In a controversial move, SFU’s School of the Contemporary Arts (SCA) has awarded a $5,000-grant for visual arts to the deceased gorilla Harambe. SFU’s resident visual artists have truly gone apeshit with the news that the dead-gorilla-turned-deified-meme is now being awarded scholarships.
“I mean, first it’s the goddamn ‘dicks out for Harambe’ statuses everywhere, and now this shit,” said visual arts major Eric Chang. “Where will it end?”
Chang, along with many of his fellow visual arts majors, feels cheated by the SCA. “He’s a gorilla, and a dead one at that, he couldn’t be enrolled in the school even if he were alive. Do gorillas even really appreciate art?”
While many students are angered about the decision, a small minority have come out on the side of Harambe. Laura Schultz, an environmental science major and animal rights advocate, spoke favourably of the decision: “I think all of these complaints just show the hidden undercurrent of speciesist tendencies that many students have,” she argued. “No one ever complains when a human wins an award, but when it suddenly goes to a gorilla, everyone has to make a giant fuss. Human supremacist scum!”
Interested in why the SCA made the decision, The Peak reached out to department representative David McLean. Despite the outrage from students, McLean firmly defended his department’s decision as justified.
“We felt that Harambe really represented a change in major artistic trends. The memes, portraits, and photographic collages he has inspired represent the first real muse-status achieved by a non-human,” said McLean. Faculty feelings aside, none of this has credibly convinced any students that Harambe was deserving of the scholarship.
