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A gentleman does not steal horses, spit food across the table, or pee on peoples' shoes. By that definition, John "Bluto" Blutarsky is not a gentleman, but something more extraordinary.
The fictional antihero of National Lampoon's Animal House, Bluto is a slovenly symbol of irreverence, a bloated personification of the id. Bored by the past and future, he lives to party in an endless now. Alas, even icons must turn 30.
Animal House, the most infamous movie ever made about college, first hit theaters in the summer of 1978. Since then it has inspired three decades of big-screen imitations soaked in booze, rebellion, and sophomoric gags. It remains a keg of cultural references.
Thirty, however, is always an ambiguous milestone. Although Animal House continues to shape popular understandings of fraternity life and student culture, the world it caricatured has been transformed.
The law has redefined the traditional relationship between students and colleges. Many administrators see themselves no longer as disciplinarians, but as partners in student "success" and "wellness." Customer care is the new campus creed. Today's students -- ambitious, competitive, diverse -- demand all the services they can imagine.
Nonetheless, Bluto abides. He still sways to "Louie, Louie" in higher education's collective unconscious. He still lives on dorm-room walls and on the ubiquitous replicas of his "COLLEGE" shirt, advertising not a place but a state of mind.
"He's a reminder not to take everything too seriously," says E. Gordon Gee, president of Ohio State University, who has a framed photograph of Bluto above the couch in his office.
As the patron saint of parties, the toga-wearing buffoon also represents the enduring appeal of raucous bashes in an era of alcohol prevention and risk management. Animal House still reflects a warped, but true, image of higher education's beer-drenched belly. Perhaps that's why people tend to love the movie or curse it.
Indifference is impossible when Bluto (John Belushi) first appears on the screen. We watch him stumble around, dazed and drunk, outside the Delta Tau Chi fraternity house. He relieves himself, then opens the front door for two wide-eyed freshmen.
Inside, mayhem rules. Bottles fly and windows break. A guy drives a motorcycle up the stairs. Goldfish swim inside the see-through breasts of a cut-out mermaid...