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I have a fairly dull job so I spend most of my day plugged into my iPod doing my best to tune out my work environment, the rest of the world, and getting my daily 8 hours of joy over with as quickly as possible. Lately I’ve been on a bit of audiobook kick, but for the most part I listen mainly to podcasts. I’ve fallen a bit behind on podcasts since I’ve been listening to some books. But during the past couple weeks I’ve been slowly catching back up.

One of these shows is the Greatest Movie Ever Podcast which reviews movies and looks at all of them as “the greatest”. It’s highly entertaining and reminds me of many films I haven’t seen in quite some time. One of these being the movie Deliverance. During this episode the hosts talked about their memory of the first time seeing this film and I couldn’t help to remember my own.

Like Pearl Harbor, JFK’s assassination, or even September 11th; I think we all remember the first time witnessing Ned Beatty’s tender virgin ass being torn asunder by horny marauding hill folk. Sure there is another 100 minutes or so to the film but let’s be honest, like the three boobed alien babe in Total Recall this image is forever burned into our young minds. My first time time witnessing this was my Junior year of high school in Mr. Schramm’s English class.

Mr. Schramm was probably one of the most laid back teachers I ever had. Besides having a rather informal class, he would sometimes let us watch The Family Feud or daytime talk shows in lieu of teaching. Which to a 17 year old high school student was a whole lot better then discussing Huckleberry Finn. Mr. Schramm also had a teaching style that I came to love. After we read the required novel and finished the test, we usually spent the rest of the week watching a film adaptation of the book. Which again was preferable to actually having class. So when we finished reading Deliverance we naturally watched the movie.

As I mentioned before Deliverance has a well known reputation due to it’s depiction of rape. Not just normal rape that we’ve all become somewhat desensitized to, but male on male rape. Not exactly something that sits well with most people and especially not with teenage high school boys. Even if you haven’t seen this film I’m sure your well aware of it’s reputation. It’s of course well deserved since the scene is still hard to watch now as it was when it originally came out in 1972. Being that I went to an all boy Catholic high school, the book’s reputation did not go unnoticed.

The first thing you did when you got your copy of Deliverance was flip right to the middle and read the rape scene. This was done for the express purpose of not only satisfying your curiosity which none of us would admit having, but getting it over with as quickly as possible. Why read the novel with the knowledge in the back of your mind of what was to inevitably happen? Like pulling off a Band-Aid you just had to do it quick and dirty. To be completely honest though the rape in the book is a lot less dramatic then it is in the movie. Poor Bobby is bent over a log in the woods and the deed is done. Maybe a whole two pages is dedicated to the act. But the film makers decided to dress it up a bit and add squealing and all the great one-liners we have come to love.

So there we were in Mr. Schramm’s English class. All of us sitting on the edge of our seats in our Catholic schoolboy attire waiting for the pivotal scene we had all heard so much about. When the time finally arrived Mr. Schramm turned to us and said something along the lines of, “Viewer discretion is advised boys. If you want to leave the room go ahead.” Of course none of us budged and how could we? We were along for the ride if we liked it or not. Having come this far how could we possibly turn away now? It was all or nothing.

What happened next is a image that remains tattooed in my mind to this day whenever I think about this English class. That image would be 20 or so high school Juniors in shirts and ties all squealing along with poor old Ned at the top of their lungs. We ended up making so much noise that the teacher from next door came over to see what was going on. Priceless. It was probably because of this that none of the other English teachers showed Deliverance to their class that year. I’m sure psychologists would have a field day with trying to explain our release of built up homo erotic tension, but I’ll remember it as one of the funniest events of Junior year. It was definitely a defining moment in Mr. Schramm’s class.

In all fairness though there is plenty more to Deliverance then woodland hillbilly rape. It’s a great thriller, and has some of the weirdest looking actors human beings you’ll ever see.

Other things that come to mind when I think about this film is a girl I used to work with who was obsessed with this movie. She would tell us about how she liked to watch it over and over again, and talked quite a bit about the rape scene. I suggested to her once that she might get more out of watching gay porn but she didn’t agree.

One can also not forget about the excellent remix of The Revolting Cocks song Beers, Steers, and Queers. Appropriately entitled the “Take ‘Em Right Off Mix”, it featured many classic lines from this particular scene and was a favorite of my friends in high school.

So what can we learn from Deliverance? That male rape is something that can still shock an audience while we’ve become blasé when it’s against a female, that Deliverance is a highly appropriate movie to show to a high school English class, and that if your ever canoeing in the woods and hear the words “You have a pretty mouth” be very, very concerned.