I am twenty five years old and have been a film buff for basically all of always. And I finally saw The Graduate this weekend. I know, I know. I’m ashamed. I added it to my list on Netflix when it got added a while back but never saw it. The only thing I’ve seen from it is the “plastics” scene, plus a few random clips (primarily “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me.” I’ve seen that one probably a thousand times. I’m betting you have too). But I’ve finally rectified this (and on the big screen no less! Thank goodness for Fathom Events and Turner Classic Movies. Also for afternoons when I am at a movie theater and suddenly realize I have time to see a movie I’ve wanted to see for a thousand years).
An overview if you haven’t seen it/haven’t seen it recently/haven’t seen Rumor Has It:
Ben (Dustin Hoffman) comes home, a new college graduate. He has no idea what he wants and is feeling kind of numb, stifled, lost, powerless, and otherwise conflicted. He is seduced by a family friend, Mrs. Robinson. Even as he is having this affair (which he isn’t actually super into, except for the part where he gets to have sex), his parents (also note his father is John Adams. Or Mr. Feeny. But mostly John Adams. William Daniels for all you people who don’t believe in the wonder that is 1776. But I digress) and the woman’s husband try to push him into taking the Robinsons’ daughter, Elaine, on a date.
If you have ever taken a film class or US history class that covered the 1960s, you have probably seen the “plastics” scene (I know I’ve seen that scene a number of times in both types of classes). If you haven’t, basically, Ben is at his graduation party and a friend of his parents pulls him outside and says he’s going to give him advice, one word, “plastics.” I think it’s what he thinks Ben should invest in but to be perfectly honest, it’s a weird piece of advice that I never understood from the clips I’ve seen and still don’t really understand now that I’ve gotten the context. But you can find it on YouTube and see for yourself.
Somehow, this is the most famous scene. Everyone references it. And having seen the movie, I’m really not sure why.
More than anything, this movie is about the thoroughly powerless feeling the young people have. It was 1967. Baby boomers were coming of age and protesting Vietnam. The older generation had us in a thousand places that the young people weren’t thrilled by and didn’t have a say in.
And this movie makes this powerlessness very very clear. The opening is amazing in this sense, actually. We open on Ben sitting on a plane. He’s physically moving through space but he himself is doing nothing. He’s literally sitting. It’s the most passive motion imaginable. When the scene changes, he’s still moving through some other power than his own, this time on a moving walkway. He’s a new college graduate and he’s being transported on a literal conveyer belt. Is there a better metaphor for the rest of the world choosing your every action? The movie ends with the same sense, Ben and the Robinson daughter sitting on a bus, once again moving with no action of their own.
And then there was more. Ben’s parents gave him scuba gear for his birthday and we are shown the scene from Ben’s perspective, looking through the mask, with the suit blocking all the sound. I wish I had counted every scene where we could see people speaking to Ben or Elaine but couldn’t hear them but it didn’t occur to me that would be useful until I sat down to write this.
Now I don’t know how much of a thing this was 50 years ago, but in 2017, I will get very angry when a parent tries to control their child’s dating life. IE Mr. Robinson, your daughter has agency and you need to butt out of her life. Both trying to get Ben to date her and also arranging her last minute wedding. I’m prepared to concede product of its time, but with the only lens I’ve got, Mr. Robinson’s micromanaging just adds to the whole “the parents’ generation holds all the reins and the kids are kind of screwed and have to just follow the path laid out” thing. So basically rock on, A+ use of sexist parental stupidity.
My notes tell me there was a lot of water imagery. Like a lot. It’s not that interesting but I want credit for noticing it.
So here’s the super fascinating thing. You know who thoroughly feels the same crap that Ben and Elaine 1000% are experiencing? Millennials. You know who thoroughly objects to millennial complaints over the powerlessness we face? Baby boomers. Boomers who absolutely dealt with this same stuff 50 years ago, only when they dealt with it, their parents and grandparents hadn’t destroyed the economy. So they didn’t also think (and by think I mean know) they were going to struggle to buy houses, pay off debt, find decent/well paying jobs, or like basically everything else adults do.
Watching this as a 25 year old in 2017 is bizarre, is what I’m trying to say. A coming of age movie watched thinking explicitly and exclusively about the world in which the movie comes out tells us about that generation. But next to coming of age in every other generation? It makes you wonder, is it maybe just that it thoroughly sucks to come of age?
***obligatory special shout out to me because I took some notes for myself (super carefully. I promise. I don’t let my phone screen interfere with anyone’s visibility. There was no one sitting around me, I had my brightness turned all the way down, and I used it under my coat draped on my lap) and autocorrect gave me this gem: “look I actually through the scuba gear and not hearing anything is super telling too.” Also we’re shouting out to me because writing this wound up depressing me because of that last sentence***
