{"id":274478,"date":"2025-06-05T07:50:53","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T07:50:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/americanstudies-june-5-2025-graduationstudying-the-graduate\/"},"modified":"2025-06-05T07:50:53","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T07:50:53","slug":"americanstudies-june-5-2025-graduationstudying-the-graduate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=274478","title":{"rendered":"AmericanStudies: June 5, 2025: GraduationStudying: The Graduate"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

[This past
\nweekend, my younger son and co<\/a>-favorite-Guest
\nPoster Kyle Railton<\/a> graduated from high school. As I wipe away
\nproud Dad tears, this week I\u2019ll AmericanStudy a handful of texts and contexts
\nfor this momentous occasion\u2014leading up to a special weekend post on what\u2019s next
\nfor the new grad!]<\/p>\n

On one aspect
\nof the iconic
\n1967 film<\/a> that hasn\u2019t aged well, and two that still feel very relevant. <\/span><\/p>\n

In a 1997 column<\/a>
\nrevisiting The Graduate<\/i> for its 30th<\/sup> anniversary, Roger Ebert
\napologizes for his initial 1967 review; more exactly, he apologizes to the character
\nMrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) for having initially sided with \u201cthat
\ninsufferable creep,\u201d Dustin Hoffman\u2019s Benjamin Braddock, over her, whom he now
\nsees as \u201cthe most sympathetic and intelligent character in\u201d the film. I first
\nsaw the film around that same 1997 moment and very much agreed with Ebert\u2019s
\nlater take, and moreover saw Benjamin\u2019s relationship with Mrs. Robinson\u2019s
\ndaughter Elaine (Katharine Ross) as similarly creepy rather than romantic (he
\nessentially stalks her for much of the second half of the film, and I don\u2019t
\nblame her for looking rather nonplussed as they pull away together on that
\nclimactic bus<\/a>). Elaine is also ridiculously quick to forgive Benjamin for
\nhis extended affair with her mother, which he is still in the midst of when he
\nfirst goes out with Elaine. Basically, both romantic relationships and the
\nportrayals of the main female characters in this film are a mess, and at the
\nvery least come out looking far different in the 21st<\/sup> century than
\nthey apparently did in 1967. <\/span><\/p>\n

On the
\nother hand, one aspect of Mrs. Robinson\u2019s character has aged very well: the Simon & Garfunkel song<\/a>
\nnamed after her that was written (or rather adapted)
\nfor the film<\/a> (Paul Simon had a slightly different, not-yet-recorded song-in-progress
\ncalled \u201cMrs. Roosevelt\u201d that director Mike Nichols convinced him to revise). \u201cMrs.
\nRobinson\u201d is a fascinating glimpse into American culture in the late 1960s, one
\nthat certainly begins as an ode to a suburban married woman amidst a midlife
\naffair but that evolves into a far broader and deeper examination of a society
\nin the midst of deepening and destructive malaise. The final verse about Joe DiMaggio
\nand the disappearance of shared heroes gets the most attention, but I would highlight
\na series of lines in the penultimate one: \u201cGoing to the candidates\u2019
\ndebate\/Laugh about it, shout about it\/When you\u2019ve got to choose\/Every way you
\nlook at it, you lose.\u201d While of course those lines could still be from the
\nperspective of the title character, I would argue they ring even truer for a
\nnew graduate, someone emerging into a future where it feels that there are no
\ngreat choices (something about which, I\u2019ll be honest, I worry a great deal when
\nit comes to both of my sons and their generation). <\/span><\/p>\n

And
\nspeaking of graduates and their choices, I would argue that the film\u2019s single
\nmost iconic line<\/a> has also aged all-too-well into our present moment. At a
\ngraduation party at his childhood home, Benjamin is cornered by family friend
\nMr. McGuire, who says to him, \u201cI want to say one word to you. Just one word\u2026Plastics.\u201d
\nWhen Benjamin asks for a bit more, McGuire simply adds, \u201cThere\u2019s a great future
\nin plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?\u201d It\u2019s safe to say that
\nBenjamin does not, in fact, think about it, but it seems to me that we as an
\naudience are meant to\u2014not because there\u2019s any there there, but instead quite
\nspecifically because there\u2019s not. In a moment when young people, and especially
\nyoung men around the age of high school and college graduates alike, are
\napparently devoting
\na great deal of their time, energy, and resources<\/a> to the mystical and to my
\nmind entirely fabricated world of crypto and bitcoin and the like, seeking to
\nfind a great future in these largely unexplained and (again, to my mind)
\nunsubstantiated concepts, we would do well to collectively revisit this 1967
\nscene and consider just why it feels so silly. <\/span><\/p>\n

Last
\ngraduation connection tomorrow,<\/span><\/p>\n

Ben<\/span><\/p>\n

PS. What
\ndo you think? Graduation texts or topics you\u2019d share? <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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