Ben Braddock: Great character but not a hero

The annual mid-May showing of The Graduate is one of Oberlin's few traditions.

I'm not usually one for traditions, but I am one for the film, so this year I took a break from paper writing and partook in tradition last Tuesday. The film I saw was disturbing, as it has always been. The audience's reaction was also disturbing.

It seemed to me that Obies weren't reacting to the irony of the excess of the film. Instead, they were reacting favorably to the excess itself.

As an audience, we made the protagonist, Dustin Hoffman's Ben Braddock, into one of us. I shouldn't generalize about what an Obie is, but I don't think Ben Braddock is a paradigm.

Ben is uptight and naive. At his Eastern college, he was a track star, a newspaper editor and debate team captain. He was also dull. The film begins after graduation when he returns to his family's home in Southern California to spend a summer figuring out life.

Before he can figure out his life, he's seduced by Mrs. Robinson, his father's partner's wife. Then he falls in love with her daughter, Elaine Robinson.

Sketches of excess reappear throughout the film. Ben drives an Alfa-Romeo convertible. His 21st birthday present is a SCUBA suit. His parents even have a conspicuously-placed four-slice toaster. The California promised land to which Ben retreats is paved with wealth.

And Ben indulges. He lies on his bed, staring at his tank of exotic fish. He reclines on a raft in his parents' pool. He shows no remorse for floating in affluence. He is privileged and happy about it.

I have little doubt that at least a few members of the Class of 1996 will find themselves in a similar place. Still, it doesn't seem like the right place. Ben is a fantastic character, but he's not responsible. He's not doing anything with his education, with what he's supposed to have learned in four years of college.

The Oberlin audience last week cheered loudly when Ben told his father that he did, in fact, intend to spend the summer relaxing and drinking beers.

The idea of a break is appealing. Even idealists should be allowed to take a breather and drink some beers. But the vigor with which we cheered Ben's declaration is disturbing. It might be telling about Oberlin. It might suggest that we don't fulfill the intentions we enter with.

Even the most cynical of us were probably lured here in part by the idea of changing the world.

Then we mature and, it seems, lose hope as we do. The second we arrive, the viewbook slogan, "Think one person can change the world? So do we," begins sounding like a joke. Education includes developing a sense of skepticism.

Then, at least some of us reach a point where we can whoop at - not merely snicker at - Ben Braddock-like indulgence. And we've lost that hope.

The unabashed support of indulgence I'm criticizing was loud enough to make the next few lines of the film hard to hear, but it didn't represent every Obie.

Many Oberlin graduates go from here to a commitment to service through the Peace Corps or Teach for America or lobbying groups and many follow artistic or business passions that have substantive ideals behind them. Not many of us would take the money-making career advice a family friend gives Ben - "One word: plastics."

But it does seem that many of us can relate to a realm where self-interest rules and that we're not all uncomfortable with such a world.

Ben has no consciousness of anything outside his elitist network of family friends. His family can support him as he sorts out his future. And he doesn't even have a consciousness of a future.

As the film ends, Ben has followed a passion; he has found love with Elaine. He and Elaine are on a bus together bound for points unknown and a future unknown. And there's no evidence that he's considered yet that there's a world around him.

A desire for a meaningful and responsible relationship with the world around us underlies Oberlin ideals - if such things can be defined. Part of forming a relationship with a bigger world is understanding and contemplating yourself, being introspective.

Classes can lead to introspection. Spending several years among people who are mostly of the same age and who have similar purposes can cause introspection, too. Oberlin can be a great place to come to think hard.

With service opportunities through the Center for Service and Learning and other places and with thoughtful communities in dorms that are more than places to live and particularly in program houses and co-ops, it's also a great place to come to do things for the little pieces of the world. In a place where "Learning and Labor" is the motto, the goal is to balance looking within and looking around, thinking about life and doing something about life.

For the 105 minutes of The Graduate last week, a packed Kettering 11, like bumbling Ben Braddock, forgot that balance. Great as the film is, that's not the kind of tradition we need.

Artitudes is a column for Review staffers to express opinions about the arts. Sports editor Geoff Mulvihill just completed his junior year.