‘Promposals’ a bit of throwback: teacher
Part of a series showcasing the research at the annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences conference from May 30-June 5 at the University of Ottawa. A locker full of Ping-Pong balls with “Prom?” penned on each. The same question fashioned out of aluminum foil and toilet paper doused with gasoline and dramatically lit on fire. A popular hipster choir singing Michael Jackson’s The Way You Make Me Feel as the invitation to high school’s most important social event is giddily delivered. This is not your parents’ note-passed-underthe-desk path to prom. These “promposals” are carefully planned, elaborate in execution and posted to YouTube or other social media channels. John Richardson, an English teacher at Ottawa private school Ashbury College, has put this new phenomenon playing out in his school hallways, and countless others, under a microscope and found that behind all the flash, the practice is really old-fashioned — and that has him worried. He spoke to the Post’s Sarah Boesveld.
Q The other day, I saw “Prom?” spray-painted on a bike path visible from the subway: Lame or impressive?
A As a promposal expert, I would say that’s actually fairly inventive, because that person has moved away from the school milieu. Many schools kind of support the promposal phenomena, but some have banned them, because they are places of learning. In your case, you’ve seen someone who maybe has been banned from doing so at his school, or he’s looking for a broader canvas for their creative genius.
Q So the first time you saw a promposal was in your school — a student was wearing goggles and a Speedo, clutching roses and running across the cafeteria.
A I was certainly startled. At my school, there’s a school uniform, so to see someone running around in a Speedo is visually arresting.
Q Did that inspire you to study promposals?
A I’m doing my doctorate of education at the University of Calgary and studying the ways in which kids raised in the wireless world experience live theatre. I noticed that with promposals, they’re posting them, they’re editing them and commenting on them, so they’ve become this sort of mini art form.
Q You argue that promposals are actually very conservative. How?
A Generally, this is a heteronormative practice — it’s something where the girl waits for the boy to be asked. I asked six super bright girls in my focus group if anyone would ever consider doing a promposal of their own, and there was this chorus of “No’s.” They said they wouldn’t dream of it.
Q What’s a particularly impressive promposal you’ve come across in your research?
A The winner would have to be the boy who learned to speak Italian so that he could sing an Italian love song while reclining on the front hood of a car. It was being driven by his friends past the front of the school so he could stop and give roses to a visiting Italian exchange student.