11 students disappointed with moderator at University Union ‘Modern Family’ event

University Union, from myself and 10 other attendees who went to the Jesse Tyler Ferguson event, please take the following not as a critique.

As an LBGTQ ally, I feel offended and frustrated by the moderator at last week’s event.

The wording at the event was offensive in the following ways: What does where you live have to do with who you are? Not everyone in Silverlakes is gay. What does being gay have to do with acting? Finally, the comment regarding a group of females leaving early: “Oh since we didn’t touch enough about the topic of lesbians?”

I thought the event was about “Modern Family”; that is exactly what my ticket said. Yes, it was about “Modern Family” during some parts, but when the moderator pushes for the topic of Jesse being gay when he clearly was trying to get out his story about his acting career — seriously?

Barbara Walters pushes her interviewees to get to the topic the audience wishes to understand, but she doesn’t create an atmosphere uncomfortable for an individual. Moderators know when to cut off their interviewee and know the moments when to let them speak, and they also don’t just look up an actor’s Wikipedia page to collect information. I could have done that myself — oh wait, I did do that myself before I went to the event.

When a person is being cut off because the moderator wants to make sure that the audience knows about specific acting places and topics, let the audience use its time to speak — it should not be a rushed segment that the moderator controls.

Did the moderator memorize the questions?  Frankly, this was not a quality interview.

The moderator didn’t interact with Ferguson; he simply fed information that he wanted to pull out of him. As a student organization, you can’t control every detail of your event, yet you do have the obligation to anticipate the worst for any programing.

That man represented our voices, you as a union, us as a university, and me and audience members. Did I forget the LGBTQ community members that are part of our entire university? Ferguson left with the impression that our school is pushy.

The event ended with more people talking about the moderator than Ferguson, which is awful because Ferguson was inspiring and didn’t getting recognized for it.

Emily Saleh and 10 others
Class of 2016
Communication design