a real-life UC Berkeley student at the time, Andrew Martinez.
  • Jeremy Piven's character of a rowdy college student causing trouble on campus is ironically the practical opposite of his character about 10 years later in Old School, where he plays a dean trying to put a halt to a rowdy fraternity.

[edit] External links

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