Most on-campus interviews include some sort of meal component. Many candidates dread those events for a number of reasons. Some have food allergies. Others have picky or restrictive diets. An increasing number have had limited experience with semi-formal dining etiquette. Most fear the pressure of having to talk while eating (if you have to talk and can’t eat, you’re left feeling weak for the rest of the day).
I’ve also heard of gaffes related to menu selections. Lobster? Too pricey. Small steak? Politically incorrect. Big Salad. Too fussy. Not to mention the potential dangers of alcohol consumption or the tricky world of ethnic foods.
Ironically, just about the only time most faculty members eat with one another is at those search dinners!
What suggestions would you offer for meals during the interview process?
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One Response to Tips for Avoiding Food Disasters
urbanexile - August 28, 2011 at 11:31 pm
TR, I’ve just re-read your post having seen The Help an hour ago. I am kind of with LesboProf on this one, but I have something to add.
I think that this movie was really about telling one’s story and how the truth sets you free. Aibilene doesn’t really see herself going forward to be a writer, but she feels successful already because she has told her story, she has told the truth, she has found her voice. The copy of the book in which her story is told has been symbolically signed by everyone in her congregation which means that her story is also owned by the whole community. Skeeter’s story, Aibilene’s story, Minnie’s story and even Hilly’s story are interwound. Only Hilly refuses to own her truth and screams in pain when it is told despite her.
I am surprised you do not see the feminist element in this. Minnie and Aibilene end up basically as a couple, Skeeter loses her boyfriend because her career as a writer is becoming a success and she chooses it instead, and Minnie frees herself from her abusive husband because she (literally) gets a place at the table at the home of Celia Foote, the supposed “white trash” sex bomb.
Celia is important to the film because she, too, is an outsider. She, too, is unable to tell her story and is tortured by not understanding why the other women don’t like her. She believes that if Hilly only knew The Truth (there’s that word again), that she wouldn’t hate her so much. Celia doesn’t understand that Hilly mostly hates her because she does not as white “trash” rightfully belong to Hilly’s social class nor “should” she be with Hilly’s ex-boyfriend, just as the maids (according to Hilly) shouldn’t be in her bathroom. Celia’s existence also causes Hilly to, figuratively, eat shit.
The fact that Hilly winds up in Hell (“You’re Godless”, spits Aibilene), and morphs by the end into a scarred, beer bottle throwing real “white trash” character who herself is ordered away from someone’s home is right and good. Yes, certainly a bit heavy handed, but symbolically it works.
This movie is not a documentary about racism in the United States. It is a neat fairy tale about how being courageous enough to tell your own story is as fundamental to being free as voting, no matter what your race or class. I think in this respect, The Help was completely successful.