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The Society of Otago University Law Students (SOULS) has made a donation to Women’s Refuge, and in future will run Law Revue scripts past Dean of Law Professor Mark Henaghan, after this year’s Revue was slammed as offensive to women and minorities.

Prof Henaghan told Critic that “there were some scenes in [the Revue] that really could be upsetting to people and I don’t think we want to do that. It seems to me humour shouldn’t be disempowering unless you’re disempowering the powerful, and that was probably the problem really.”

The most controversial skit was a pastiche of Robin Thicke’s song “Blurred Lines.” The skit took the form of a rape trial, during which scantily-clad women held up signs bearing messages like “#you’refucked” and “nomeansyes,” and concluded with the jury holding up signs including “YOLO.” There were also sketches poking fun at racial minorities and people with disabilities.

“I think using people with disabilities and rape and various things like that as humour, although it’s not badly intentioned, [makes it] hard for these people to talk back,” Prof Henaghan said.

A participant in the Revue, who did not wish to be named, told Critic that “all the female roles seemed to be unnecessarily orientated toward pleasing guys; it all seemed to be very derogatory toward the women. When you look back there were also a lot of really subtle things, just like pieces of improv that were quite unnecessary, like pretending to look up skirts and that sort of thing.”

The participant felt that the main problem with the Revue this year had been racist humour, but said that “if you’re comparing it to Capping Show … I actually thought some of the Capping Show sketches this year were more racist, probably. … I think in general there’s a problem with revues having some quite cheap humour and going after minorities.”

However, she felt that previous years’ Law Revues had been worse. “I would have to say that this is definitely the best Law Revue of the three,” she said. “I didn’t go see the first one but I heard really bad things about it, and last year I was in the Law Revue and … I thought that about 90 per cent of the jokes were [about] rape. Two of them were the exact same joke, which was just gang rape.

“I’d definitely consider myself a feminist and last year every sketch, except for maybe three, I had a problem with.

“I think they’ve improved but in saying that, I think they had too many Maori jokes and stuff like that. … And obviously the ‘Blurred Lines’ skit wasn’t fantastic, to say the least.”

While she enjoyed participating in the Revue, she also found it difficult to raise concerns over the offensive content. “It’s really fun, but I found it quite frustrating … you don’t really want to speak up because you’d be speaking up against, like, 35 people.”

However, she was happy that SOULS had made restitution by donating to Women’s Refuge. “That was good of them,” she said.

Prof Henaghan said he spoke to SOULS after meeting with students who had complained about the Revue’s content. The donation came after the students were invited to propose a remedy for the situation, and Henaghan described it as “a good outcome.”

“I think the Revue’s a great thing and I don’t want to lose the Revue, and I don’t think anyone went in with bad faith, but I think it’s good to get that feedback and it shows we’re in a healthy situation where people can debate these things,” Prof Henaghan said.

“Humour should always be used to disempower the powerful, in my view, and I think that’s what we should try to aim for in the next few Revues.”

Several of the students who had raised concerns declined to speak to Critic, saying they were happy with the outcome.