Surprisingly enough, the students at UCLA have no love for James Franco who went there to get his undergrad degree in English. He graduated in ’08 and has been invited back to be the key note speaker for graduation this year. But, folks are so riled up, they’ve started a Facebook page protesting the actor’s presence.
“James Franco has been chosen as the speaker
for the College of Letters and Sciences Commencement Ceremony for 2009.
Clearly, this is ridiculous. Anyone who has been in his classes knows
he is an average student at UCLA. This is an accomplishment while
working in his industry, but he is our academic peer, which makes him
an inappropriate choice for a keynote speaker. His academic experiences
are too limited thus far to provide him with the wisdom and perspective
such a speaker is meant to provide to graduates,” the group wrote on
the social networking Web site. Adding, “Furthermore, we have worked
hard as academics for four years: his successes are (thus far)
completely irrelevant to that!”
Harsh words…but are they true? What do you think? Should James be allowed to give the keynote speech since he’s done well for himself, albeit, outside the realm of his studies? Or is it absurd that the university didn’t choose something with more academic range?
Photos by INF.
I completely agree with the protest. James Franco is a good actor but obviously the University only asked him to speak because of his notoriety which is kind of pathetic. These speakers are supposed to be accomplished in their field of academics…not an actor who half-assed his way through a degree.
Bravo, they didn’t let him do the speech, and he’s not a great actor. He is one of many overrated actors of our time.
James should do the right thing and resign as speaker. That would be far more honorable.
maybe Franco doesn’t seem intellectual enough; they probably wouldn’t have turned Matt Damon away…
I think that statement is spot-on.
I concur.
Yeah as he is so enthusiastic about his classes…
http://www.buzzfeed.com/akdobbins/james-franco-asleep-in-class
Definitely the right person.
I agree, but I also think that’s true for other commencement speakers. When i graduated from Indiana University in 2000, John Mellancamp was our speaker! the guy barely even finished high school. The reason he was chosen was because he contributed a lot of money to the university.
he can come speak at my school! we constantly get successful people who nobody has ever heard of, and generally don’t inspire the grads as much.
They are right. I like him & all, but he is by no means superior to his peers. Plus, we are not talking about acting/entertainment skills, it’s English. If so, they should invite the best student to do the speech.
completely agree. at my graduation ceremony, warren beatty spoke. most of my class was livid. we are/were all policy nerds and would have been really happy to hear any number of successful policy wonks or policy advocates speak. we were dumbfounded when he was allowed to use our ceremony to launch his unsuccessful political presidential bid.
The daymare was having Jesse Jackson as our speaker. The moron spoke several thousand words and we probably understood about 30 of them.
HE CAN COME SPEAK AT MY HOUSE ANYTIME.
(plus he just got a book deal soooo yeah, he is accomplished in the academic world)
Lauren Conrad and Miley Cyrus also have book deals. Does that make them equally accomplished in the “academic” world? Please think before you type.