UTV gives students 'Something to Talk About'

He says women are too sensitive. She says men are sexist. And the "he said, she said" gender war continues on UTV's audience participation show, "Something to Talk About." College sophomore Heather Dorf has managed to convince students to discuss this and similar issues for the past five months on the University's first audience participation show, "Something to Talk About." "Don't worry about being P.C.," said assistant unit publicist Holly White, a College freshman. But the in-studio audience, a random sampling of University students, was not about to open up easily for the taping, which aired several times last night on UTV. The format is the first without a "panel" to keep discussion going, said Dorf. The set consisted only of the students and Dorf. "The point is not to have a rigid program...we kind of fly by the seat of our pants," the communications major said. With three cameras and bright lights shining in their face, no one said a word at first. But when the show began, students could not seem to resist commenting on the plethora of stereotypes that Dorf introduced. "Do women go after jerks?" Dorf asked. The women admitted that sometimes they make mistakes but they claim everyone makes mistakes. "Do men get cocky in groups?" said Dorf, challenging the males. They responded that women are worse. The fact that the moderator was female did not seem to affect the show, many participants said. "She didn't try too hard to sway the conversation one way or another," said College sophomore Troy Grahm, one of five men in the audience. "You never see Oprah say, 'I think'," Dorf said. "Something to Talk About" Director Brett Halsey said people tend to think that television shows like his are out to make people look "un-P.C." "[This show] has no agenda...we just want to have people talking," he said. And they talked. For an hour, they talked about issues from men opening doors for women, to the dating scene at the University, to women taking off work to raise their children. After a few minutes, the audience seemed to forget that they were being filmed. "It's a lot easier to forget that there [are] cameras there...you get caught up in the whole conversation and then you're not so scared to talk," said Wharton sophomore Kim Wilson. "Something to Talk About" was filmed for the first time last October, after Dorf submitted the idea to the UTV staff. Previous shows have covered homophobia, alcohol policy and date rape. One show interviewed random students on Locust Walk. "We didn't start out planning on doing it on salient issues, but then it developed into things that have been relevant to the Penn community," Dorf said. Future topics include going greek and race relations. "You could go on forever," she said. "It just takes some brainstorming." Producers said that the format has improved since October, but still has some key difficulties. "We had a show on homophobia, but we didn't have a single homophobe," said Halsey.