Follies on the big(ger) screen
Law Follies is the law school’s annual comedy show written by a group of generally exhausted law students about the miseries we knowingly inflict upon ourselves. Last year, when my law school life mainly consisted of jumping from one Zoom room to another, and brewing tea behind a black box bearing my name, Follies on the glorious big screen of YouTube (meaning front-row seats for everyone!) brought some much-needed togetherness to my solitary law school experience in the middle of yet another lockdown.
This year, the hybrid school experience has become the new normal, and the screening format of Follies reflected exactly that. Follies remained a pre-recorded show filmed in accordance with masking mandates; however, a sizable crowd attended the screening in person at the Scotiabank Theatre on March 10. I’ve never been to a stage-show Follies, but I think this year’s screening format contributed to a better audience experience thanks to the generous screen space, theatre-quality sound, and the addition of subtitles. Better yet, admission was still free with a donate-if-you-can option, with two-thirds of viewers opting to donate to charities.
Not surprisingly, classic themes of grade anxiety, hypercompetitiveness, recruit stress, and selling out to Big Law were once again featured heavily in the form of parodies of popular songs and shows. Although I could not pinpoint every source material with my limited knowledge of pop culture, the dialogue certainly struck a chord with the audience and brought out a burst of laughter, such as this tribute to the modified grading system that had clearly failed its purpose—“average is a tragedy, honours is just fine.”
Some recurring faculty stars were back on the screen too: Professor Jim Phillips impressed the crowd with his singing talents (does he do this every year?); Professor Martha Shaffer provided her expert opinion that 3Ls have a disposition to not care; and Professor Anthony Niblett, known for filling PowerPoints with meme GIFs and ending sentences with “mate,” made a highly-sought appearance.
The latest addition to the Follies faculty lineup included Professor Benjamin Alarie, starring as a 99 percent accurate predictive legal robot, Professor Angela Fernandez as the fox whisperer, and Professor Ariel Katz (a.k.a. the “IP man”) helping Follies fight copyright infringement claims. More faculty involvement in Follies was a welcome addition, as evidenced by the applauds and whistles on screening night.
Every law student has a distinct law school experience, but, in my opinion, the best sketches appealed to the experiences familiar to everyone. For instance, I greatly enjoyed the opening track about hot tips from 3Ls and the “I’m too tenured to care” track because they had great musical elements and were very relatable.
My favourite sketches put a spin on the mildly infuriating details of law school life. I was glad to see that Follies took on the Faculty’s aggressive approach to electronic communication this year—the daily bombardment of emails is exhausting at best, and terrifying at worst. The email sketch skillfully re-enacted how it is like to be spooked by Outlook’s *ding* coming out of nowhere multiple times a day—an uneasy sensation we all know too well.
As for the top annoyance of law school life this year (i.e., the utterly useless UCheck), “JuttaCheck” and the “Green” screen awaits in a dystopian near future (kudos to Dean Jutta Brunnée and Professor Andrew Green who put up with the ridiculousness of this sketch). And there was the capricious “Zoom Authoritarian”, the arch-enemy of students not yet ready to give up the freedom of flexible schooling.
The fun of Follies typically comes with some degree of awkwardness, such as mean jokes about the law school’s administration and the unapologetic use of low-budget studio effects (those virtual backgrounds, those floating figures at the corners of the screen). This kind of crude humour was awkward in a good way, but I felt that certain sketches fell in the cringey territory like where Osgoode and U of T got into a fight for a prospective student, only to make her decide to go to Lincoln Alexander School of Law instead. It was not about the rap—I thought last year’s final rap track, featuring former Dean Iacobucci’s comeback, was absolutely brilliant, and it was a pleasant surprise to see a brief rewind of that scene in the Squid Games sketch this year (“Guess who’s back? Back again?”). It was a great idea to get the Osgoode folks involved, but I felt uncomfortable watching trash-talking for no apparent purpose other than the trash talk itself. Maybe meanness for its own sake is just not my tea.
Still, Law Follies 2022 was a fantastic show that showcased the lesser-known humour and acting talents at the law school. According to my totally unscientific random sampling results (i.e., asking around in the atrium over coffees and muffins), the audience reception has been very positive. I have great respect for all the people involved in the making of Follies, for they had the heart to devote the time, energy, and creativity to this huge project out of the bottomless pit of things to do at the law school. And their effort was certainly worth it—they made a show for everyone, and everyone had a great time.
