KILLING THE INTERNET RESTRICTIONS BEAST

We have a new internet filter at work.  It blocks us from any videos that Google has deemed "violent or inappropriate."  This is awesome because it means that the kids won't constantly be looking at each other's uploaded Fortnite clips.  Access to videos online or via Youtube or Vimeo is practically nil.

Such a grand plan!  Until ...

Until I try to show a three-minute video clip that I have bookmarked and have been showing for years, decades even.  It's a short clip from the 1931 movie Frankenstein, showing the mob scene in the town and through the village hills as the citizens, infused with mass hysteria, hunt down the monster. 

Nowhere in the clip is there any monster, nor blood, nor violence of any kind (except maybe when one of the extras trips and falls down).  As a matter of fact, it's kind of hilarious because the people in the boat never touch their oars to the water, and viewers can see the line attached to the front, pulling the boat across the scene.

Oh, great.  Now what?

I fight with the entire district tech team, because this fabulous discovery happens on the heels of the disastrous and recalled Windows 10 update that only three computers in our building end up infected by, one of which is MINE while I am teaching a Kahoot (website) lesson.  First, I endure thirty hours of pure computer chaos and mayhem, losing every single download I ever had and being locked out of Chrome and everything including our school website.

Now, this shit.

What to do, what to do.  I have to find a video clip that accurately portrays mob mentality and mass hysteria without violating the strictest internet codes ever known to humanity, and I have to locate this clip on my school computer so that I know which websites are flagged.  I panic for a moment, but then I get an evil idea.  Yes, evil, because if my school won't allow me to show clips from film classics with connections to great literature, I'll go lower.

What's lower than the classics?  Disney.  That's right, folks.  DISNEY.

Madly I search Beauty and the Beast for the mob scene.  You know it as "Gaston's Song" and the scene where he whips the people into a mass frenzy.  Unlike the scene from Frankenstein, which is relatively sedate, the scene from Beauty and the Beast is violent, scary, and threatening.  There are knives and axes and saws, and there is a call to arms ("Bring your guns...").  Gaston orders an old man thrown into a dungeon, and the characters literally toss him into the hole, followed by grabbing Belle violently and hurtling her in behind her father.  Things are set on fire while Gaston screams repeatedly, "KILL THE BEAST!"

Of course, I am the Queen of Passive Aggressive Mastery.  I know darn well that several of my students are well-connected within the community and have no problems repeating what I tell them.  I know a thing or two about mob mentality and mass hysteria myself.  I tell them about the new internet filter and how I wish, oh do I wish, that I could show them the movie clip from Frankenstein because the clip I am now forced to show them will be much worse, more violent, more threatening, and, probably for them, far more disturbing.  I apologize if they're scared or have nightmares afterward.

Oh, yes, I am so, so sorry.

Then, I show them a three-plus-minute video from Disney that has passed the seal of approval from both Google Filters and the district's technology department.  I'm admitting right here and right now that it is far more violent but far more entertaining than the clip I intended to show.

Surprisingly enough, a blanket technology statement comes through my school email the following day.  Seems the filter they installed was too restrictive, and if any of us still need videos approved, we can file a tech ticket in advance for approval.

Well, would you look at that.  Apparently there really is a way to KILL THE BEAST.