The Bechdel Cast - The Graduate

Episode Date: July 21, 2022

Jamie and Caitlin examine The Graduate! Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson! (This episode contains spoilers) For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast. Follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP on Twitter.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. MTV's official challenge podcast is back for another season. That's right. The challenge is about to embark on its monumental 40th season, y'all.

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Listen to MTV's official Challenge podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about

what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, is desperate. and she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I felt too seen. Dragged. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown.

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I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that?

You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, listeners. Just a quick content warning for this episode for rape allegations, because

in the movie we're discussing today, a character falsely accuses another character of rape, and we discuss that pretty extensively toward the middle of the episode, just so you're aware of that ahead of time. Enjoy the episode! On the Bechdel cast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast start changing it with the bechdel cast hello jamie my old friend i've come to talk with you again so that we can pass the bechdel test and here's to you mrs bechdel cast the fans love us more than we could know mrs bechtel cast thoughts i love it i'm like i can't stop smiling you're yeah mrs bechtel cast that's the new name of our show who's she married to herself wow oh my god i love that for her wow that literally put like

butterflies in my stomach for some reason i don't i don't know what that wow what would art we would we would be would it be durante and loft funkel orftus and Durantfunkel Durantfunkel is a mouthful I'm happy with I would happily accept Loftfunkel jam Loftfunkel wow oh my gosh okay that means you get to marry carrie fisher god you're so lucky wait did paul sign oh my wow i didn't even know about that yeah it was well spoiler alert didn't end well because they got divorced i don't know that much about it i just know that i am a carrie fisher's stand for life and paul simon her feelings so well fuck him but yeah I think I'm gonna have to kill him nope uh just kidding anyway uh hello my name is Caitlin Durant Funkel let's just both be Artgard Funkel I think that that's honestly, I'm pretty and again, like classic rock heads, please correct us because I don't have a ton of my honestly, I'm at my dad's house right now. And he was trying to tell me about Simon and Garfunkel and I just could not be bothered. I was like, I'm busy. So he probably could have supplemented this conversation. But I'm pretty sure art garfunkel was like good vibes

less talented maybe and paul simon was like almost like paul mccartney like i'm this i'm i'm very talented and he was right but he was an asshole oh sure one of those situations so i feel like being of the funkle variety and i'm sure art garfunkel is super talented but he just had a good personality and people are like men are assholes which brings us to at the time oh also my name is jam loft funkel and this is the battle cast oh yeah so i guess i'm kate kate kate der der der funkel i like der funkel der funkel do that guy? Okay, this is not passing the budget. Do you remember that guy, Brian Dunkelman? No.

Who's that? Okay. This is the worst story ever. I'm falling asleep already. But he was like the original host of American Idol pre Ryan Seacrest. He was like a host of maybe, I don't like, but his name was Brian Dunkelman. And I just remember him really well because he had a comedy album he released and it was called American Dunkelman. And that made me laugh.

I don't know what he was like or I can't picture him, but I was like American Dunkelman. That's hilarious. That's almost as good as Kate Der der funkel or jam loft funkel so what's the podcast about so this is the bechtel cast in which we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens and we use a little something called the bechtel test sure which we simply use as a jumping off point but that of course is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test. There are different versions

of the test. The one that we use is this. Two characters of a marginalized gender have to have names. They have to speak to each other. And that conversation has to be about something other than a man. And ideally, it's a substantial conversation. You know, it's two or more lines of dialogue. And it is plot relevant. Plot relevant, you say? Yeah. Okay.

Well, spoiler alert. Not here. Not in this one. Oh, my God. Aggressively not so. But that said, I think that this is going to be a fascinating conversation. We've been getting requests for this movie for some time. Because I'm pretty sure this podcast has been going on for as long as this movie has been out.

Is that correct? Yeah. Decades. 55 years? Correct. yeah decade decades 55 years correct um today we're covering feminist masterpiece the graduate oh my goodness so much to talk about what is your history with the graduate the graduate and i um i definitely didn't see it before college. I feel like I had to watch this as a part of a film class or something. I will say I've never been a particular fan of this movie. I mean, I haven't seen it in at least, at least since before we've been doing this show. I've never watched it critically before. I just always have kind of been like, my recollection of my reaction to it was like, I really like Anne Bancroft, but this movie is boring to me. Like I just didn't I just thought it was boring. And I thought that and in my defense, I was right.

I thought the lead character was really boring. And then when you look at it critically, you're like, well, he's a lot of things. But but I was just like, this is so boring to me. I just didn't like it. But I will say I am a big Mike Nichols fan. I absolutely love Mike Nichols. He directed two of my favorite movies ever, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and The Birdcage. And he's an icon.

I really admire his work, Rest in Power. I know this is one of his most famous movies but it's just not one of my favorites and then re-watching it for this I was like what this is kind of like a minefield for us because obviously it's like you can't like leverage 2022 values against a movie like this but I feel like it really does open a lot of doors for discussion with like how like young boomers were perceived when they were coming of age and like because we know how that story ends I feel like it's it's just uh it's just it's interesting much like Carrie Fisher and Paul Simon's marriage it doesn't end well right and so so looking back on it I think this will be a fun

discussion but yeah I will say still kind of just like even criticisms aside of which I have you know plenty I just think it's kind of a boring movie Caitlin what's your history with this movie I don't disagree I saw it in college probably for the same reason either I had to watch it for a film class or it was just one of those things it's where it was like it's a great American classic I need to have seen it yeah so I watched it probably when I was like a freshman or sophomore and I only watched it that once and I finally understood the reference that Wayne's World 2 makes at the end of that movie because it spoofs okay now we're talking highfalutin brain stuff yeah exactly yeah i was like oh i now understand what wayne's world 2 had been spoofing all along and so that was my main connection to it isn't it

heavily referenced in american pie as well like stifler's mom like i feel like there's like mrs robinson references in regards to stifler's mom and american pie another feminist classic obviously i don't remember if it right i don't remember if it is like directly referencing it or if it's just like homage kind of thing couldn't yeah i can't say but um yeah i mean this movie certainly has a major cultural influence the whole like plastics thing like i kind of forgot about that that yeah like it's i mean this movie is super influential i i had a good time reading about the production history and like sort of how because there's just there's a lot of interesting production stuff going on as well ultimately yeah this movie uh is what we'll

get into it in just a second it's not my fave really at all i do feel like there's like interest i'm trying to think of nice things to say at the beginning i love anne bancroft i love katherine ross i love mike nichols i think the cinematography is interesting at times and other times maybe not so much so maybe that wasn't nice I think there's some interesting editing choices I think yes some of the montage the montages are fun you know what one thing I was thinking and I was like maybe is this ground zero for this trope do you remember remember when we were like, for whatever reason, we did a couple of coming of age movies. They were like coming of age movies about young women. The swimming pool thing.

The swimming pool thing. Yes. I had the same thought. Was this where the swimming pool, like rich kid goes into a swimming pool to really think about the fact that they're an adult now vibes? I do think maybe this movie pioneered that trope perhaps wow because the it happens in what it happens in eighth grade it happens in eighth grade it happens in ladybird it happens in something else i guess not necessarily a rich it's not always a rich person but it happens at

a person with a pool's house it's a white person going underwater to reflect about their past, present, and future. Now, what the hell is that all about? I get it. It's a metaphor. It's a metaphor. But I was like, maybe this is where it started? Could be. Question mark?

We don't really know about many years that came before this because we're just really young. So kind of hard to say um what was happening uh but yeah no i think this is like this is wild too because it was like putting me in my uh my kathy act cast bag of just like wanting to talk about second wave feminism and like the you know complicated politics of second wave feminism and also this movie know complicated politics of second wave feminism and also this movie coming out before roe v wade another just lots of things to discuss so yeah shall we get into it let's do it here's the recap we meet ben braddock played by dustin hoffman he is returning to los ang. Ever heard of it?

He's 20 years old? Question mark. Yeah. He's 30 years old. Okay. I learned about this from the time of scholarly journal Wikipedia that yeah, Dustin Hoffman was just shy of his 30th birthday when filming this movie. There's six years apart and Bancroft was 35 when this movie was shot. Yeah.

And Bancroft was 35 when this movie was shot yeah and Bancroft absolute fucking legend the casting for this was weird because it was like they clearly I feel the makeup choices were to make her look older but when Mike Nichols was given the opportunity to cast older actresses he said no and you're just like but why I mean I love Aimee Bancroft I feel like she is so amazing in this role but then like he could have cast Ava Gardner and you're just like so why not do that it boggles the mind we can't ask oh maybe it's because you know there's a huge bias in Hollywood against older actors who are women maybe I totally yes I mean I feel like it does but it like speaks to that moment specifically too

because i feel like now it's kind of like a bit more of a reverse where it's like i cannot think of many modern examples of a younger actor especially especially a woman being aged up i feel like it happens in the reverse all the time and like your whole thing with like every woman needs to look about 37 years old that role yeah i feel like sandra bullock who is 60 or near sick like she's some age an icon a legend i mean an absolute icon she is older than you would probably think she might be. But I feel like she's still playing roles for like 40 year old women. Early for. Yeah, it does feel like. And that certainly wasn't as far as I know, a thing in the 60s.

I just thought it was interesting that like there's obviously, I mean, in the casting process, the writing process, a ton of sexism at play here but I just it was like it was a it was a flavor of sexism I hadn't seen in a while I was like wow aging like it almost feels like and I don't have I don't this is my working through this in real time but like sure it feels like okay well I I literally refuse to have an actor over 40 on screen, but I need a 40 ish year old character. So let me age up a woman in her mid 30s. And you're just like so much work. Right. For what? Like, it's just I mean, it's all a lot of work. And to be clear, we're not saying that, saying that like you know any actor over 40 should you know like if if as far as like cosmetic surgery goes or things to look younger like live your life but i do feel like there you can't ignore the fact that there is that pressure now for sure

anyways yes well women aging we can't have it it's against the law it's immoral and illegal yeah it's not right uh okay so okay ben braddock is dustin hoffman he is returning to los angeles after finishing college his parents are throwing him a like welcome back party with all of their family friends and none of his friends that are his age anyway i don't think he has any friends i mean i think which is yeah we'll talk about that but like yeah i don't i don't think i think that's one of benjamin's problems he doesn't have friends could be so despite him doing very well in college, he expresses all these anxieties and doubts. Shout out to the movie Doubt. About.

Thank you for that. Of course. He expresses all these anxieties about his future. And that's when a family friend is like plastics. And Ben is like plastics and ben is like okay ben gets away from the party and goes into his room where mrs robinson played by anne bancroft ever heard of her ever heard of her another family friend she comes in thinking it's the bathroom they chat for a moment and then she asks ben to drive her home which he reluctantly does she then invites him in to her house under

the pretense that she's scared to go in alone in the dark he reluctantly goes in she's offering him a drink and she's like really trying to keep him there we're in a danger zone oh yeah what is this top gun because danger zone alert this uh the way this i do pretty clearly remember how i didn't remember the specifics but i remember like what happens towards the beginning of the movie obviously because that's where all the famous lines of the movie are kind of in the first 10 minutes right but it does make the rest of the movie extremely difficult to talk about because it starts with well let's let's get to it i suppose yeah so she's not taking no for an answer he's trying to leave and then he's like mrs robinson you're trying to seduce me aren't you and she's like no i'm not and we all go hey

and then there's the shot of him like framed around her leg and it's it's iconic but headless women of hollywood canon right exactly so she denies trying to seduce him but then and then she shows him a portrait of her daughter elaine who is close to his age is that a rich person thing or is this movie like weirdo where they're like yeah i have a i had a painting commissioned of my daughter it's in her bedroom they're like why don't i have a painting of myself in my for it's i it's interesting i don't know what rich people are we don't know are doing um i was like is that a 60s thing is that a rich people thing is that a pervert thing we don't know we simply don't know we don't know so mrs robinson is all like no i'm

not trying to seduce you and then she does get naked in front of him ben continues to be very uncomfortable and he runs out but on his way out of the house he runs into mr robinson mrs robinson's her husband yeah and he's like ben you should relax take a load off have a few flings even you're young get out there and fuck every adult in this movie thinks ben is so interesting amazing irresistible yeah and you're just like i'm lost i'm lost what what are you talking about it's so funny because i do think that like as i was watching this movie it his character which we'll talk about you know but like his character scans to me the way that like back in the day boomers would talk about millennials where it was like you're just moving back in with your parents you're so entitled you're mooching off the blah blah blah which was like a fallacy we were just

um you know excluded from ever being able to own property but and suffocating under our student loan debt but sure we were we're lazy came of age during a recession but that the boomers caused sure but fine oh but it just is funny because ben is doing the thing that they would go on to say that we were doing but he's actually doing the thing he's like just hanging out by the pool every day and he's living this like i would say it's hedonistic but he's so boring that it's like, I can't even call it that. His life seems creepy and boring. True. Well, I suppose let's continue.

Let's. and then jumps in the swimming pool and has one of those swimming pool coming of age moments which i guess causes him to change his mind he has a nascuba suit which is interesting yeah right i think the first usually it's just a bathing suit yeah but for him there's some equipment involved he's rich he needed a whole breathing apparatus kind of funny he needed to sit down at the bottom at the bottom of that pool for a long time and have a long think about whether or not he was going to have sex with mrs robinson yeah that's how you that's how you know he had to think about it he needed a scuba suit okay this movie has its moments i didn't hate dustin hoffman falling into a pool in a scuba suit

there are some funny satirical moments that i appreciated i mean mike nichols man but those were only very small punctuation marks in an otherwise pretty insufferable movie anyway okay so he changes his mind and calls up mrs robinson and invites her to the taft hotel where he is currently just hanging out at they get a room he's nervous and she's like is this your first time and he's like um no oh my god he has this like mean, and I do feel like there's at least some self-awareness and commentary in this. I want to believe that. Sometimes it's very unclear.

But like whenever he's like his masculinity is questioned, he like, like gets very angry. Yes. Gets very angry, very upset. Yikes. And I don't, I don't i don't i don't like him i don't like him i think he's a yeah so he's like no i've fucked before and then the lights go off and this is the start of a secret affair that they have yeah we get a montage of mostly just him being boring which i know is like i think the movie knows he's

like just kind of hanging out and being boring but it's like it's just boring but i think the movie is telegraphing to us oh my gosh look at this poor rich white kid with his college degree and look how aimless he is don't you feel bad for him and it's like yeah of course i don't right but it's like but that's all that's like in retrospect too like it is such a weird thing because i i feel like there's similar vibes that at least i've gotten from like some gen x teen movies where it like the underlying message is like my parents like give me anything i want and i feel so suffocated right when it's like when when you like fast forward to generations that like well that wouldn't be so bad really

would it you know like it it like rings super hollow and shitty in retrospect but yeah it's like i know that we're he's i just am like this character is unbelievably boring to the point where when he gets to berkeley and they're like are you a like a rabble rouser and you're like are you kidding me he's the most boring man alive he wishes he's literally just a garden variety stalker like sorry yeah okay so we get this montage also meanwhile his parents are on his case about what he's doing with his life and how do you spend your time ben but they're also like we get it you should have a beer you you deserve it you're awesome you're amazing but like have you thought about going to school no okay and i'm just like these parents are

absurdly chill like everyone is rooting for him so hard yeah and i'm sort of like kick him out truly there's a moment where his dad is like get off your ass and go to grad school. And then I'm over here like it is not worth the money. Right. Where it's like he's super privileged that like that is. And it's like heavily implied that like he's not going to pay for grad school. No. And in the 60s, it's not like it comes on which way.

Why doesn't he just. what is he even doing? Whatever. I just feel like it's fine to be, you know, I get like 21 aimless, don't know what you want to do with your life. Sure. Fine. Relatable. But you know, you got to do something.

Yeah. Got to do something. Pick something. You can't just. You have every privilege in the fucking, just do something. Get pottery ben i don't know why i said pottery hey you know that's that's something there's something okay so he's again just like lying in a in the pool most of the time and then mr robinson comes over at some point and he's like, Hey, my daughter, Elaine will be home from Berkeley soon. You should take her out, Ben.

Then I think a few months pass the affair between Ben and Mrs. Robinson is still going on. It's still secret. At one point, Ben is like, Hey, Mrs. Robinson,

can we have a conversation for once? And then she tells him about her unhappy marriage and how they only got married because she got pregnant yes with their daughter elaine i do kind of appreciate that she i mean the dynamics to this relationship there's a lot to discuss but like i do kind of she does seem to know that intellectually he is a flop and and she's like i don't want to have conversations with you i don't need to know what's going on in your mind and you're like yeah based on my appraisal of this character i know i think that we're supposed to like in that moment find her like a little cold for sure but i was like yeah what does he have to what is he bringing to the

table really you know nothing oh yeah yeah so then then Ben jokes about taking Elaine out on a date. But and then Mrs. Robinson is like, don't you freaking dare do that? And he's like, OK, I promise I'll never take her out on a date. Not after calling her a string of very mean things. And then also he like does this weird little gaslighting uh like uh what am i a little a little swoop this is a little swoop of god where he does bring up he's like oh what why why don't i go out with your daughter like and he's fucking with her yeah but then like two minutes later he's like i didn't even bring this up i was like you fully brought it up yeah you i'm sorry that like triggered my like bad relationship brain where i'm just like you can't tell yes you did he did he did

bring it up both of these characters are so manipulative i know okay so ben is like i promise i won't take your daughter elaine on a date but then Ben's parents are pressuring him to ask Elaine out, and he has no choice. So he takes Elaine, who we finally meet on screen, played by Catherine Ross. And we're like, oh, my God. Oh, my gosh, Catherine. I love Stepford Wives.

I love Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Love her. So he takes her out on a date, but he's an asshole about it. And he takes her to this like kind of strip club type place. And she's like, what the fuck, dude? And he's like, yeah, I see your point. He makes her cry. Yeah.

And he assaults a dancer. Yeah. And then he. And then he surprise kisses. I wouldn't even call that. I feel like it was worse than a surprise kiss because she was actively in the middle of being like, I it wasn't even just like, oh, there's a vibe and someone kisses without checking in. It was like she was crying. Get me the fuck out of here. I will not stop crying. She just literally was like, I'm not gonna stop crying. Right. And then he lunges at her. I don't know what that I feel like it's more severe than a surprise kiss, though, because you're just like, she's in the middle of telling you how what a horrible time she's having with you. What if?

OK, maybe there's a spectrum here. What if it's like an attack kiss? It kind of is like, yeah. Yeah. And that fully works because Elaine's character, as we'll talk about, needs a good therapist and she makes no sense. Her choices to me. I just I worry about her. That character is written in

such a way that you're like what elaine what is going on in that head of yours my god we simply cannot understand okay so they start having a nice time after he attack kisses her they you know have a little meal together they're chatting they're bonding although we don't really hear their dialogue so we don't know what they're talking about or what they have in common or why they like each other which is another huge problem i have with this movie anyway yeah but we do hear ben tell elaine about an affair that he's been having with an older married woman although he obviously does not say that it's with her mother yeah no he says that she has a son yeah he just you know lies right he also says

but don't worry it's over with this woman and then he tells elaine that he really likes her and they make plans to see each other again. But Mrs. Robinson does not like this. And she tells Ben to never see Elaine again. Or else she will tell Elaine everything about her relationship with Ben. So Ben tells Elaine first so that it comes out of his mouth. Which upsets Elaine. And she screams at him to get out. Yeah, no shit.

One of the things that I find just like absolutely mind-boggling about this movie is that you never get a scene, you never get a feel for what Mrs. Robinson and Elaine's relationship was like before Ben comes into the picture and you even more mind bogglingly don't get a good idea of what happens after instead of getting any idea of like what which would even if you're like in like sexist brain like we need to be focused on Ben at all times that would enrich his story to understand what's going on between the two of them even if you're obsessed with him it makes more sense to it but instead of having these long shots of him leering from the bushes i just i yeah yeah he's literally just like

inside of a plant being like what's going on over there and it's like god god yeah you boring criminal you right so he tells elaine the truth but again she is very upset and she's like get out and now he has lost both mrs robinson and elaine and then elaine goes back to college at Berkeley slash Ben watches her leave because this is the point of the story where he starts heavily stalking her. He drives to Berkeley. He follows her around campus. He moves to Berkeley. He then moves there so he can continue stalking her.

He stalks her all the way to the zoo where Elaine meets up with this guy, Carl, who she's seeing. Her boyfriend. Her boyfriend. And then Elaine comes over to Ben's place to confront him about why he's there. And then she says, by the way, my mom told me that you raped her. And's like no that's not what happened and then they're kind of they're arguing and things escalate and she screams but then she calms down and then she's like i don't want you to leave and then she's also like i'm sorry i yelled and like don't be there yeah i mean the the implications of around like

false rape allegations that you're just like very troubling well we'll circle back yeah that so then elaine shows back up to ben's place in the middle of the night and she's like kiss me and then he's like will you marry me parentheses tomorrow and she's like i might but i'm confused first of all not not that she should be breaking into his house although at this point you're like i'm just completely lost like at this point who knows what's going on right she you know she's she's in his room he rolls out of bed looking like his breath is foul i felt that kiss in my mouth uh yeah you're just like it's three in the morning and this man's gonna taste like what yucky not good is the answer not good whiskey and garbage yeah bad. Bad. Yes.

He does drink a lot of bourbon throughout the movie. Bourbon and garbage. So she's like, I mean, it's a type of whiskey. Anyway. Pee pee and poo poo. Pee pee and poo poo. So she's like, I might marry you, but I'm confused. And he's like, don't be confused.

We're getting married and then he continues to try to coerce her into agreeing to marry him but then mr robinson shows up and he is furious and he tells ben to stay away from his family and then ben finds out that elaine left school to run off and marry Carl. So then Ben goes on a wild goose chase to find her, a.k.a. he continues to stalk her. He continues to stalk her up the coast of California. Yes. He finds out the church that they're getting married at

because she's getting married that day. The timeline also of this movie is absurd. Hard to say. We don't know. They've only been on one date for sure. That's what we know. That's the other thing. I'm like, how many dates have they been on?

Because I think it's no more than two. I couldn't tell you what the second one was. Unless her breaking into his house or him stalking her at the zoo counts as a second date. I just... her breaking into his house or him stalking her at the zoo counts as a second date i just they go on the first date to the like burlesque strip show type thing and then i think maybe he's just about to pick her up for a second date yeah mrs robinson gets in the car before he can even go on the second date oh my gosh and then he also charges into her room while she's not wearing clothes and she's like stop i'm not dressed and then he's like i her room while she's not wearing clothes and she's like stop i'm not dressed and then he's like i need to tell you that i'm having sex with your mom and

she's like haha but then she's like oh no you're like oh my goodness oh my goodness elaine elaine so he's out of here elaine yes so So he's driving to the church, but oh no, his car runs out of gas. So he takes his like track and cross country skills and runs the rest of the way. He bursts into the church. He disrupts the wedding and he and Elaine run out and then get on a bus. And then they sit together on the bus. Wait, was this a big mistake? And then, yeah, the expressions on their face are kind of like, oh, what now?

I mean, and then that's the end of the movie. For all this movie's fault, that last shot is still kind of cool. If you forget everything else that happened? Everything that happened before it. True. But it's a cool shot. It's a cool shot. Let's take a break.

Let's get out of here, and then we'll be back. Let's do it. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption

that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I felt too seen.

Dragged. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying, and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies.

On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place

will tell you there's something wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that.

I have a proposal for you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified.

Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this?

We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And we're back. All right, before we get into this movie, let's talk a little bit about the production. Let's talk a little bit about the context of this movie. So this is I feel like we're kind of in a very different way. But in terms of like the structure of this, we're in kind of we're in a bit of a carry situation i would say because this is a movie that uh was adapted from a uh white male author by two other white guys and also a white guy director which is why perhaps the women are not are not maybe making a lot of sense no justice was done for their characters particularly with elaine and like

i don't like where mrs robinson's character goes but she at least i can sort of track where she's for like half of the movie though for half of the movie i understand where her head is at by the end i'm just like beats me but anyways mike nichols makes this movie Calder Willingham and Buck Henry adapt it they have comedy backgrounds those are the funniest names I've ever heard Calder Willingham and Buck Henry Buck Henry is kind of an icon in a way and also uh mike nichols and buck henry and dustin hoffman are all uh jewish men and this was like a time where uh jewish comedians were along with like mel brooks who gets married to anne bancroft it's all this this whole whatever thing it's a big moment for jewish comedy it's just not a big moment for uh writing women uh but anyways i wanted to you know acknowledge that dustin hoffman and fuck him yeah

but he pointed out uh that he was surprised that he was cast in the movie because he's jewish and then he pointed out that the negative reviews of this movie were often veiled anti-semitic yes and like commenting on the size of his nose and his kind of like manner of speaking so yeah worth acknowledging absolutely and also then like this is just kind of you know i don't know where she was but but katherine ross was like yeah i don't think he's hot enough to be my boyfriend and you're like okay kind of iconic in a way she does say that she's like I think this love scene will be disgusting but maybe she's just anticipating how disgusting and creepy Dustin Hoffman is in real life an individual yeah we don't know um so anyways that's the background I think what is more interesting to discuss is and we've sort of hinted at this

already the casting of Mrs. Robinson and Ben they are only six years apart in age there were a lot of actors who turned down the role of Mrs. Robinson and Elaine because of kind of the nature of the story. This was like considered to be pretty risky material at the time. Edgy. And I guess, whatever, just for acknowledgement, I guess I don't really feel here nor there about it. But like the concept of an older woman and a younger man having a relationship in movies and having it be explicitly sexual, not really something that was popularly

discussed and not a dynamic that was seen in movies very often even today still you don't often see that absolutely and it's like i don't think that this movie is a very good blueprint for it but even like as a topic of discussion was not one that was being had and it was also like generationally like this movie like toured colleges and that's like part of how it became really popular was they were specifically targeting young coming of age boomers basically and you know this movie is like coming out right around the time of like the sexual revolution it's taking place in california around the sexual revolution is taking place in California around the sexual revolution. Setting stuff in Berkeley is like very telling.

And it's just like a very interesting time to be set. And then everyone said it was the greatest movie ever when it came out. And then later, even our buddy Roger Ebert reflected on the movie. I think it was like 20 years later and in the 80s and was like you know what maybe not my favorite after all but at the time it was supposed to be like oh this is like the boomer movie the peak of cinema it was the highest grossing movie of 1967 with 104.9 million dollars worldwide at the box office, which adjusted for inflation. And these are like 2021 numbers.

It grossed $857 million. Okay. Joker money. That's Joker money. Yikes. Sorry. Sorry for saying Joker money. This movie made more money than, I don't know, not more money than Minions.

Not Minions money. Not Minions money. not not more money than minions not minions money not minions money kind of joker money not minions money but unfair yardstick sure because that's that's real comedy um okie dokie um so so okay that's the history of this film obviously very telling that the two main actors like the movie treats them as i what what would you guess like 20 years apart in age when in reality they were six years apart in age the character mrs robinson says i'm twice your age and we know that he is 20 about to turn 21. so she's supposed to be as a character in her early 40s. Okay. But again, Dustin Hoffman, the actor, was almost 30 and Anne Bancroft was 35 at the time of shooting. So not the age difference of the characters, certainly.

Dustin Hoffman, you know, is giving kind of Ben Platt and Dear Evan Hansen vibes where you're like, no, you are not 20 years old. Give it a rest. Okie doke. Let's talk about the movie. Yeah. So I will say that, again, because I saw this for the first time as someone in, I was around the age that Ben is supposed to be when i probably would have saw this this was in like 2005 or or so when i watched this movie and i don't know if it's just that uh

culturally i wasn't conditioned to notice a very troubling coercive and stalkerish behavior, or if I had just forgotten about it, but I did not remember how much coercion and stalking and just general creepiness there is in this movie, because it's nearly nonstop. No one was talking about that in 2005. And I also think that like, it was still like, you know, 50 plus years after this movie came out like that was still like considered not completely inappropriate behavior by a lot of people right this is how you romance someone you exactly gaslight them you don't take no for an answer you push push push you stalk stalk stalk i mean that still happens in movies from the last 10 years like you, you know, it's not 2005 Caitlin's fault. Because I definitely didn't clock this movie

as anything but boring when I first saw it. But I also feel like people still, when they talk about this movie, are just like, hey, isn't it kind of wild that this movie is about a younger man and an older woman? And isn't that kind of like a little weird, but also hot?

And that's the conversation about this movie. I kind of like a little weird but also hot and that's the conversation about this movie i kind of wonder when the last time they watched it is because i feel like when you do watch it it's kind of like undeniable that a lot of it is like i don't know but yeah the the takeaway from this i feel like it almost and this is like kind of thankfully not a popular term anymore but like the cougar relationship like this was i feel like a real big like whatever pop culture like milestone sure for that so okay so just to start like just to kind of track their relationship i kind of want to go chronologically because sure going chronologically it's a disaster because from the beginning I, I do as I do think that like,

I mean, Mrs. Robinson's like unquestionably like manipulative and coercive with him, whereas she like knows that he is, you know, inexperienced, seems to sort of pick him out as like, okay,

I want to have sex with this young man. It's not illegal. Like I illegal like i it's not even the age gap that's the issue it's the power dynamics right where and her approach she like very again it's just like he like calls out what's happening and she is like that's not what's happening no uh right right and then she literally traps him in her daughter's room which you're also like okay freudian nightmare um truly traps him in her daughter's room and like takes her clothes i mean and even i mean not to have any faith in the year 1967 but if you reverse those dynamics i feel like it is clearly wrong even then.

But it's framed here as like kind of funny and kind of hot, which is like we've talked about that. I'm trying to remember what episode it was, but we're like, and now we're getting media that like challenges that idea that like men cannot possibly be the victims of assault right from from any gender but particularly from women because of how women are perceived as less powerful and it doesn't matter what the power dynamics are a man can't be assaulted because that would be emasculating and right all that stuff it just feels like this movie you know is not inventing this concept, but certainly abiding by it. Yeah, she is like, again, just pushing, pushing, pushing, won't take no for an answer. He is very visibly uncomfortable.

But like you said, I think his discomfort is more framed as like, well, this isn't a no means yes thing that and like, it's not so much like, you're exploiting your power over me to manipulate me it's more like i can't be doing this because you're a family friend and what would my parents think and that is like more it seems where his discomfort is coming from and then a few scenes later he's like well your husband told me i should go out there and fuck. So and you're available. You threw yourself at me, Mrs. Robinson. So let's do this. Which like, OK, I get that.

That's like supposed to be part of the like jokiness of the movie is like, oh, you know, because whatever. Sure. But yeah, like, yeah, the way way that and again it's like i get that it's been 55 years but it is it's been 84 years to watch sorry and i still struggle with that scene it's just like it is jarring to watch in a modern context very Very. And then what's interesting is like throughout the movie, the power dynamics between them do shift pretty considerably, but it doesn't start there. It definitely, like Mrs. Robinson has the power of experience over him.

She has the power of, you know, she's a friend of the family and he doesn't want to be impolite to her sort of thing like she does have the power during this first encounter and she abuses that power during their first encounter but then pretty quickly it's almost like implied that like once he's having sex the power dynamic totally shifts in some ways not in every scene it's complicated and that scene where they're you know sharing and arguing with each other like that's where i feel like it is like genuinely murky and kind of like more of an interesting dynamic to explore but like he just gets so so

cocky right away he's like he's having sex the coerciveness of the first encounter like has no effect on him and he's just like is immediately like i'm mr fuck now blah blah like mr fuck he becomes imagine having sex one time and then being like i'm never gonna get a job you're like what are you talking about i don't need to work i'm mr Mr. Fuck. I'm Mr. Fuck. I have a job. It's being Mr. Fuck. And you're just like, this is whatever. He's going through something. And he's a disaster.

But the power dynamic does shift between them in a way that it's like, I don't know, like truly some moments in this movie. I was like, I know how I am am interpreting this but i'm not sure how audiences at the time were like there were certain because i felt like and maybe i'm giving the movie too much credit the movie does seem aware in some moments i thought maybe but then countering with mrs robinson's behavior later maybe not that the movie does seem somewhat aware that mrs robinson is ultimately more trapped than ben is where it's like even though she has the power at the beginning of the relationship unquestionably as time goes on you sort of learn more about like her background. She was essentially like culturally forced into a marriage.

She didn't want, she was culturally forced out of her education. And so she's already like for, I mean, she's a wealthy white woman and it seems like she came from privilege if she was going to college in the sixties or in the whatever fifties, forties in the first place. But even coming from considerable privilege privilege she's still very like

trapped in the american housewife experience and it seems like there is very little opportunity for her to get out of it whereas ben will flop his way through life no problem like i have no doubt flopping his way around as mr fuck i but okay so i totally agree with you and i think that that is a very that could have been explored way more thoughtfully yeah with her as someone who is like trapped in this relationship and this marriage and is like looking for an out and maybe finds one in this younger guy that could be a very interesting story and an interesting dynamic to explore but the movie frames her the way because i want to examine how the movie thinks of her and actually treats her versus like how we i want to talk about that too because sometimes i'm like

there's a part in the middle where i was like okay the movie understands that like she's not a good person uh but you can see but then by the end she's a fucking cartoon villain and so you're just like right right so at first it feels like and maybe this is just my interpretation but when we first meet her i think the movie wants you to think that she's kind of this like lonely desperate woman and she's desperate because she's older and her husband won't have sex with her and that's why she's an alcoholic you're like it's literally and bankrupt like what do you what and like and that's why she's an alcoholic you're like literally and bankrupt like what do you what and like and that we're supposed to like not even empathize with her but like sympathize with her we're like oh this poor you're supposed to feel bad for her woman right yeah even though she is

like actively manipulating and coercing we're supposed to be like oh well that's just what pathetic people do especially if you're like an older woman right um then when she finds out about this blossoming relationship between ben and her daughter she pivots and becomes well not even i don't know if it's a pivot but she basically just becomes this like jealous shrew type and then gets like scarier and scarier and the movie wants you to be like and the movie frames her that way because it's like i feel like if you didn't stuff like you wouldn't put that scene in torrential rain if you didn't want her to come off manic and like on the edge like mascara dripping on like making her look like right scary i mean and that's i feel like that's like truly for her character like the shark jump moment that like

could have and again you're like it's the 60s there's no fucking chance this would have happened and there's this whole argument for it's so like whatever the late 60s has this reputation of being a sexual revolution but if you look into it it's so like whatever the late 60s has this reputation of being a sexual revolution. But if you look into it, it's a sexual revolution that generally benefited men. Not to say that women weren't having a good time and we love that for them. And they were like making huge gains that would lead to Roe v. Wade and all this stuff. But net benefit, mostly men. Which classic outcome anyways there's a point where i wanted to believe

because it's i i also did not retain a lot of the specifics of this movie i remember like the main points right but when she says like don't date my daughter you know because of the time it came out it's like oh i'm supposed to think that she's jealous of her own daughter when that same reaction would have played way more realistically for me if she was like don't date my daughter because you're a fucking weirdo because you're a creepo yeah right and then you could have the movie play out not exactly the same way but like kind of similarly with her feeling that way of like stay the fuck away from my daughter stay the fuck away from my family you are stalking my daughter right but instead the movie is like no she's jealous and she's jealous of her own daughter and sure she claims

that she doesn't want ben dating her daughter because she thinks that he's not good enough for her but that's clearly not how she's characterized as as being she's like just this jealous woman who went from pathetic to now she's scary and evil it sucks it's like such lost potential in a strong setup for a character like there's so many issues you could have explored but it was like four you know guys feeling around in the dark for something they couldn't possibly understand right and then yeah it's really frustrating and then the nail in the coffin is when you find out that when elaine goes to ben at the like apartment that he's renting because he's renting that apartment so that he can more easily stalker elaine it's so she comes to him and she's like by the way

my mom told me that you raped her and he sets the record straight because to be fair that is not what happened but then you have this situation now where mrs robinson lied about having been assaulted which statistically rarely does not happen that often at all in real life but because of this culture we live in and this perception that oh when a woman or any survivor of rape or any kind of sexual assault comes forward and and says that this has happened she's lying and that's just popularly believed to be true so yeah let's let's unpack that because that i did not remember that at all me either and it is barely called like okay so first of all the baseline is is horrific because it's that she lies about assault which as you said and as there's been a bajillion studies like that barely happens and this is

presenting it very matter-of-factly as like well yeah she's a liar and and in this case that is canonically true so that's like again just like like, okay, this movie has a very low opinion of Mrs. Robinson, which is wild because there are moments like it was just driving me up a wall because it's like there are moments where it feels like you start with like, you should feel bad for this woman. Then there's a moment in like the middle where it's like oh you could actually empathize with this character and then she turns wildly evil it's impossible to track and i feel like i get so attached to those moments where you can really empathize with her and it makes the back half of

the movie just impossible i mean the whole movie is impossible but like the back half of the movie in particular you're just like what is happening um but on top of that like so she tells her family did she tell her husband that he also assaulted her or is that her because her husband says that he's divorcing her i'm like is he divorcing her because he thinks she was raped or was she honest with him and lied to her daughter i couldn't tell i don't think we know for sure okay which is a very weird thing to not tell these things need to be clear yeah i feel like those conversations should have happened on screen or something that like yeah we need more clarity there we should see the robinson's outside of ben at any time and i don't

think it takes away from and like and oh you're just walking around like i don't need to watch ben's stock someone for five minutes. I can safely assume that's probably what he's doing. It's all I've seen him do. But yeah, I was like, I wasn't sure what she had told her husband, which feels like really important information to not know. I don't really see the like narrative upside of not knowing right and then with i mean i know we haven't even finished the mrs robinson conversation but with elaine it gets even more confusing because she understandably like her mother told her i was raped by ben elaine has no reason to disbelieve like she has no reason to disbelieve

her mother so she goes to see ben very upset and confused also i don't know why she's going to see him but she does well she goes to confront him like why are you here is it because i'm here and then he's like yup he's like yep i love you and then she's like well you know my mom told me that you assaulted her and then he doesn't even like defend himself really he just she screams because she's i mean understood she's fucking confused and upset and then the landlord shows up and is like ben you have to leave which like fair yeah get out he's he's like something's not right about you and it's like yeah you're you're right the landlord and i can't believe i'm about to say this but the landlord is the hero of this movie it's just that that's muddled it's it's that messy but like

so the landlord kicks him up but like i really can't trace what's going through her head like she sees him get kicked out does perceive it as like oh it's my fault he's getting evicted because i screamed because i fully believed two minutes ago that he assaulted my mother but then by the time the door closes she apologizes and it's never explicitly stated that she no longer believes her mom, but all of her actions indicate that for some reason, watching him get evicted made her no longer believe her mother's rape allegations. I mean, he does kind of lay out the events of what we saw happen on screen, which I guess we are to believe that that is what happened. So he's like, no, I she came on to me and blah blah blah but then yeah elaine just automatically believes him and then feels bad that his landlord is yelling at him

and then she's like well i guess we can get married now i'll consider it and that's married it's like it's again and this is like i don't even like having to like entertain this situation but this is a moment where like if that is what the story wants to happen you have to know what her relationship with her mom is like yeah like has her mom behaved deceptively towards her before for is there any reason that she would be inclined to believe ben like a vague acquaintance over her own mom right does her mom have a habit of lying and manipulating her does she know that her mom has cheated on her dad in the past like is there is there either way you're the the message in 1967 is like don't believe women with rape allegations and and like that's just like a flop from the start like it's a non-starter but you you're given no information on like why her own daughter would believe this

like and i and i do think that that like speaks to the i don't even know it's so confusing because i whatever we weren't there it's like that could i guess i'll i'll say it's like that could speak to the cultural moment of like how prevalent believing men over women was at that time right that's not hard to believe but even so we're in fucking berkeley california in 1967 she is a college student you know it's like she's in the middle of second wave feminism and i'm supposed to believe that in the space of a scene she believes some guy she barely knows over her mom when she's like kind of in this like hotbed of second wave feminism like i just don't buy it i don't know right some guy who she's been on 1.1 dates with like that was bad and in most of it was her crying it's just so i mean it's like

the fact that rape allegations were brought into this it was just like so unnecessary truly complicates things immensely makes mrs robinson even more of a villain than we already were to believe she was and then makes Elaine just seem like a character without two brain cells to rub together like right which I mean let's take a break and then come back and try to make sense of this. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia.

I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free,

subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case.

Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do.

One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that?

You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.

They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back one more thing about this because yeah i mean i i hope we're not coming off as like sounding like overly dismissive it's just like it's really hard to talk about this plot point because it's like it's just so absurd in the way it's presented that it's like hard to take seriously. Because the characters behavior are just making no sense. And ultimately, I just I feel like my takeaway from that and the absurdity of how it's presented and the absurdity of how all the characters involved react is it's almost presented like it's a throwaway thing like it's a throwaway plot point

right which is something that for the most part like i've no longer happens in media because rape is not a throwaway plot point but we you know this is the 60s and this is a time where you could show rape on screen and present it as romantic this is a time that you know culturally in the u.s marital rape was legal like there there's just there's a lot there's a lot yeah but this movie is just like i think it's interesting for a movie that was presented as like cutting edge progressive to introduce a plot point like this and unintroduce it so abruptly really speaks to like, right. How, how glad I am. I wasn't alive then. Like, I don't know.

Right. Because this moment in the movie is basically just presented as an obstacle to keep Ben and Elaine apart. Because now Ben's desire is to be with Elaine. So now the movie has to present obstacles for them not to be able to be together. And one of these obstacles is this false allegation that I think we're meant to believe Mrs. Robinson makes because she, again, is so jealous that he has chosen her daughter over her that she's gonna do whatever it takes to keep them apart. Because that's just how jealous and shrewy she is. Like, that's what we're supposed to believe as an audience. Yeah. And it's like, it's like, well, let me know if

you agree with this. It feels like a lot of the the time like his stalking behavior is presented as like well they're forcing his hand what is he supposed to do yeah they won't let him be with her they won't let him see her so he has to stalk he has no yeah what choices he left with he was like she doesn't want to be with you like she had she's been in another relationship for months it's implied carl like carl god ultimately what happens to carl probably he does a lot of damage on wall street is my guess oh sure but carl i mean you do feel for carl for a single for a single second because he does get whacked with a cross and he thinks he's at his weddingrible day for horrible day for Carl. Not just left at the altar, but kind of like assaulted by the altar.

Haven't seen it before. Just like, wow. Insult to injury for Carl, but also he sucks. He does. Yeah. I don't feel bad for Carl.

Just Elaine needs to get out. Okay. So let's talk about Elaine's choices. Yes. And how they simply do not track at all we've already touched on some of them but she is written in such a way that she just makes whatever decision needs to be made so that ben can get what he wants no choices she makes no her changing her mind about something is ever prompted by anything that makes sense yeah like after months of stalking her which she calls out and is like why are you here is it because of me and he admits to it and then that is something that she's like well okay is not like now that I know you see you must be in love with me if you're if you

went through all the lengths to come here and stalk me like that must mean you really like me and and that's cool and I like that and and so now i'm gonna consider marrying you and then when they go from like being on bad terms to her coming around for again reasons that make no sense he starts coercing her into marriage and he's like let's go get our blood tests let's do this tomorrow but like what you've been on one date and to the point where it but at this point it's interesting because i feel like originally again it is very like the classic i'm gonna wear her down thing because at first it seems like she explicitly does not want to be stalked she's very upset about it she believes that he has assaulted her mother

yeah like yeah he's the last person she wants around but then because she believes him over her mom for reasons we don't understand and reasons that are not we are not meant to understand it's supposed to be like implicit for some reason because oh well ben's the lead character and mrs robinson is a woman over 40 so she's evil like that's why but by the end of this stalking behavior the behavior hasn't changed she just likes it. And it's like funny to her now. And she's like, oh, I could date. I could marry someone else. Blah, blah, blah.

And but it's weird because it's like she still seems annoyed with him. But it's like but now it's like it's flirty. It's a flirty stalk. You're like, blah. She jokes about it. She says. So he's like following her around everywhere. She's going on campus saying, marry me, marry me, marry me.

It's like that part in Arrested Development marry me you're like can you I'm just like can you like literally I feel like I sound like such a boomer we're not but I'm like get a job like what are you doing so oh my god he's trying to coerce her into agreeing to marry him tomorrow. And it's not just like, can we get married someday? He's like, let's do this tomorrow. And then she says,

as a kind of a joke, why don't you drag me off? If you want to marry me so bad. And he says, maybe I will like now they're joking about. Right. They're joking about how he's been stalking her. And,

and, and then she's like, well i might marry you but i have to talk to carl first because i also told him that i might marry him so this is just oh a female character written by men who is written in such a way that she will just agree to marry any guy that enters her life. So I have questions about that. I, again, I think that I'm,

I mean, okay, that's oversimplification, but again, I was going into like Jamie had canon world of like, what if a woman had been involved in a second of the writing process? And, and,

and what, what, what mysteries could have been unlocked? I am curious how aware the movie is. I mean, I'm going to operate from a baseline of no, based on this entire discussion. But I do think it is interesting and kind of telling that it doesn't appear that anyone in the movie

recognizes that the daughter is making her fate is similar to her mom's to the point where like i mean she's not she's she's not forced out of her education because she's pregnant she almost opts out of her education to get married which was a real pressure then and i also feel like you do get a little bit of class commentary the point of university is to find a suitable husband bros already has that and that was 50 years five years before this and but like and i do think that there is like whether it's like super intended or not some class commentary there of like you know rich women only go to college so that they can find a suit you know they can marry a rich man there is a level and and i think that that's why the parents are so

invested in like it seems creepy because it is but like the parents are very invested in these two rich kids marrying each other to like maintain class and like that's a very real thing right this movie might be sort of aware of that but i just wonder because it's like it does seem like elaine is like her fate will be similar to mrs robinson's like and i do think the movie acknowledges that especially based on how like that last shot at the very end yeah exactly we're like after that initial excitement wears off where they're like tiki i just ran away from a wedding and we got on a bus it's just like wait a second who are you their their faces drop and

yeah i think they're both realizing like this horrible mistake that they've made and i would hope especially elaine is like what did i just do it was not a mistake for her to run away from her wedding with carl because also she definitely should have done that anyway who's carl but i just hope she's like can you drop me off at berkeley please i have to finish my bachelor's degree right what a wild weekend um please bring me back to school um yeah because it's like i i do i totally agree where it's like it's one of the most famous parts of this movie is that they clearly realize that they've made a mistake at the end but i guess i'm more questioning the specific of like does she realize it is similar to what happened to her mother specifically i i'm not sure because of that one interaction the one interaction you see

these two women have is mrs robinson yelling like she's fucking jafar like she's like it's too late like you know oh yeah like ursula uh yeah like name any disney renaissance villain the sun has set and now she's a mermaid she turns into a big ass octopus like it's very villainous it's too late it's not a loving it's too late and then elaine says not for me and i'm like but you're but you're you you're tacitly agreeing to marry the biggest loser you've ever met which which is what Mrs. Robinson had to do. But she but I mean, she had fewer choices than Elaine. And it's like, Elaine, what are you doing? Like Mrs. Robinson, it's heavily implied in the scene that I think she's presented most empathetically and has the most self-awareness around women's issues for her generation was like

she got pregnant and the options are i'm sorry what word did you say she was heavy with greg thank you she got she got pregnant in the car so she gets pregnant in a car and her options societally are marry big Greg or, you know, live in shame. And like there are very few options available to her. She can't have an abortion. Certainly at that time. She can't. Not legally. Not legally.

And and even if she were able to access abortion as a fairly privileged woman there you know you would carry that stigma throughout your life and like i do feel like the movie presents how she was given no choice and kind of like pushed into this loveless marriage which does make you more empathetic for like she wants to feel seen and validated physically because she and her husband are not a good sexual match but she's stuck with him and like that is a really interesting story to present and like a really interesting generational conflict to present but then it just totally dropped like i just it dropped that scene is so interesting to me because it completely drops to the point where i don't even know why they bothered you know like

right and then and then it's it's as if the movie says well yeah of course this wasn't going to be sustainable and when a more age-appropriate woman comes along in a lane well obviously that's going to be a better match but because we barely see Ben and Elaine interact, we don't know why they're into each other. Most of their interactions are wholly negative. Like, right. And like, what do they have in common? There's that scene where there's like a car full of loud people next to them and they're like, shut up.

And then so they like, I kind of thought that was like funny that they did that. But then I was also like, well, you're just like, sure, I guess. Well, then like Ben puts the convertible top on his car it's the sound of silence caitlin it's the sound of the program but rather than us hearing the conversation between ben and elaine then and give the audience a chance to be informed about you know what they might have in common or what why they're into each other we don't hear their dialogue and we just continue to hear the loud teenagers in the car next to them and it's like it's so frustrating because and also like it's i'm not even you know whatever we're not asking that these women be perfect no absolutely not and it's not even you know it's by no means

off the table to have a child make the same mistake that their parent made and not realize that's something that happens pretty frequently it is like a topic that's worth exploring but it just like seems like the movie like doesn't even really register that that's what they know that elaine's making a mistake and that being with Ben is a mistake and that Ben is my interpretation of Ben's behavior is he basically asks her like he does get like forced into taking her on a date. But then I feel like he keeps pushing it almost as revenge against Mrs. Robinson more than out of a genuine love for Elaine, which you would think would outrage Mrs. Robinson on the basis of her daughter's life is going to be fucked up but no it's out of you know spiteful revenge yeah you know over for what for Mr. Fuck I don't think so yeah the satire is present but it's not clear enough. And it would be more clear if we got more interaction or really any interactions between Elaine and her mother.

Right. And like some kind of awareness. The amount of stuff that could have been cleared up in the space of a few scenes with them, we'll never know. Because it's like it is. Right. It would be interesting to see this movie from elaine's perspective because it's really hard to connect the dots here's a joke that i've been trying to figure out how to wedge into the story that isn't gonna land but

oh okay what if don't be so sure what if that's what swiss family robinson is about we get their perspective okay and i don't know what that is though what i barely know what it is either it's it was a show maybe oh or maybe it was a movie i don't know it. It was some media. I was thinking of Little Debbie Swiss Rolls. Swiss Family Robinson. I want to say it was a show in some decade about this family who like. Were they Swiss? I think they got shipwrecked. I want to say they were probably Swiss, but I don't remember.

They got shipwrecked on an island and then they like built this whole like jungle gym and like out of tree houses. It's just like a tree house situation. That sounds kind of fun. I might not be remembering this correctly yet. Let me just do a quick Google. What you're saying kind of reminds me of something different, but the boxcar children. Oh.

Remember them? Yeah. Yeah. Sure. The boxcar children. Oh. Remember them? Yeah, yeah, sure. Swiss Family Robinson is a 1960 film. Okay. About... Oh, yeah. When their ship gets damaged en route to New Guinea.

Okay. They take refuge on a deserted island and the Robinsons live to learn in the wild and they have various adventures and build an impressive house in a tree okay that sounds kind of fun however while island life is full excitement the question of whether to return to civilization looms interesting okay i'm let's talk about that no did you ever read boxcar children um i don't know that I ever did. I feel like those books were on my shelf as a kid, but I don't know if I ever picked them up and read them.

I liked them, but I do remember if I'm, and Boxcar Children had Sound Off, if you remember. My memory was I was disappointed because the first, they're like orphans and through some sort of series of unfortunate events let's say they do have to live in a boxcar temporarily okay but i went into the series because there's like a million of them the books not children i went into them being like oh this is good they're gonna always they're the boxcar children they're gonna keep living in the boxcar they're gonna travel from place to

place they only live in the boxcar for the first book oh well i mean that's good for them i mean it's good for them but i you were like i want to know about these boxcar children living in these in this boxcar for the rest of their dang lives i was just more interested in where the boxcar was gonna go i thought it was gonna be sort of like a little travel kind of adventure they go from place to place in the boxcar. It's just not how this, that's not the series went in a different direction and I can, I can respect that.

Sure. That, that happens anyway. So this movie, the female characters in this movie are written in a way that's very frustrating. Yeah. Pretty inscrutable. Their choices make no sense in the case of elaine or they go

from pathetic to evil in the case of mrs robinson and with ben i feel like we've called we've addressed most of his behavior i think the thing that we have not gotten around to that i was truly uh did not remember it at all and i was struck uh was when he told his parents that he was getting married to elaine and then slowly was like but i haven't asked her and she doesn't know and she doesn't like me by the way and it's tomorrow and now i'm taking your car to stalk her in berkeley and you're just like oh my god to the point where i was like well at least the parents also seem completely confused as to what the fuck is going on but the parents are also like so so supportive of whatever their weirdo son wants

to do that they don't whatever i just it does it does give me gen x like you don't understand mom meanwhile mom is like in love with you would do anything for you would die for you and you're just like oh you're stifling me i'm like oh my god she literally just bought you a car she bought you a car yeah she didn't make you get a job like what what are you talking god i'm feeling like a real auntie right now okay um but that scene just absolutely blew my mind and i know that that scene is supposed to be funny which i did laugh but it was because i was nervous because i'm afraid of him i'm afraid of the character ben right pp or whatever his name is i did he freaks me out he makes me really uncomfortable um yeah okie dokie a scene that i did genuinely laugh at was one of the many times ben is floating in the pool at his house

he can't stop he can't stop won't stop his dad kendall comes up and he's like you can't just be floating in the pool all the time son you got to go out there and make something of yourself and then he's like wanna bet and his dad's like are you gonna go to graduate school or what and ben says either like no or i don't know and then his dad is like well then would you mind telling me what those four years of college what all that hard work was for and then ben's like you got me and i'm like haha that is funny because it's like college is a scam right and it's like there are moments where you're like this movie like is not completely unselfaware like they it does make a couple of points about like whatever like the the aimlessness of rich kids i feel like is at some points in the movie

feels pretty cogent but then it you know under i mean i don't know i mean maybe that does sort of come through throughout because by the end you're just like oh ben has made yet another selfish reckless rich boy decision by like doing this but we are supposed to be rooting for him but i do that like right i feel like that got like a percentage of the way there because he is a privileged, aimless fucko who doesn't know what he wants and will flop his way through life. And like, again, which is like they start to explore it. But like things don't make enough sense for you to really be able to explore that topic with any sort of thoroughness or effectiveness but i guess you do you do i guess to the movie's credit you do get the vibe that it's like this person has so much privilege that they literally don't know what to do with it and they're just making reckless decisions that are hurting other

people um he has no understanding of other people he has really no interest in other people and i do feel like the movie is at least aware of that um he's a very very selfish person and it's like i don't even think this movie is bad but i just i just i just think it's like so i mean up its own butt in a weird way like i just don't it's so of its time that i get it's really hard to interact with right there were a lot of things where I'm like yeah Elaine is just agreeing to marry any guy who goes on one date with her but I'm like is that just how it was in the 60s like maybe there are things I feel like there is a way that you could acknowledge that like there's a way that you if that is a because I do like that definitely was a pressure that existed in the 60s

and maybe if that's asking too much of a movie because it's like if you were watching it in the time it came out you would have just known that right so that is completely possible but i just i don't know maybe i have this complete misunderstanding of central california in the 1960s but it was like not making sense to me if If this happened in like Idaho, it would make more sense to me than if it was happening in like this hotbed of activism. It just like wasn't. But also it's like I think that you very well may be right. It's like if you were if you were there, you would know like people. I mean, I know people like I know that my mom had friends who dropped out of college to get married. Like, they're, you know, it's, it definitely was a thing throughout most of the 20th century.

Right. I just don't understand why. I just don't think we know Elaine well enough to have the context for why it's happening for her. Slash at all. We don't know her really at all. No. Do we know what she's matriarch? We don't know her really at all no do we know what she's majoring in we don't mean but to be fair we also don't know what ben majored in that is true i don't think that is true so maybe

and maybe the message there is like higher education is pointless which is not completely wrong um so i mean i'm pro-education to be be clear. I'm just anti, why does it cost $60,000 a year to go to school? And I'm also anti, I'm against, yeah, overpriced education for things that you could just learn for free. Learn on the mind or something. Well, it's just, I mean, God, whatever. Like, my alma mater offers a comedy major, which I think is straight up financial exploitation. Yes.

You do not need to pay $250,000 to go to an open mic. Famously, you have to pay like, you know, $12 at the beginning because they do make you, you know, have two Narragansetts or whatever. But like get a, whatever. That's not, but, you know, get a Narragansetts or whatever. But like get a, whatever. That's not, but, you know, get a degree for things you need degrees for. Certainly not a master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University, though. I was, you know, most of the arts, you could probably skip it. Skip it.

Or, you know, go to an affordable university. Right. Okay. I wanted to talk a little bit the I think the like the last topic I wanted to discuss was Mrs. Robinson's sexuality and how it is presented and the ups the downs the in-betweens because we we've sort of I mean we we had no choice but to really get into the weeds as to like what the characters are thinking and i do i will fully acknowledge to any of our listeners who are older than us that there might be generational things that we are missing here for sure absolutely but i also think

that there's just a lot of stuff in this that a lot of the women's specifically motivations don't make a ton of sense even if the realities of of the era are true like there's no need to vilify mrs robinson with no context whatsoever right there's no reason to not show the mother and the daughter's relationship there's no reason that we don't know what mrs robinson told her husband like the movie just doesn't really have interest in many facets of its women right but i do want to discuss it because for a character not an actor but for a character that's over 40 and a woman i feel like it was edgy at the time to even present her as sexually viable. Certainly. Yeah.

And again, that's going to be a double edged situation because her sexuality is it is like presented as like, it's clear that like Ben desires her. There's no doubt that like, they are attracted to each other physically. He's like, yeah right he says i find you the most attractive of all of my parents friends so he has to like put a little kind of a funny line like you know terms and conditions on it i do think that is kind of a funny line but like yeah i i feel like we've talked about so many movies where women past whatever age it is for the era it's coming out in, their bodies past a a very viable, desirable woman. But then there also are these moments where we're supposed to feel badly for her. But it's weird. I feel I do

like the core idea of like a movie in the late 60s presenting a woman over the age of like 30, who's like married and like cheating on her husband and like all the stuff you didn't see very often and still presenting her as like this sexy complicated person at the beginning of the movie but but again it like is kind of a zero-sum game because of how coercive she is at the top and then how villainous she is and so there's just like there's 20 minutes where i'm like really rooting for her right and and if you're if you're able to see past the way the movie wants you to look at her and just kind of and like which i think you can totally and you know that's how i'm reading the movie. But yeah, right. It's it's so limited. And then she turns into like a sea witch.

She literally it's it's too late. I think that is what Ursula said. It is literally what Ursula said. It's too late. And then yeah. And then Elaine turns back into a mermaid. That's a whole thing but no i i agree that it's it's you know not nothing that this is a movie at least in part about a relationship a

sexual relationship between an older woman and a younger man and one that is not because we've examined many relationships in movies on the podcast where it's like illegal or like don't even get me started about licorice pizza you know but um this one it's certainly i think society would consider it taboo because she's like old enough to be his mom but he is a full adult a young adult you know he's only 20 or 21 but a young adult you know he's he's able to make his own choices as a legal adult so yeah it's not even it's not the age gap that troubles me it's it's all about her approach to entering this relationship with him and but so if if the movie eliminated that which i wish it would have if it was just about a woman who yeah like i'm trapped in this marriage in this sexless marriage with a man who doesn't desire me or appreciate me or love me or, you know, any of the things that you want out of a relationship.

I'm seeking love and affection and validation elsewhere. Like this is a very relatable thing for a lot of people. Or even like I'm seeking a no strings attached sexual relationship. Also fine. Right. Right. Could have been. And then it's like I feel like there's an alternate version of this movie where they're like I just feel like their sexual experience, even in like the traditional like tropes of sexual experience doesn't track where it's like you would think. And it does.

I mean, we don't have proof that mrs robinson has done this before but i feel like we're supposed to believe that she's been cheating on her husband for some time it's certainly within the realm of possibilities yeah she's more she's way more experienced than he is so the fact that she's the one that ends up getting jealous and it's not like him and again this is not a universal experience but i feel like it's often portrayed and i don't know it was it was my experience i know it's some people's experience that like the first person that you have sex with sometimes like you have you develop a attachment to that person you want a relationship with them

it would like the dynamics like don't even make sense. I track very well. Right. And I don't know. It's just. So this could have been a story that is just far more empathetic to the women in the narrative and just like more thoughtful and interesting but instead it just like leans into the trope of older women are desperate and pathetic and if they want sex then that's scary and evil beware which the movie feels differently about at different times it's very confusing by the end it's like she's evil to have ever wanted sex but then oh pp like i just even can i can i unfortunately share a roger

ebert quote but i do think it's an interesting one yeah please so he i i referenced this earlier i have the quote now so he like prays the hell out of this movie when it came out in 1967. Then he covered it again in 1997. What? The year Titanic came out? I know. I'm like, don't you have anything better to do? Like watch Titanic 500 times?

Like watch Titanic? But I thought his reflection was interesting so here it is um quote it comes out at a specific time in the late 1960s when parents stood for stodgy middle-class values and the kids were joyous rebels at the cutting edge of the sexual and political revolutions today looking at the graduate i see benjamin not as an admirable rebel but as a self-centered creep whose put downsdowns of adults are tiresome to know that the movie once spoke strongly to a generation is to understand how deep the generation gap ran during that extraordinary time in the late 1960s unquote

so you know a moment of of clarity from our pal roger good old friend roger I think that was a pretty thoughtful reflection and also the other thing that's like left out of this movie that you would think would be but like just historically you're like why is like the war not being discussed at all like there's all this stuff that like it

was such a politically charged time and it does give the movie like the illusion of timelessness, but it does feel like there's these huge context holes that aren't there that you would think would be on a 21-year-old's mind. For a movie that's supposed to be about this radical generation, it is pretty, outside of the class commentary,

pretty apolitical in its views like it's not really saying what people thought it would say i don't i don't know or maybe it was saying something at the time and it no longer scans for modern audiences i don't really know i just know that it's a it's a baffling watch for me same I just can't be asked to sympathize with an extremely privileged white man. Who is a stalker and a creep. But again, it's like, unfortunately, not the first or the last character that we've been asked to make that leap of faith with. And then people at the time were happy to do it it's just fucking joker money else i mean i don't want to talk

about joker not today um look i love katherine ross i didn't i didn't know did you know that she's married to sam elliott i did know that i didn't but that's one of those things i learn and then i forget and then i learn it again like a year later and i'm like oh yeah i really like her um okie doke uh do you have anything else you wanted to touch on i don't believe so okay so this movie does not pass the bechdel test i don't think um there's that one interaction between the the two of them but I think that Ben is so heavily the subtext of that and marriage to a man is so heavily the subtext of the Ursula Ariel interaction that I don't count it can you refer to that scene that you're talking about because I don't even remember an interaction between them I know there's a scene

where they're like in the same house it's at the wedding it's the it's the last interaction before elaine and ben run away it's um mrs robinson grabs elaine's arm says it's too late elaine says not for me and then mrs robinson starts hitting her do you remember now yeah Yeah, very cool. Yeah. So that definitely does not pass. And the only other time women are in the same room is at the parties. And then I don't even think we know like what Ben's mom's name is.

We don't know who those people are. We never see them again. And they are all talking about ben yeah like do we even know what mrs robinson's first name is like i want to just check really quick to see if we no you don't you never find out what her first name is it's it's all mr and mrs yeah i'm i mean i'm not inclined to give this movie any leeway or benefit the doubt it doesn't it doesn't pass everyone's talking about benjamin all the time and it's exhausting and uh with that in mind let's let's pivot over to our metric

the nipple scale zero to five nipples based on looking at the movie through an intersectional feminist lens i'm gonna give this movie i will give it a half nipple okay and i'll give it that instead of zero nipples because i do think it was a cool choice to tell a story and you know adapt a major motion picture which would become the highest grossing movie of that year, a story about a kind of like taboo subject in an older woman and a younger man. And you can make an argument that it is not appropriate or like the age gap is too big. You can make an argument that it is not, it's fine because they're both legal consenting adults i understand kind of both sides not to be a centrist over here but um okay

mr biden thanks for your insight but i appreciate any any story that is willing to explore kind of like a, a cultural taboo around that, especially when older women's sexuality is so often demonized and made to seem grotesque and horrific and scary, which this movie ultimately does to some extent, but there's that interesting 20 minutes where you think maybe it won't. And then it's right. But but the precedent had been set of her being so pushy and coercive that you kind of did see that going in that direction.

Right. But I so I appreciate this movie, you know, exploring that topic. It mishandles it and it mishandles everything else. And it asks us to, you know, root for a character who spends the back half of the movie doing nothing but stalking his love interest. It turns the front half of the movie being the most boring man alive, like sitting around in a pool all day just lapping up his luxurious life but i agree with you i do agree with you that it's like this movie is tackling a topic that no one else was tackling in a major movie especially successfully so it's a real bummer that that it's handled very fumbles it so badly yeah so i'll give it a half interesting that an attempt was made right so i'll give it a half nipple for that it's also an extraordinarily white movie oh yeah um we're in

fucking california during like it's just it's it's absurd that it's as white as it is so yeah one half nipple and i'll give it i'll split it between anne bancroft and katherine ross uh i'll meet you there i think half a nipple uh you know an attempt was made and i do like that the movie gives you more information about mrs robinson's backstory than anyone else in the movie including ben but then leverages that against her for the remainder of the movie for reasons that are absolutely baffling to me um i yeah i mean we've we've talked about it quite a bit i feel like there's just like there's a lot of interesting potential in this movie that didn't just go nowhere just completely undercut

where it could have gone so i yeah ultimately very bummed out by most of the creative choices in this movie. I love Anne Bancroft. I love Catherine Ross. Their characters deserve better. Their characters deserved to talk to each other and maybe even make sense. So I'll split it between them as well. I don't see myself watching this movie again nope well well with that here's to you mrs loft funkel here's to you mrs der funkel

jesus loves you more and you will know oh my goodness thank you so much um yeah so that's the graduate um sorry it is sorry if you're mad but again argue with the wall we're right i know okay yeah yeah hey give us a little follow on twitter and instagram at bechtel cast you can scoot on over to our patreon aka matreon at patreon.com slash bechtel cast where you'll get two bonus episodes every single month plus the entire back catalog of well over 100 bonus episodes that you can't find anywhere else uh yeah and right now, it's Jamie's birthday month. And what are we going to do? None of your business.

I guess you'll just have to tune in and find out, huh? Wow. We're going to have some fun. We're going to have some fun. I can't wait. And you can check out our merch if you so please at tpublic.com slash the Bechtelcast. And with that, Caitlin, do you want to get on a municipal bus with me and have some regrets? I would love to, Jamie.

Hello, darkness, my old friend. A Der Funko classic. Love it. All right. Bye. Bye bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks everywhere

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available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. MTV's official challenge podcast is back for another season. Available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. That's me, Davon Rogers, and we're here to take you behind the scenes of the Challenge 40 Battle of the Eras. Join us as we break down each episode, interview challengers, and take you behind the scenes of this iconic season. Listen to MTV's official challenge podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do.

What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, They're just dreams.