I need some muscle over here!

“I need some muscle over here!” What can be gleaned from this statement? Is this referencing the need for bodybuilding? How should this be interpreted? Maybe this can be answered through the study of the statement.

Stating “I need” may be misinterpreted as fear for one’s life, but we don’t see it as that in the majority of instances. It falls back to the need to impose one’s will upon another. Imposing one’s will is used in sports quite often which the resulting meaning of having one’s way with the opponent for a desired result. When used outside of sports, imposing one’s will is an aggressive tactic with the sole intent of restricting someone’s rights and privileges.

We generally are familiar with the term “muscle” used in this context from the entertainment media. Muscle can be thought of as an aggressive character with one main purpose and that is intimidation. The secondary part to the term muscle goes from intimidation to action. The action is one of a violent nature such as physical confrontation with fists or even instruments used to bludgeon a person with an extreme case resulting in death.

So far, we have, “I want to impose my will on this person.” The next part is, “I want to intimidate or use some form of violence in order to not only impose but reaffirm my will on this person.” This is the meaning of the phrase “I need some muscle.” Apply the last two words, and we get the direction of where the will should be imposed. In effect, this is a direct threat with intended consequences.

Assistant professor Melissa Clark used this phrase with every intent of violence. There is nothing in her statement to dissuade one from seeing any other meaning. She, with this statement, approves of violence, because she cannot have her way with the individual. The fact that she, moments earlier, grasped his camera and possibly him reinforces the belief that she intended to use violence against this person.

In this case, there is no intent to mean bodybuilding, for it is a violent intentions. I am left to wonder about Melissa Clark. Is she truly capable to instructing students in an educational setting? Would it not be better to ban her from any type of educational setting, ever? There are plenty of what ifs. It would be best if she were to just go away. There is no place for people like her in education.