DAVIS, Calif. – According to an article in today’s Sacramento Bee, the University of California, Davis, has accepted an offer from Digital Playground, the producer of Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge, to provide a free showing of the movie in a chemistry lecture hall tonight.

While college administrators are not objecting to the screening of the $10 million adult flick, not everyone on campus thinks makes much sense in terms of the school’s educational mission.

UC Davis Professor Ari Y. Kelman, who teaches American studies with an emphasis on pop culture, told the Bee he thinks the situation is “a little weird,” and wondered who would want to sit through a porn movie in a chemistry laband then a lecture about it with hundreds of peers.

“It captures the contradiction of porn in the 21st century,” he said. “It’s ubiquitous, but we still don’t know what to make of it.”

Some students have already seen the sequel of the 2005 original, Pirates. One student, Eva Martin, said she’d already seen the movie on video, and even though she thought it was “kind of stupid,” she still plans on going to the screening with friends in the hope that it will be a fun time.

With no signs of a serious attempt to block the screening, it should go off tonight as planned. And even though the producers of the film insist that they want the screening to spark a serious discussion of the role of adult content in society, at least one university educator isn’t buying it.

“They’re less interested in making a statement than in making a buck,” Kelman said.

Indeed, marketing the film to college students is not new for Digital Playground. Student groups at six other universities – including UCLA and Carnegie Mellon University – have accepted the offer, with hundreds of students lined up at each show. Accordint to DP, the University of Maryland will screen the movie this weekend.

The Sacramento Bee story can be found here.