June 5, 2025: GraduationStudying: The Graduate

[This pastweekend, my younger son and co-favorite-GuestPoster Kyle Railton graduated from high school. As I wipe awayproud Dad tears, this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of texts and contextsfor this momentous occasion—leading up to a special weekend post on what’s nextfor the new grad!]

On one aspectof the iconic1967 film that hasn’t aged well, and two that still feel very relevant.

In a 1997 columnrevisiting The Graduate for its 30th anniversary, Roger Ebertapologizes for his initial 1967 review; more exactly, he apologizes to the characterMrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) for having initially sided with “thatinsufferable creep,” Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin Braddock, over her, whom he nowsees as “the most sympathetic and intelligent character in” the film. I firstsaw the film around that same 1997 moment and very much agreed with Ebert’slater take, and moreover saw Benjamin’s relationship with Mrs. Robinson’sdaughter Elaine (Katharine Ross) as similarly creepy rather than romantic (heessentially stalks her for much of the second half of the film, and I don’tblame her for looking rather nonplussed as they pull away together on thatclimactic bus). Elaine is also ridiculously quick to forgive Benjamin forhis extended affair with her mother, which he is still in the midst of when hefirst goes out with Elaine. Basically, both romantic relationships and theportrayals of the main female characters in this film are a mess, and at thevery least come out looking far different in the 21st century thanthey apparently did in 1967.

On theother hand, one aspect of Mrs. Robinson’s character has aged very well: the Simon & Garfunkel songnamed after her that was written (or rather adapted)for the film (Paul Simon had a slightly different, not-yet-recorded song-in-progresscalled “Mrs. Roosevelt” that director Mike Nichols convinced him to revise). “Mrs.Robinson” is a fascinating glimpse into American culture in the late 1960s, onethat certainly begins as an ode to a suburban married woman amidst a midlifeaffair but that evolves into a far broader and deeper examination of a societyin the midst of deepening and destructive malaise. The final verse about Joe DiMaggioand the disappearance of shared heroes gets the most attention, but I would highlighta series of lines in the penultimate one: “Going to the candidates’debate/Laugh about it, shout about it/When you’ve got to choose/Every way youlook at it, you lose.” While of course those lines could still be from theperspective of the title character, I would argue they ring even truer for anew graduate, someone emerging into a future where it feels that there are nogreat choices (something about which, I’ll be honest, I worry a great deal whenit comes to both of my sons and their generation).

Andspeaking of graduates and their choices, I would argue that the film’s singlemost iconic line has also aged all-too-well into our present moment. At agraduation party at his childhood home, Benjamin is cornered by family friendMr. McGuire, who says to him, “I want to say one word to you. Just one word…Plastics.”When Benjamin asks for a bit more, McGuire simply adds, “There’s a great futurein plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?” It’s safe to say thatBenjamin does not, in fact, think about it, but it seems to me that we as anaudience are meant to—not because there’s any there there, but instead quitespecifically because there’s not. In a moment when young people, and especiallyyoung men around the age of high school and college graduates alike, areapparently devotinga great deal of their time, energy, and resources to the mystical and to mymind entirely fabricated world of crypto and bitcoin and the like, seeking tofind a great future in these largely unexplained and (again, to my mind)unsubstantiated concepts, we would do well to collectively revisit this 1967scene and consider just why it feels so silly.

Lastgraduation connection tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Graduation texts or topics you’d share?