The Graduate
May. 25th, 2012 03:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI’ve read that The Graduate is the movie that captures the zeitgeist of the sixties generation. If this is so, it raises one very important question: what the heck was wrong with the sixties generation?
After graduating from an elite eastern college, Ben Braddock moves back to his parents’ house in California. He spends the next few months floating around his parents’ swimming pool, having an affair with Mrs. Robinson, and sulking whenever his parents nudge him to get a job, go to grad school, or otherwise behave like a grown-up.
(When my generation moves back home after college, we help with chores, assiduously send in applications for jobs and graduate school despite the terrible, terrible market for both, and are still castigated by the press as lazy spoiled brats.)
Then Ben’s parents force him to take Mrs. Robinson’s daughter Elaine on a date. Ben is so irritated that he takes Elaine to a strip club. Elaine bursts into tears and flees the club, but is nonetheless surprisingly receptive when Ben kisses her later. (Elaine’s emotions are always dictated by the needs of plot. She stays mad at him just long enough to provide a little conflict, but not long enough that it might be inconvenient.)
Mrs. Robinson is totally furious. She threatens to tell Elaine about her affair with Ben. Ben tells Elaine first, and Elaine shrieks and tells Ben never to see her again.
Ben decides that he’s going to marry Elaine. Never mind that they’ve been on only one date! Never mind she despises him! This is true love. And by true love, I mean that Ben tells Elaine that she’s the first thing he’s liked in a long time.
(As a side note, there’s a good argument to be made that Ben is depressed. That comment to Elaine, his general listlessness, his disconnect from all the people around him - there a number of scenes where people are talking at Ben but he can’t hear - all support the possibility. This makes him more sympathetic than the “He’s a lazy bum” reading, but valorizing his maladaptive coping mechanisms still makes for a very unsatisfying movie.)
Inspired by the fact that she makes him feel something, Ben follows Elaine to Berkeley. Because stalking is totally romantic. Elaine tells Ben that her mother said that Ben raped her, but forgets about this instantaneously when Ben tells her indignantly that it’s not true. Because...because...because obviously if it was true he would totally admit it? Or something.
Ben follows Elaine around campus pestering her; there’s an appalling scene where he starts shouting in the library and Elaine is so embarrassed she flees the room. Nonetheless, she says that she might marry him. Because stalking is totally romantic! And Elaine has no feelings of her own anyway, so she might as well!
But Mrs. Robinson gets wind of this and sets out to break them up. By...marrying Elaine off to someone else immediately. Why does Elaine agree to marry a man she doesn’t much care for, in a ceremony so rushed that it makes everyone snicker about how she must be pregnant? Who knows? Who cares? Certainly not the filmmakers! Elaine is a plot device, not a character, and her nuptials provide an appropriately dramatic setting for Ben’s climactic scene, wherein he runs into the church howling “ELAINE! ELAINE! ELAINE!”
“BEN!” cries Elaine, and they flee the church together. They barely know each other and are united by nothing other than mutual purposelessness, but who cares! They're capturing the spirit of their generation.
Which, if Ben and Elaine are anything to go by, was apparently defined by aimless self absorption. No wonder we have so many problems now that they've grown up and are running things.
After graduating from an elite eastern college, Ben Braddock moves back to his parents’ house in California. He spends the next few months floating around his parents’ swimming pool, having an affair with Mrs. Robinson, and sulking whenever his parents nudge him to get a job, go to grad school, or otherwise behave like a grown-up.
(When my generation moves back home after college, we help with chores, assiduously send in applications for jobs and graduate school despite the terrible, terrible market for both, and are still castigated by the press as lazy spoiled brats.)
Then Ben’s parents force him to take Mrs. Robinson’s daughter Elaine on a date. Ben is so irritated that he takes Elaine to a strip club. Elaine bursts into tears and flees the club, but is nonetheless surprisingly receptive when Ben kisses her later. (Elaine’s emotions are always dictated by the needs of plot. She stays mad at him just long enough to provide a little conflict, but not long enough that it might be inconvenient.)
Mrs. Robinson is totally furious. She threatens to tell Elaine about her affair with Ben. Ben tells Elaine first, and Elaine shrieks and tells Ben never to see her again.
Ben decides that he’s going to marry Elaine. Never mind that they’ve been on only one date! Never mind she despises him! This is true love. And by true love, I mean that Ben tells Elaine that she’s the first thing he’s liked in a long time.
(As a side note, there’s a good argument to be made that Ben is depressed. That comment to Elaine, his general listlessness, his disconnect from all the people around him - there a number of scenes where people are talking at Ben but he can’t hear - all support the possibility. This makes him more sympathetic than the “He’s a lazy bum” reading, but valorizing his maladaptive coping mechanisms still makes for a very unsatisfying movie.)
Inspired by the fact that she makes him feel something, Ben follows Elaine to Berkeley. Because stalking is totally romantic. Elaine tells Ben that her mother said that Ben raped her, but forgets about this instantaneously when Ben tells her indignantly that it’s not true. Because...because...because obviously if it was true he would totally admit it? Or something.
Ben follows Elaine around campus pestering her; there’s an appalling scene where he starts shouting in the library and Elaine is so embarrassed she flees the room. Nonetheless, she says that she might marry him. Because stalking is totally romantic! And Elaine has no feelings of her own anyway, so she might as well!
But Mrs. Robinson gets wind of this and sets out to break them up. By...marrying Elaine off to someone else immediately. Why does Elaine agree to marry a man she doesn’t much care for, in a ceremony so rushed that it makes everyone snicker about how she must be pregnant? Who knows? Who cares? Certainly not the filmmakers! Elaine is a plot device, not a character, and her nuptials provide an appropriately dramatic setting for Ben’s climactic scene, wherein he runs into the church howling “ELAINE! ELAINE! ELAINE!”
“BEN!” cries Elaine, and they flee the church together. They barely know each other and are united by nothing other than mutual purposelessness, but who cares! They're capturing the spirit of their generation.
Which, if Ben and Elaine are anything to go by, was apparently defined by aimless self absorption. No wonder we have so many problems now that they've grown up and are running things.
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Hehe!
Date: 2012-05-25 10:51 pm (UTC)Truth be told, there are aimless self absorbed people in this generation too.
Many folks don't have the luxury to be aimless or self absorbed. Bills to pay, family to support, etc.
Re: Hehe!
Date: 2012-05-26 04:14 pm (UTC)And yes, aimless self-absorption is a luxury. Ben clearly has no college debt to pay off or anything.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-26 09:22 am (UTC)I have never seen it. I think I don't need to, now.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-26 04:12 pm (UTC)