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Wayland Student Press

The student news site of Wayland High School

Wayland Student Press

The student news site of Wayland High School

Wayland Student Press

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Status Quo: other perspectives

I am all for a student run publication that evokes controversy and creates excitement. However, I full heartedly disagree with many of the comments that were made regarding the Status Quo performance in the previous article by Editor-in-Chief Robin Kim. As someone who as part of a small group booked and chose Status Quo, I feel I have an obligation to defend this situation and rebuke many of Robin’s claims. Therefore, I will go through this article and address many of the claims that I feel are unsubstantiated. (These quotes are taken directly from his commentary).

1. “Hiring an amateur youth hip-hop crew for the Student Council sponsored Winter Week opening event was a terrible decision.”

In no way, shape or form are Status Quo considered amateurs. They have a very experienced career and are managed by an entertainment company that represents many stars including 50 Cent, Akon and Alicia Keys. I believe you would be hard pressed to find anyone in the entertainment industry that would refer to a talent under such management as “amateur.”

Also, I would like to disagree that this was a “terrible decision.” I agree that some actions were inappropriate, but we always have opening performers that slip up and make mistakes. We are young ladies and men and we are fully able to deal with such mistakes. In no way, shape or form do I endorse this activity, yet I disagree with your conclusion that these actions ruined the performance. In fact, I have quoted students of all grades and strokes of life below and in general most students enjoyed this performance. So, I would definitely disagree that this was a bad decision.

2. “Professionals would have coordinated their show until the end, perhaps calling up one or two volunteers to excite the audience.”

This was Status Quo’s major flaw. They had a lack of preparation, but I disagree with your notion that a little bit of unpreparedness ruined the whole show and made it a “bad decision.”

3. “Next time, perhaps we need a more definitive oversight during major school events. We must think ahead and consider multiple effects of such prominent school-wide events before they actually happen.”

Once again, I disagree and to a certain extent take offense to this comment. As someone who played a big role in bringing Status Quo to perform at Wayland, I disagree that we were flawed in our planning. When you book a performer, you ask of them certain things. In this case, there was not a problem with oversight. You expect the performer to know what to do and be ready to perform in a way that is suitable to the performance. I believe that we did think ahead and we did what we could.

All in all, I feel that some portions of this performance happened to be inappropriate. However, I believe that many performers we have had and that we will have in the future incorporate themes and ideas that could be construed as inappropriate. Therefore, I disagree completely with Robin Kim’s commentary casting Status Quo’s performance as a failure. In fact, I would comment that many of the Wayland High School student population including myself, felt that for the most part it was very entertaining. There were definitely some mistakes and mishaps along the way, along with some inappropriate behavior, but for the most part I believe the performance was successful.

In the interest of good journalism, I sought out the opinion of Wayland High School students of all ages and walks of life. The following quotes have not been altered in any way:

Matt Whittaker- “it was better than the kickoff shows we’ve had in the past, and i enjoyed being there.”

David Schneider- “really creative, incredible stuff and they knew how to get the crowd involved.”

Ross Cunningham- “I think it was a nice change up from the traditional winter week. Adam Ezra is usually the only performer to come, and while i enjoy his music, it’s nice to see something different. I think they did a great job and definitely put a spin on what we’re used to.”

Naomi Rosenhaus- “I thought they were entertaining and impressive and lightened up the stressful school atmosphere.”

Lauren Jenny- “I thought it was very entertaining. Each dancer always had an incredible dance move up their sleeve.”

Bassma Sayeh- “Status quo was so incredible…I was really impressed with all of their moves and the ability to make everyone feel comfortable.”

David Westbom- “Status quo was the best opening winter week act yet and really did a good job of pumping up the crowd as well as many of the teachers.”

Jeremiah Malina- “I thought the performance was incredible. This was something WHS has never seen before, and even though the second half of the show was lackluster, you have to give it to Status Quo for giving a perfectly executed dance marathon. They’re only human and they get tired too.”

Allie Longfritz- “I thought they were very talented and quite entertaining and really reached out to and impressed the crowd.”

AJ Fitzgerald- “Great way to kick off winter week.”

Elliott Sulkis- “The hottest group to come through WHS.”

Mike Trueblood- “Status quo was a lot more exciting to watch then a lot of previous guest speakers that came and it’s good for winter week because kids will wanna have a good time then learn.”

Max Zizza- “Superb.”

Tess Kretowicz- “I thought they were good and I thought that most of the students liked it better than others. I feel like they should have just danced and not involved other people and it would have been better.”

Marina Mele- “I really enjoyed it. I thought they interacted with the crowd which made it more fun. And overall I thought they were really good.”

Leah Jacques- “I thought their performance was really entertaining (more so than the kick-off events in years past like the comedians), and it was a good way to start winter week. I don’t think they should have brought students up to dance though because it just went downhill from there… no one wants to see that, and if they do, that’s why we have dance 360. So I liked that dancing part, but after that it started to get awkward.”

Jozie Bazemore- “I thought it was a lot more interesting than past years because the comedian always had awkward jokes.”

Michela Luchetti- “I thought they were good, and it was cool to see them in person because they were really good on the TV show.”

Seth Harper- “I thought it was ultimately a more energizing experience for the high school and much more school spirit building; however, when people from the school came up that became slightly boring.”

Gabe Yanoff- ” I thought it was very cool… something really different from anything we have had in the past. It was kind of refreshing if that makes sense.”

Emily Nuss- “I thought it was very entertaining and fun to watch.”

Courtney Owens- “It was a really good treat and I enjoyed it a lot! But I think our audience was very bad…We were not loud enough.”

Chris D’Amico- “I thought it was pretty cool. It was different. I didn’t really think that it was that inappropriate like they said on that article for WSPN.”

Amy Kantor- “I thought that their dancing was great, they had lots of energy. But I thought some of their interactions with the students were inappropriate for the setting.”

Ethan Aaron- “It was an awesome show and a great way to start off Winter Week.”

Emily Andresen- “I thought it was really good and entertaining.”

View Comments (20)
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Comments (20)

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  • A

    AnnoynmousFeb 26, 2009 at 4:31 PM

    i agree with this article.. there’s not one person i’ve talked to that didn’t like the performance.

    Reply
  • R

    RawrawrawrrawrrawrrawrrawrFeb 10, 2009 at 10:33 PM

    “I like how you only asked people that agreed with what you were trying to say. Very nice touch to the article I must say. But if I want bias news I’ll watch Fox News. I agree and standby everything Robin had originally wrote, and I find it funny that your responses to each of these comments about how there was multiple problems in the planning, but you never seemed to directly address any other problems, such as the shaking of genitals, or inappropriate moves made on the ‘dance floor’ if you will.
    Also, please ask a wider variety of people if you plan on writing an article, please ask a different social group of people, your stuff does not have actual face if you don’t hear the other side of students who found this appalling.”

    Reply
  • A

    AJCFeb 10, 2009 at 3:45 PM

    i still believe that anybody who was truly THAT offended by this performance needs to grow up alittle bit before you go on to enviroments like college, or for example, the real world.

    Reply
  • M

    MysteryFeb 10, 2009 at 9:06 AM

    I agree with Anon/gif/ and James. I thought it was a great show and some parts were inappropriate. I also only did not like when they had people come up to dance and then they just stood there, that was kind of boring. In the sense of me agreeing with Anon/gif/ that was pretty much just one social group that was being quoted. I’m not trying to offend anyone, James you did a great job with Winter Week.

    Reply
  • 2

    2010Feb 8, 2009 at 8:03 PM

    leave james alone please

    he did almost all of the organizing for winterweek and without him we would have all been sitting in regular classes for a week. unless you were in his shoes and did as much work as him you have no right to criticize him

    Reply
  • A

    anonymousFeb 7, 2009 at 7:11 PM

    this is a great response to the other article. i agree with it completely, it’s very well-written, and it addresses every point of view. good job, james!

    Reply
  • S

    sophomoreFeb 6, 2009 at 10:31 PM

    great article, there’s no arguing with this! And in all honesty, if one is willing to go as far as to calling this article bias- isn’t this all a matter of opinion? When it all falls together, i would say over 85% of the audience LOVED the show. It is rather unfortunate that a member of the 15% on the opposite side of the spectrum holds so much authority that he/she may state their opinion so matter-of-factly and call a great performance “inappropriate.”.

    Reply
  • J

    Johannes BrembergerFeb 6, 2009 at 5:32 PM

    I agree with some of both articles.

    Saying that the start was too inappropriate is a joke, I think. First of all, people in middleschool see the same group shaking their butts and whoever went to the schooldances knows that they are worse that status quo and still nobody complains.
    Their moves were great, and they were funny, i was really impressed.

    After i got home though, I watched some short clips on youtube and i figured out soon that the show in our school COMPARED to other ones they had was really bad. It was very unorganized and improvised, definitely not standard for such a good group as James explained. I wished they would have danced for a longer period. Asking some people to dance was really good, they rocked.
    As soon as it got to a dance “battle” with more than one student status quo lost a little bit control over the situation. The ending of the show was a little messed up.

    My conclusion: A great and funny show, good way to start winter week; it is sad though that status quo didn’t give everything they could. It could have been even better.

    Reply
  • M

    mpicFeb 6, 2009 at 5:07 PM

    I thought it was an entertaining show. Sure, things went downhill, but the criticism being put across in that other article is unfair to the kids who planned it. They tried to get something new and innovative for us to start off winter week, and were successful with that. It’s not like they knew that inappropriate stuff and lack of preparation was gonna occur…

    Reply
  • C

    CKFeb 6, 2009 at 12:12 PM

    I agree with you James, and anon/gif/, hes making a point not trying to make a professional news program. People need to relax and have a good time, not try and find flaws in everything they see. I thought they were great, and it saddens me that people continually find a way to restrict what is acceptable in school. We are teenagers in high school, I think we can handle a little bit of inappropriate dancing.

    Reply
  • J

    James IvkerFeb 6, 2009 at 11:41 AM

    And lastly, please don’t ever associate me with FOXNEWS. I am in no way biased in the construction of this article. It was written as an opinion piece but my citation of quotes was not biased. I asked people for what they thought of the performance without prodding of any sort.

    Reply
  • J

    James IvkerFeb 6, 2009 at 11:39 AM

    Gifford,
    I did address the shaking of genitals and other problems with the performance. Maybe you ought to read a bit more carefully. I clearly state that there were some problems with the performance but for the most part I found it to be entertaining. There were inappropriate parts to the show but there are inappropriate parts to many Winter Week activities. I simply stated that I don’t feel that this was a failure of a performance and I cited multiple sources to bolster my argument. Unfortunately you either misread or didn’t read into my article clearly enough. The people quoted are a variety of students from each grade. They are all also from different friend groups etc..
    I’m sorry you didn’t like the performance but I take offense to a characterization of it as a failure.

    Reply
  • J

    James IvkerFeb 6, 2009 at 9:38 AM

    Anon/gif/ next time before you post and criticize a lack of ‘actual face’ you may want to retreat from your anonynmity and write your real name. In fact I asked kids of all social group and age their opinion without prodding. The fact that a majority of the people were in favor of the performance is just coincidence. (there are quotes that criticize the performance) Before you make an unsubstaniated claim you may want to check your facts.

    Reply
  • A

    AJCFeb 6, 2009 at 8:20 AM

    this is a perfectly good response to Robions article. and its comepletely within James’ rights to defend his name with this article; as Robin’s statements were a direct affront to James’ judgement. Yes, it may not have gone 100% perfectly to plan, but there was no way the people who hired Status Quo could’ve foreseen that.
    as far as the innapropriatness of of the performance; we’re all in high school. we’re growing ever closer to adulthood and the adult world is full of things that may offend certain people. at this point in our lives, we should be able to accept things that we may find innapropriate and move past them LIKE ADULTS. there is no point in making a big stink about it, it happened, there’s nothing we can do to make it un-happen. and honestly, i defy Robin Kim to find anybody who can honestly say they were mentally harmed or traumatized by this performance.

    Reply
  • P

    plugmoiFeb 6, 2009 at 8:04 AM

    i loved them and i completely agree with this article

    Reply
  • T

    the donFeb 6, 2009 at 6:47 AM

    i agree with this article
    the previous one was horribly biased because of the authors personal unhappiness with the performance

    anon/gif/, he did adress the questionable aspects of the performance but were in high school, every single thing that they did on stage was exponentially less graphic than anytihng seen at a school dance etc. as for the localized center of opinions used in the quotes, this is mainly because the majority of the school thought this performance was stellar.

    Reply
  • E

    EricaFeb 5, 2009 at 4:10 PM

    yeah i totally agree. I loved the show. i can see why some teachers would see it as innapropriate, but the commidian last year wasn’t any worse. I thought it was really exciting, and its only flaw would be the extended audience interactment. overall, it was awesome.

    Reply
  • A

    Anon/gif/Feb 5, 2009 at 3:43 PM

    I like how you only asked people that agreed with what you were trying to say. Very nice touch to the article I must say. But if I want bias news I’ll watch Fox News. I agree and standby everything Robin had originally wrote, and I find it funny that your responses to each of these comments about how there was multiple problems in the planning, but you never seemed to directly address any other problems, such as the shaking of genitals, or inappropriate moves made on the ‘dance floor’ if you will.
    Also, please ask a wider variety of people if you plan on writing an article, please ask a different social group of people, your stuff does not have actual face if you don’t hear the other side of students who found this appalling.

    Reply
  • A

    Anon.Feb 5, 2009 at 3:39 PM

    Agreed, I’m glad that you decided to respond the past article, because i found it very disturbing.

    Reply
  • S

    SkippyFeb 4, 2009 at 11:48 PM

    This about sums it up perfectly james… It was a good group that had some organizational issues. However for me that really took away from the enjoyment when i sat there for half an hour watching nonsense.

    -Skypr
    (you know me)

    Reply