Sex, Violence and Bulldogs

Is it just Dartboard, or have the Harvard-Yale t-shirts gone over the edge, to the point that supporting one’s school has simply become an expression of bad taste? At Harvard, support for the football team goes hand-in-hand with violence, sexual innuendo and ego-inflating t-shirts predicting that Yalies are bound for bankruptcy and homelessness.

Dartboard is all about school spirit, but she would prefer not to ride into New Haven with “F*** Yale” across her chest. Nor is Dartboard particularly fond of our other options—t-shirts with lewd and/or violent images all over them. One t-shirt depicts the Yale bulldog kneeling in front of John Harvard, his face at level with our mascot’s crotch. Another portrays John Harvard straddling a bottle of vodka. Dartboard can just imagine the devout Puritan turning in his grave.

Yet another shirt shows Handsome Dan covered in blood, a football impaled in his chest. Dartboard understands that football is a rough, even violent game. However, if we literally kill the enemy, there will be no one for us to play next year, eliminating the need for renting out five clubs on Boylston to celebrate our imminent victory. Who would want that?

Some of the t-shirts out there are also just plain arrogant. Dartboard almost bought one when she read the text: “What do Harvard and Yale students have in common? They both got into Yale!” The kid next to Dartboard mumbled, “Well I sure didn’t.” Several others confessed that they too had received Yale rejection letters. Is the t-shirt meant to make us appear conceited, or sarcastic?

A shirt that carries a similar message reads, “We’ll kick your ass today and fire your ass tomorrow,” bearing a melancholy bulldog with a sign “Will bark for fud.” Even the most die-hard Harvard fan cannot deny that Eli does pretty well in the real world, for example, in running for president. As much fun as it is to believe that we are in essence, better than our counterparts at Yale simply by virtue of our being Harvard students, these shirts make us look delusional, even bitter.

—LOUI ITOH