James Franco punctuates a presentation on post-modernism by tossing a live chicken into the air.

You may remember back in December former NYU professor José Angel Santana sued the school for allegedly firing him because he dared give James Franco a D (Santana also alleged racism and various other types of mistreatment). Now Santana is suing James Franco himself for defamation, alleging the invisible art pioneer has been dicknosing him out of a job. D is for Dicknose, if it were a Sue Grafton novel.

Santana is seeking unspecified monetary damages in the Manhattan Supreme Court civil action against Franco. The ex-instructor, who has already sued NYU, blasted Franco for making “disparaging and inaccurate public statements.”

“When the suit was filed against him, Mr. Franco initially took the high road and said nothing,” said Matthew Blit, Santana’s lawyer. “Unfortunately, he could not help himself once his new movie [‘The Broken Tower’] was being released.”

Franco, who missed 12 of Santana’s 14 directing classes, had told reporters Santana was “awful,” adding, “I didn’t feel like I needed to waste my time with a bad teacher.”
“No teacher will ever be fired from NYU for giving a student a ‘D,’ ’’ Franco told several media outlets in April. “He wasn’t fired, he was asked not to come back after three years because they didn’t think he was a good teacher.”
“He is not going to be hired at another institution,” Franco charged in another interview.

“Whoever was in Clint Eastwood’s chair at the Republican National Convention was more present than Mr. Franco was in my classes,” José Angel Santana told The Post.

*flies by in biplane, twirling mustache, scarf trailing in the breeze* OOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhh snaaaaaaaaaap…

Franco is “a bully,’’ said the ex-adjunct professor. “He uses the bully pulpit of his celebrity to punish anyone who doesn’t do his bidding.”

Is it redundant to assume a drama professor is being a bit dramatic? I find anyone who uses the phrase “bully pulpit” tends to be at least slightly full of it, and he’s edging dangerously close to “HE’S TRYING TO DESTROY ME!” territory. For their part, NYU claims Santana wasn’t fired, his contract simply wasn’t renewed.

“I didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of those falsehoods,” said Santana, who has been a teacher since 1979 and was earning $70,000 when he was fired in September 2011.
“I was outraged that someone with his attendance record at NYU had the audacity to make those statements.”
He insisted he was only doing his job while other star-struck professors “bent over backwards to create a Franco-friendly environment.” [NYPost]

As I never tire of reminding you, I was a fellow student of Franco’s in the MFA program at Columbia (*fluffs ascot, puffs pipe*), and while I never had a class with him, rumors of his poor attendance were rampant. But that will happen when you try to get MFA’s in writing from Columbia and Brooklyn College, an MFA in film from NYU, work towards a Ph.D. at Yale and God knows what else, all within the space of a few years, all while maintaining a busy schedule of filming gay sex and naked BMX riding with Harmony Korine. It’s also hard to deny James Franco being buddy-buddy with the NYU faculty when he’s going around starring in their crappy-looking movies. But I’m pretty sure you don’t get to sue every student who says you were a bad teacher. You want to talk bullying? I once pulled into the teacher’s lot at a middle school I was substitute teaching at (don’t ask) and the car next to me had “FAG” keyed into the door. If a guy making 30 grand doesn’t complain about getting punched while he tries to teach math to delinquents, maybe don’t act like the world owes you an income for teaching acting to people who are already famous movie stars. Wait! You’re telling me deciding who gets to teach at the NYU film and acting school is largely political?? Quick, someone unclutch my fingers from my pearls!

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