The Graduate

While watching The Graduate recently after not seeing it for many years, I was struck that in today's world Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman's character) would be considered a creepy stalker and not a romantic.

So, I'm curious to see how people in the forums would rank him.

Please only vote if you've seen the movie...

how about the main in Taxi Driver?

What, no Plastic Pie option?

ANYTHING anyone does today can make one appear creepy.

Yes, but what you YOU think?

Also, it seems that only 2 readers have seen the movie so far....

Well - I'm Benjaman's grandmothers age now so I'd say romantic stalker, but in those days we didn't know what a stalker was.

However, in todays real world terms, wouldn't Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft's character) be considered a child molester? I doubt he was presented to be 18 in the film when she started sleeping with him.

In those days though, the conventional wisdom was that when a guy got laid by a woman at any age, of ANY AGE, he was damn lucky (think Harold & Maude).

Things have changed a lot.

Actually Benjaman was a college grad at the start of the movie, so he would be over 21 (assuming he was not precoious). Harold did seem younger, I got the impression that he was a high school senior age (hence the military recuitment scene), but it has been a while since I watched it. Of course in Harold and Maude, sex was not the focus of the relationship, but grew out of their mutual love.

LOL - Could be - I just have this vision of Benjaman coming out of the pool wearing the scuba gear at the prodding of his Father. I will never be able to get that vision out of my head. Makes him seem much younger I guess.

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Just *who* exactly was the stalker, here?

http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/graduate/cover.jpg

On the other hand... a young man must make his own choices in life, mustn't he?

Lol, no. I wasn't talking about him and Mrs. Robinson. I mean his relationship with the daughter, Elaine, after she finds out about him and her mother.

Oh.... her.

Meh.




The daughter was a young co-ed, and that was about the only thing she had going.

The mom? Witty, daring, capable, sexy.

I never knew what he saw in the daughter, save for the physical component. And lovely young ladies aren't exactly a rarity - why he wanted *that* one made little sense.

Other than for, of course, the delicious irony and the allure of the forbidden.

I agree - I always thought Mrs. Robinson was ten times hotter than Elaine and never understoond why he fell for the young one. I'd love to see a re-write where he did the opposite.

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hmm, if you go for that type, you're probably better off with Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

that is my fave scene in the movie

the device used to puncuate how silly and stoopid he felt in the pool (the 1st person scuba cam) was one of my favorite movie moments

it was uncomfortable even to watch, he looked absolutely pathetic

I thought it would be a good time to revive this thread.

I got my fiance to finally watch the movie. She loved it! And she now gets the references to it in the Family Guy cartoons.

Dustin Hoffman did some interesting movies around this time. Two that come to mind:

Marathon Man, w/ Sir Laurence Olivier as the dentist we all fear

And

Little Big Man, where Hoffman plays a man who supposedly was 100+ yrs old, met Gen. Custer, lived with Indians, etc. Quite a funny movie since you never know whether he's telling the truth or lying.

Dustin Hoffman's one of my fave actors. I have only seen the very end (last 10 min. or so) of The Graduate, however. So I don't really know how the beginning or middle parts go, apart from some oft-quoted line about "Plastics".

I love Little Big Man. Haven't seen it in ages... now I'm gonna have to rent it

His character in The Graduate... creepy stalker but slightly romantic in a pathetic way.

(voted for the middle equally creepy/romantic option)

I so agree! Anne Bancroft was a hottie and probably much better company (save for the side order of alcoholic bitterness). The trend back then, though, was to have the angry young man (or disenfranchised young man) as the focus of the film and love interests of the AYM or DYM be soft-focused, half-developed characters. But that's all different now.