Page 2, Cinematic Depictions
Tom
is comforted by his housemaster's new wife,
Laura, with whom he is already entranced and infatuated.
She tries to offer him "tea and sympathy,"
as faculty wives often do, but becomes deeply involved
in his dilemma. Tom's sympathetic roommate suggests
that he have a "date" with the town tramp,
a gossip who will certainly tell everyone the next
day that he "proved" his masculinity with
her through having sex. Laura tries to stop Tom from
going on this date, and in this scene Tom attempts
to kiss her. When she retreats from the kiss, he bolts
from the room and goes on his date, where, unable
to perform sexually, he attempts suicide with a kitchen
knife. He is stopped from killing himself but is expelled
for going out after hours to the woman's apartment.
Tom's father is initially overjoyed when he
thinks Tom got in trouble because he proved his manhood
through sex with a woman, but is stricken and contemptuous
when he discovers Tom could not complete the sex act.
Meanwhile,
Laura and her husband are revealed to have serious
marital difficulties. She asks him why they "rarely
touch any more." Although she wants to preserve
her marriage, she wants a man who is more emotionally
sensitive and expressive than her husband, who is
jealous of Laura's interest in Tom. She points
out, "I gave him the affection you didn't
want and wouldn't have." She acknowledges
a desire to give Tom a sexual experience that would
quell his doubts about his manhood. She accuses her
husband of needing "a scapegoat to reaffirm
your shaky position" about being a man.
Later,
Laura discovers that Tom has run away, leaving a suicide
note, and she finds him in the woods. She tries to
convince him that he is indeed manly, but he says
he will never again try to be sexual with a woman.
After a brief inner struggle, she kisses him and this
leads to a sexual experience that will presumably
consolidate his identity as a man. It is implied that
Laura is doing him a great service, perhaps even making
a sacrifice to save him. There is certainly no hint
that sexual abuse of a minor by an adult is involved.
In the play upon which the movie is based, Laura has
a famous curtain line that in the movie version she
says before the two make love: "Years from now,
when you talk about this -- and you will -- please
be kind."
The
movie is much vaguer than the original play about the
accusations of homosexuality, and focuses instead on
Tom's effeminacy. In addition, it contains an
odd addition, apparently written at the insistence of
the Breen office, the Hollywood censors responsible
for safeguarding the moral tone in movies, and the Catholic
Legion of Decency (Russo, 1987). They would not permit
a story line in which homosexuality was mentioned explicitly
or adultery seemed to be encouraged, although they apparently
were willing to allow the movie to show a sexual relationship
between an adult woman and a schoolboy. Because of their
concerns, the movie is framed by a flashback from Tom's
ten year school reunion. At the reunion, Tom finds a
letter from Laura, who separated from her husband immediately
following her liaison with Tom. She wrote the letter
after reading a novel Tom subsequently wrote about their
relationship. Tom has been indeed "kind"
in conveying what happened between them in a positive
light, and she thanks him, but says he portrayed her
as too "saintly." She wishes Tom well in
his marriage, thus telegraphing to the audience that
he is indeed not gay and implying that perhaps she did
save his life by having a sexual relationship with him.
She goes on, however, to say she was wrong to ignore
her husband's needs for her, which were as great
as Tom's, and that the husband suffered over the
years because of her actions. There is no suggestion
that Laura did wrong to engage in sex with a high school
boy.
It
is implied in Tea and Sympathy that "real"
men, in addition to always welcoming sex with women,
are likely to scorn the women who allow them sexual
favors. Listen again to Laura's line before
they make love: "Years from now, when you talk
about this -- and you will -- please be kind"
(emphasis added). She thus suggests that he will become
a man and, like all men, will then boast of his youthful
sexual initiation. There is no sense that he will
consider that she has been sexually abusive or even
inappropriate with him, but she does expect him to
be abusive ("unkind") to her as he retells
their story.
In
The Graduate, a dark comedy, Benjamin, a recent college
graduate, is not actually underage, but his erotic,
tortured affair with Mrs. Robinson, the bored wife of
his father's business partner, has the emotional
impact of a molestation of an adolescent by an older,
more powerful mother-substitute. Her more dominant position
is underlined by her remaining "Mrs. Robinson"
to him, even when they are having an affair, while he
remains "Benjamin" to her. She blatantly
and singlemindedly sets out to seduce him. When he says
so ("Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce
me!"), she dismisses his accusation while furthering
the seduction and then blaming him for it: "Would
you like me to seduce you? Is that what you're
saying?" When they are interrupted by the arrival
of Mr. Robinson, Mrs. Robinson urgently tells Benjamin
that he should telephone her and they can "make
some kind of arrangement." Benjamin is confused
but obviously excited and aroused by Mrs. Robinson.
He does call and makes a date. When he tries to stop
their liaison before it is consummated, she pushes him
to complete the sex act by pointedly suggesting he is
an "inadequate," inexperienced lover. Throughout
their relationship, it is clear that Mrs. Robinson is
only interested in Benjamin for sex. When he asks if
they can converse, she tells him they do not have much
to say to one another.
"What
happens when we reverse the sex of the participants?
...I believe the issue of abuse would have arisen
much more clearly than it did in reactions to the
films as written."
The
relationship is waning when Elaine, Mrs. Robinson's
daughter, comes home and Benjamin's parents
press him to ask her out. In the ensuing complications,
Benjamin and Elaine fall in love. Mrs. Robinson is
viciously determined that Benjamin not get involved
with her daughter, eventually accusing him of rape.
At the end, Benjamin interrupts Elaine's hastily
scheduled wedding to another man, and the two flee
together, leaving the "adults" behind.
In the final frames, they look at each other on the
bus they have taken, she still in her wedding dress,
and seem to have no any idea about what will come
next in their lives.
Harold
and Maude is an eccentric comedy about the relationship
between Maude, an 79-year-old woman, and a young man.
Harold is of indeterminate age, since he looks fifteen
or even younger, but he drives a car, seems to be
out of high school, and is eventually pressed by his
mother to marry. His preoccupation with death and
suicide is compellingly conveyed through blackly humorous
scenes of staged suicide attempts and attendance at
funerals of people he did not know. Maude, on the
other hand, despite her age and commitment to dying
at the age of 80, is full of zest, passion, and enthusiasm
for life. Their story is erotic in the literal sense
of the word; it is about how eros (life) is transmitted
from Maude to Harold. Nevertheless, a mostly understated
sexual component is present. They dance, there is
a scene in which they wake up in bed, and Harold decides
to marry Maude. At the end, Maude has serenely committed
suicide on her eightieth birthday. Harold, while grief-stricken,
has been transformed from his former melancholy, joyless
state into an animated, alive young man. The film
is hyperbolic rather than realistic in tone, and its
message is that his unconventional relationship with
Maude saves Harold's life.
The
Last Picture Show follows Sonny and Duane, two teenage
boys in their senior year of high school in a dusty,
rundown Texas town. In one of the major story lines,
Sonny begins an affair with Ruth, the 40 year old wife
of his football coach. Ignored by her husband, desperately
unhappy, looking pinched and old, Ruth has been spending
her time going to doctors for various ailments. At the
coach's request, Sonny drives her to one of these
appointments. Ruth is tearful afterwards, and slowly
she and Sonny draw closer to one another. Sonny is eager
for the sex Ruth seems to offer him, and in a short
time they become lovers. While he refers to her as an
old lady when talking to his friends, he seems to care
for Ruth, at least up to a point. As the months go on,
Ruth blossoms, beginning to look younger and far prettier
than before. The depth of her feeling for Sonny is apparent.
The two joke about how the coach would shoot them both
if he discovered their affair, but they do not seem
very worried.
Most
of the people in the tiny town know about their liaison
and seem to accept it. However, Duane's former
girl friend, a spoiled and selfish beauty, learns
of the affair from her mother. Momentarily unattached
and bored, she is outraged because Sonny had always
wanted to be her boyfriend, and she sets out to seduce
him. She succeeds easily, and Sonny does not show
up for his next rendezvous with Ruth, who is distraught
and crushed. He never contacts her, and does not allow
her to visit when he is hospitalized following a fight
with Duane over the girl they both want. Sonny only
returns to Ruth after the hit-and-run death of a retarded
boy he had cared about. At first, Ruth rages at Sonny
for never having contacted her, even to break things
off, and tells him he would have abandoned the retarded
boy just as he abandoned her. As she sees his pain,
however, she allows him to hold her hand, and the
implication is that they may begin their affair again.
Summer
of ‘42 is a bittersweet, nostalgia-drenched coming-of-age
movie, a memory story about a 15-year-old boy, Hermie,
and his introduction to sex. The first part of the movie
concerns Hermie and his two buddies as they explore
the world of adolescent sexual awakening while summering
with their families at the seashore. In this section,
Hermie has a crush on Dorothy, a beautiful war bride
in her twenties who lives in a house by the beach. He
sees her with her husband while the husband is on leave,
and, awestruck, finds ways to meet her and strike up
an acquaintance. There are comic moments as he tries
to sound grown-up and sophisticated, while she accepts
his attentions in an appropriately grave manner, treating
him seriously as a person, but not in any way as a suitor.
These scenes are juxtaposed with other humorous scenes
in which Hermie and his friends try to understand what
happens during sex. They discuss how to feel a girl's
breasts, and there is an extended farcical scene in
which Hermie works up the courage to buy condoms in
a drugstore. The boys meet up with girls their own age,
and Hermie's best friend "scores"
with one, to his own surprise.
Meanwhile,
Hermie continues his infatuation with Dorothy, egged
on by his best friend. He drops by her house one night
and finds her grief stricken at the news that her
husband has been killed in action. In this last part
of the film, Dorothy clings to Hermie for comfort.
As the scene slowly and seemingly without intention
becomes erotic, she wordlessly invites him to her
bedroom. Tears streaming down their faces, they make
love, clearly to give her solace. In addition, of
course, Hermie is introduced to the adult sexuality
he and his friends have been trying to understand
throughout the movie. Quite implausibly, Hermie, though
frightened, is a far more tender and able lover than
anyone might think after an earlier scene in which
we see him with a girl his own age, putting his arm
around her in a movie theater and awkwardly attempting
to touch her breasts -- to succeed only in cupping
her shoulder.
After
Hermie and Dorothy make love, no words are exchanged
except for goodbye. When Hermie returns the next day,
Dorothy has gone. She leaves him a sensitive note that
simultaneously thanks him, makes it clear this night
will never be repeated, wishes him well, and says that
some day he will grow to understand what happened. Hermie
never sees her again or hears what happened to her.
Lushly
scored by Michel Legrand, the movie presents the sexuality
as sweet, touching, and understandable under the circumstances.
Dorothy's good-natured understanding of Hermie's
adolescent crush and his sensitivity to her needs when
her husband is killed are idyllically portrayed. Conveniently,
they never have to face one another after their sexual
encounter. There is no sense of trauma, and we assume
he is a better person for this experience. Yet, the
movie begins and ends with voiceovers that give pause
to a careful listener. At the beginning, Hermie as a
man says, "Nothing, from that first day I saw
her, and no one that has happened to me since, has ever
been as frightening and as confusing. For no person
I've ever known has ever done more to make me
feel more sure, more insecure, more important, and less
significant." And, as the movie closes, he says,
"For everything we take with us, there is something
we leave behind. In the summer of ‘42 . . . ,
in a very special way, I lost Hermie forever."
These voiceovers subtly suggest that Hermie's
childhood ended prematurely, and that the relationship
with Dorothy in some way may have stopped him from other,
more mature and mutual relationships with women. Nevertheless,
the tender romanticism of the story leaves the viewer
with the sense that Hermie was a lucky boy, and that
Dorothy was fortunate to have had him to turn to in
her grief.
It
can be argued that in all these films the boy was
having consensual sex with the older woman. Is this
true or is it merely a sexist assumption about boys
and men always welcoming sex when it is offered, especially
by a woman? What happens when we reverse the sex of
the participants? Imagine for a moment the audience's
reaction to these story lines: A teacher's husband
seduces a sexually uncertain high school girl in Tea
and Sympathy. A middle-aged, married Mr. Robinson
sexually exploits the newly graduated daughter of
his close friend and business partner in The Graduate.
A dying eighty-year-old man has a final, life-affirming
erotic encounter with a teenage girl in Harold and
Maude. A middle-aged, lonely high school coach has
an affair with a high school girl in The Last Picture
Show. An older married man hears of his wife's
sudden death and turns to a 15-year-old girl for sexual
comfort and solace in Summer of ‘42. Had these
been the story lines, I believe the issue of abuse
would have arisen much more clearly than it did in
reactions to the films as written.
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