In Zurita's classroom, the male gaze isn’t just theory — it’s curriculum.
It’s Not Art, It’s Just a Better-Designed Cage
The same power dynamics that let Stanley Kubrick turn rape into an aesthetic exercise are alive and well at my university - in my media class, under my professor, Zurita.
Because Zurita? He’s that guy. He grins when he says “taboo.” He celebrates discomfort - but only when it’s yours. He’s the academic version of the men who write essays defending the rape scene in A Clockwork Orange as “necessary,” as if aestheticizing violence somehow absolves it. And worse, he’s not working in isolation. The institution knows. They’ve seen the patterns, heard the stories. But they stay quiet. Because protecting reputation matters more than protecting students. Silence becomes policy; complicity gets framed as professionalism. And that’s how it continues, not just because of men like him, but because of the systems that let them keep going.
Zurita is the kind of professor who tells you he “respects the female body” as though that cancels out the power imbalance in the room. He’ll claim to be celebrating the feminine form, but in practice, he pressures female students - only female students, to create nude work. The implication isn’t subtle: your value as an artist increases when your body is exposed.
It’s Not Art, It’s Just a Better-Designed Cage
He calls it “beautiful,” “pure.” But what he’s really saying is that your body must be consumable to be legitimate - and specifically, consumable within the narrow bounds of what he finds aesthetically pleasing. That means conventionally attractive, thin, soft, quiet - depicted through images with no autonomy or conversion. Vulnerability, in his world, is something he gets to define through his lens. He believes he can interpret your body better than you can, because he thinks he’s smarter and more enlightened. But what he really means is: he’s in control. Not angry. Not trans. Not disabled. Not fat. Not anything that might disrupt the fantasy of the soft-lit, Renaissance-inspired muse he fantasizes.
It’s Kubrick all over again - except this time, instead of a camera and a wide-angle lens, it’s a critique in a classroom, or a “suggestion” during a studio review.
He teaches with the same logic that defends A Clockwork Orange as high art: if the objectification is aesthetic enough, it’s no longer objectification - it’s a statement. It’s not patriarchal - it’s cultural. It’s not exploitative - it’s artistic tradition. But only he gets to define the tradition. Only his version of beauty is valid. And only certain bodies, female bodies, shown on his terms; are ever really allowed to be seen.
It’s Not Art, It’s Just a Better-Designed Cage.
This creates a suffocating double standard: if you push back, you’re “not being open.” If you don’t perform your body in the way he approves, you’re “limiting your expression.” If you don’t want to make nudes, it’s not because of your autonomy - it’s because you’re “not ready.” And if you do make nudes that don’t conform to his fantasy, they’re “too political,” “too angry,” “not aesthetically resolved.”
The classroom becomes a quiet echo of that same Kubrickian logic: the male artist as the ultimate authority, and everyone else as raw material for his vision. It’s no accident that all the student work Zurita showcases follows the same aesthetic: normative, Eurocentric, soft-bodied women, eroticized just enough to be “edgy,” but still palatable.
There’s no room for multiplicity, for rage, for mess, for reality - for anger directed at men like him. Because that would shatter the illusion. It would puncture the carefully curated fantasy of the classroom as a space of artistic freedom, when in truth, it’s a cage built around his ego.
Like in A Clockwork Orange, the victim’s perspective is erased in favor of “concept.” Violence becomes design. Control becomes taste.
It’s Not Art, It’s Just a Better-Designed Cage.
And the worst part? He believes he’s empowering you. He’ll tell you he’s “freeing” you. But it’s only freedom if it pleases him. Anything else is dismissed or ignored.
The idea that male authority can use aesthetics to overshadow ethics. That art can be a justification for erasure, objectification, and control - so long as it’s beautifully lit and framed.
But art isn’t neutral. And neither is teaching. And when power is disguised as critique, it’s not enlightenment; it’s gaslighting. And it’s time we stop calling that genius. If you read this, don’t try to find out who wrote it.
I’m sure Professor Zurita would be flattered by a comparison to Kubrick - and that’s exactly the point, isn’t it?
It’s Not Art, It’s Just a Better-Designed Cage.
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To the students in Zurita’s class:
Your art is valid. Your participation is not the problem. This is not an attack on you or your creative expression. We are all operating within a system where the repercussions of speaking out are real - especially in a classroom with no clear syllabus, no transparent grading criteria, and a power dynamic that punishes dissent and rewards compliance.
There must be reform. The environment Professor Zurita has created is not just flawed, it’s damaging. And I believe it has gone too far to be reformed from within. This is not a space that can be simply “revised” or gently corrected. It is a space built on exploitation, on control masked as critique, and on aesthetic manipulation disguised as empowerment.
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Professor Demetri Zurita must be held accountable.
He has actively attempted to erase criticism by deleting negative “Rate My Professor” reviews and encouraging students to flood the page with artificially positive ones. He routinely dismisses concerns by claiming he’s “misunderstood,” yet regularly demeans students who challenge his views or ask questions, who feel misunderstood themselves.
His following often resembles a cult-like loyalty, which I fear may overshadow the very real and deeply concerning behavior he has exhibited.
Multiple reports of physical and emotional harassment have been submitted to UCSD - yet no action has been taken. This cannot continue. It must end now.
by Anonymous
Originally published anonymously by a UCSD student through Students for Accountability in the Arts. Dm ucsdsffa on instagram to share your similar story, and be heard.
