In a TV satire, life on the Hill is all drama (and drinking)
In a TV satire, life on the Hill is all drama (and drinking)
Sorority sister Emily has been back on campus for only an hour, but she's already livid. As if not having valet parking for her BMW weren't bad enough, a Prius wallpapered with "inspirational" bumper stickers has taken her spot. She slams the door behind her, clutching her Dolce & Gabbana bag and sunglasses, and vents to her roommates. "Why would I transfer to Columbia," she shrieks, "when I can come back to Recycle-Everything Land?" Her roommates sit nervously, waiting for her to erupt again. But she just sighs and smiles. "At least we have Ugg boots and North Face fleeces!"
Welcome to Cornell University—as seen through the lens of Ithaca College. Emily and her fellow Cornellians are characters on "Ivy," a six-episode sitcom that aired on IC's student-run TV station and is available online at ictv.org. Filmed in the satirical style of MTV's popular faux-reality shows like "The Hills" and "Laguna Beach," ICTV's production chronicles the melodrama of six stereotypical undergrads—preoccupied with dating, drinking, and basking in the prestige of their Ivy League school. They include leading man and lost soul Chris, torn between studying pre-med and hotel management—and between dating the prissybut-promiscuous Emily and artsy Natalie. Then there's Lex, the arrogant son of a Fortune 500 executive. "Did you know that over 99 percent of all Cornell grads go on to become important people?" he muses in the first episode, as he and his friends lounge around their Collegetown apartment playing Guitar Hero.
When the show's three-episode first season aired in the fall of 2008, the reaction was loud and mixed. Some people on both campuses found its satire entertaining, even if based on exaggerated stereotypes, and it was named ICTV's best new show in a poll of Ithaca students and faculty. Though a few Cornellians wrote the producers calling the show "amazing" and "accurate," others slammed its over-the-top caricatures. On online message boards at the Daily Sun and Ivygate.com, supporters of the two schools traded barbs: Cornellians said the show revealed IC's inferiority complex, while Ithaca students called the East Hill denizens "pompous" and "elitist." But Ithaca junior Matt Baldovsky, who played the frat-obsessed Bradley, argues the show wasn't intended to be an analysis of Cornell or its rivalry with Ithaca but a spoof of college life everywhere. "You could take the same characters and put them at our school, and you'd have a similar show," he says. "It's not like Cornell's the only school with promiscuity and alcoholism."
For season two, which aired last spring, the production staff enlisted two "Cornell consultants." One was Dan Tracy '10, an ILR major who sent a fan letter and was promptly tapped for input. After recommending scenic spots on campus and forwarding the Daily Sun's "161 Things to Do at Cornell Before You Graduate," Tracy tried to steer the show away from its first-season stereotypes. "Their representation of frats didn't reflect the Cornell Greek system," says Tracy, a member of Delta Phi. "I wanted them to know our system is diverse and we're not Animal House boozehounds."
The show's other consultant was Jon Rosales '08, who left East Hill after two years as an engineering major, realizing that home schooling hadn't fully prepared him for Cornell's academic rigors. He eventually enrolled at IC, where he's a senior majoring in history. "I worked at the Louie's Lunch truck across from Risley Hall and saw some hilarious characters," says Rosales. "I hope 'Ivy' was a healthy dose of self-realization for the University. Everyone needs to laugh at themselves from time to time." As one version of the show's ever-changing disclaimer puts it: "The characters involved may or may not be somewhat based upon actual Cornell students. Okay. Yeah, they're kind of based upon actual Cornell students. Like pretty much."
— Brian Hotchkiss