By Morgan Lloyd, news staff
Northeastern students eating at the Stetson West Dining Hall were surprised by the sexually explicit content broadcasted on the dining hall’s TV screens Oct. 19 and 22, a sharp departure from the usual mundane programming.
The content included depictions of people having sex and masturbating, according to student reports. Students identified one of the movies played as “Fifty Shades of Grey,” which is known for its scenes involving bondage and sadomasochism.
The sexual content was not intentionally broadcasted by Northeastern Dining Services, according to Northeastern Dining Marketing Director Debra Fantasia.
“Truthfully, that’s not our standard,” Fantasia said. “They’re just supposed to have news stations or something of that content.”
The first reported instance occurred Oct. 19, when some of the TVs in Stetson West began playing “Fifty Shades of Grey.”
“I just sat down to eat at the couches, and basically I just turned around, because all of the kids sitting in front of the TV on the other side were laughing and pointing at it,” said first-year math major Rebecca Sisson. “I turned around and looked up and it was in the middle of a sex scene. I was like, ‘What is happening?’”
Three days later, even more graphic sexual content was broadcasted to the students eating dinner in Stetson West.
“It was only two scenes, and then we left, but I think it was a movie,” said second-year civil engineering major Anthony Antonucci. “I don’t know which one.”
Fantasia said she was unaware of both instances. As she described, the programming at Stetson West is supposed to be regulated by the university.
“It’s just HuskyCable,” Fantasia said. “It’s the same station that you would get upstairs in your room.”
Fantasia said an outside company was doing work on the TVs in the dining hall recently, which could have led to the sexual content being played.
“Now, they were working on the screens, so whether the company inadvertently changed the channel while they were working, I can’t say,” Fantasia said.
Fantasia said the dining hall workers are not aware of the content being played on dining hall TVs at any given moment.
“If something was on, they wouldn’t notice because they aren’t sitting there watching TV,” Fantasia said.
However, Sisson said almost everyone in the dining hall was aware of the movie playing, including the dining hall workers.
“One of the dining hall workers came over and looked at it and then just walked away, and didn’t do anything,” Sisson said. “So I was a little confused.”
“Fifty Shades of Grey” played in its entirety and no one attempted to switch the channel, Sisson said.
“If they want to change the channel all they have to do is find the manager on duty,” Fantasia said. “That’s not something we would normally play. I would think anybody would know that.”
Many students seemed to share the opinion that the content was “kind of funny,” in the words of Antonucci. A post on the NU Meme Collective Facebook page about the Stetson West Eatery playing “Fifty Shades of Grey” received more than 1,600 likes and 100 comments as of press time.
Northeastern Dining made it clear that they did not endorse the content, however.
“That’s just absurd that we would think about playing that,” Fantasia said.
