BY JOEL SWANSON

In print | Published September 4, 2008

Since I’m supposed to be writing a column about film this semester, I figured there was no better place to start than with the movie that is perhaps the closest Swarthmore has to an official work of art: “The Graduate.” “The Graduate” is, for whatever reason, undeniably a bona fide Swarthmore classic. Every year the new freshmen watch it the evening before classes begin and are initiated into the cult of Swarthmore by learning which lines they are supposed to applaud for and which moments are most significant, so that the next year, the process can be repeated for the next class of new students. No one seems to be quite sure how this tradition began and that is almost irrelevant at this point. The more pertinent question is: What does it say about the Swarthmore community that we have selected “The Graduate” as our symbol of ourselves, our emblem of our anxieties, our archetype of our collegiate angst? The answer to this question, I fear, is deeply problematic.

“The Graduate” was released in 1967, and at the time, it was intended to be a challenge to the conventional, prevailing attitudes of social morality that were still around from the 1950s. In this sense, it was part of the same movement that spawned such films as “Easy Rider,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Bonnie and Clyde,” and Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange.” Though today it may seem almost passé, the relationship between Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) and Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) was probably fairly shocking at the time, at least to those sheltered Americans who had managed to miss out on all of the cultural innovations of the preceding few years. The sexual revolution of the 1960s was a necessary challenge to the sexist and heterosexist social mores of the time and an attempt to expand society’s conceptions of what acceptable expressions of sexuality, love and desire are. But “The Graduate” does not represent any of these positive aspects of the sexual revolution. For all of its supposed challenges to the repressive 1950s archetype of sexuality, “The Graduate” is in the end a profoundly regressive, patriarchal film that should not be endorsed in any way by Swarthmore.

The most troubling element in the film by far is the relationship between Benjamin and Elaine Robinson (Katharine Ross). Benjamin is almost pathologically unable to accept his rejection by Elaine after she learns the truth of his affair with her mother and he resorts to stalking her in an effort to “win her back.” Worst of all, the viewers are presumably intended to find this behavior somehow “romantic” and admirable, as an attempt for Benjamin to follow his dreams, regardless of social convention.

It is not admirable in the least. Benjamin’s actions in “The Graduate” are illegal and immoral, and most of all, deeply disrespectful to Elaine and her desires. He does not seem to care one bit, for he views himself as deserving of whatever he wants in life. He is defending a conservative, sexist and fundamentally regressive view of human relationships in which men are entitled to pursue women as they see fit, without any regard for the women themselves. So much for overturning the values of the preceding decade.

Swarthmore should not be endorsing a movie that is, at its core, essentially an endorsement of stalking, which is a horrific act of emotional violence that destroys lives. What kind of message does it send for freshmen to attend the Acquaintance Sexual Assault Prevention (ASAP) workshop on the first Sunday evening of the school year and then, just half an hour later, to go watch a movie that is an endorsement of a form of sexual violence? Why do we, as members of a community that prides itself on being progressive and intolerant of sexism and sexual violence, adopt a movie like “The Graduate” as a symbol of our college? I have asked fellow students in the past to explain to me why “The Graduate” is so significant to Swarthmore, and usually the answers that I get are about how it symbolizes the struggle to pursue one’s own path in life after leaving the college environment. That may be, but it does not excuse the fact that Benjamin pursues his path at the expense of Elaine’s rights as a person.

I am not saying that “The Graduate” should not exist at all, or even that it is wholly without merit as a movie. At the very least, the Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack is excellent. But I am saying that we as a community should be having a dialogue about what our values are and how our symbols represent these values. If “The Graduate” is so unrepresentative of Swarthmore’s values, then perhaps it should not be our film of choice to be screened each year. Worse, if it is representative of our values, then those values desperately need to change.

Joel is a junior. You can reach him at jswanso1@swarthmore.edu.

« RETURN TO LIVING & ARTS

« PREV ARTICLE | NEXT ARTICLE »