When your life is to become what someone else has planned for you and you don't want it, then it might not seem so great after all.
Ben didn't know what to want. He had an opportunity to get into plastics in 1967. Plastics! He could have gotten rich. And it wasn't good enough for him.
I find it interesting that callow young Roger Ebert loved THE GRADUATE, but wise and mature Roger Ebert did not:
I rewatched THE GRADUATE the other night, so I appreciate the comments about it in this thread. One scene that really struck me as eyebrow-raising, but hasn't received much discussion anywhere, is when Ben is at home shaving while shirtless and his mother pops into his bathroom wearing very similar underthings as Mrs. Robinson does. I thought it was Bancroft for half a second, until I realized it was Elizabeth Wilson. Can you say "Oedipal?" Was this momentary confusion deliberate on Nichols' part?
Ben didn't know what to want. He had an opportunity to get into plastics in 1967. Plastics! He could have gotten rich. And it wasn't good enough for him.
I rewatched THE GRADUATE the other night, so I appreciate the comments about it in this thread. One scene that really struck me as eyebrow-raising, but hasn't received much discussion anywhere, is when Ben is at home shaving while shirtless and his mother pops into his bathroom wearing very similar underthings as Mrs. Robinson does. I thought it was Bancroft for half a second, until I realized it was Elizabeth Wilson. Can you say "Oedipal?" Was this momentary confusion deliberate on Nichols' part?
Ben's mom also had the same hairstyle, right down to the hideous blonde streaks. In fact, I kept wondering why they would cast an actress so similar in appearance to Anne Bancroft. lol
Can you say "Oedipal?" Was this momentary confusion deliberate on Nichols' part?
I don't know if it was intentionally Oedipal so much as just emphasizing the way guys of Ben's age saw most women of their moms' generation back then. Same haristyles ("streaked", I think it was called then), same fashion sense, same intrusive inquisitiveness, same icy relationships with their husbands, same obsession with social status, etc.
