Academia Is Flying to James Franco’s Defense

Word on the street is, James Franco missed a ton of classes, received a low grade, then contributed to the untimely firing of an NYU professor.

But Professor R. John Williams, Franco’s adviser at Yale, recalls a different student. In Williams’ obsequious Slate column, he describes James Franco as a model student with, uh, plenty of time on his hands:

So what is James like as a reader of scholarly work? I’ve often heard it expressed that he must be a mountebank, since no single person could be doing as many things as he does. How could he possibly be simultaneously reading for a Yale Ph.D and filming a multimillion-dollar motion picture? How could he possibly have time to write anything when he’s also teaching a class at NYU and starring so many films? I’ve wondered the same thing myself. But on that trip to Detroit, I learned a secret. People think that when you’re the star of a film, your time must be chock-full with endless minutia—appearances, conversations, getting “into character,” and so on. But when you’re the star, you end up just sitting around a lot.

And:

So when you see James’s character with his arm trapped under a rock in 127 Hours, what you don’t see is that there was an assigned reading under the rock with it. When he’s playfully wrestling with a genetically-enhanced chimpanzee in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, just off to the right of the shot was a stack of books.

AND:

The truth is, if you’re an A-list Hollywood star like James Franco, and are willing to put the time into earning a Ph.D, you may actually have more time to read than many of your colleagues. Heck, you don’t even have to worry about the grocery shopping, laundry, and other sundry tasks that every other poor graduate student in the country has to worry about. After visiting Detroit, the thing I found myself wondering was not “How does James do it?” but rather “Why aren’t more Hollywood actors earning Ph.Ds?”

So there you have it: it’s always gratifying to teach an earnest student, but teaching James Franco is the most gratifying of all.

In the meantime, John Tintori—he’s the film chair at Tisch School of the Arts—stresses that Professor José Angel Santana’s contract simply expired. No more, no less.

JustJared has the entirety of Tintori’s email to Franco’s fellow film school classmates:

Dear Grad Film Students,

A number of you have recently come to me with questions arising from this week’s news. I thought it would be beneficial to bring a little clarity.

The most prominent allegation—that Jose Angel Santana was fired because of a grade he gave a student—is false. Professor Santana has not been fired; like other assistant arts professors, he had a three-year contract—which is still in force, and under which he is still being paid—and Tisch chose not to renew that contract. The non-renewal of his contract had nothing to do with any grade he assigned to any student, nor did it have anything to do with his ethnicity, which he also claims.

It is not appropriate for me to go into the details of the review that led to the school’s decision not to renew Professor Santana’s contract; these are private personnel matters. But I do have a few additional thoughts I want to share.

Every student in the University is entitled to privacy regarding his or her academic records. Public disclosure of confidential student information by any faculty member is a violation of our community standards as well as the trust forged among teachers and learners in this department. I want to assure all students that the disregard for these standards is not representative of the Graduate Film faculty and will not be tolerated.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any further questions or concerns.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday break.

Best wishes for a happy and productive New Year!

—John