The Graduate

In the 1967 movie, The Graduate, directed by Mike Nichols, Benjamin has just graduated from a college in the northeast and is drifting.  He did everything in school, being a star on the track team, working on the school newspaper, and a host of other involvements.  Too many for any college student I could imagine, perhaps done that way intentionally in order to create contrast.

While Benjamin is supposed to be selecting a graduate school in order to use the prestigious scholarship he won, he doesn't seem to have a clue as to what to do next.  He camps out at his parents' house, avoids meaningful conversation with adults, and worries despite the advice of some that he should just sow his wild oats for a while.

His father's partner's wife enters the picture -- the infamous Mrs. Robinson -- and Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson begin seeing each other in secret at the Taft Hotel.  When the Robinsons' daughter returns from Berkeley, Benjamin is pressured by his parents to take her on a date.  Despite his attempts to be rude and uncaring, he ends up having feelings for Elaine.  And this sets off  a firestorm in Mrs. Robinson who is normally so cool and collected.

At the end of the movie, Benjamin is able to win his Elaine, much as he won the scholarship and the accolades in college.  Elaine who believes that Benjamin loves her deep in his heart is beginning to realize at the end of the movie that Ben simply wanted her because he couldn't have her. 

Now that he has realized his ambition, he and Elaine sit in the back of an old bus heading down the road from Santa Barbara to nowhere.  He doesn't have a job.  His Alfa Romeo is out of gas somewhere on a roadway in the other direction.  Elaine is wearing her wedding dress, has no luggage, and they have no money to speak of.  Benjamin's quest is over; he sits calmly and in a daze.

There are plenty of people who might not go to the extremes that Benjamin did, but nonetheless they are on a race towards what they think they want -- and it becomes an obsession. 

Some might even say, "Yeah, I rode on that bus."  And I'm going to tell you that I DID ride on that bus.  The crazy story though it sounds made-up is true.  Kent State was looking for some buses and needed them in a hurry.  The campus had grown in 1968 and students were complaining about the long walk from the far away dorms.  KSU bought a number of rust-free buses from California -- and you guessed it -- one of them was used in filming the last scene in The Graduate.  No lie.

And I rode on that bus many, many times during my senior year in college.  How did I know?  Because Kent put a placard on the bus where advertising was probably placed over the years that told us just that.  And a number of couples chose to ride in the rear seat just for fun.

The obsession of Benjamin's kind of goes along with that old saying, "Be careful what you wish for."  But on the other hand, Benjamin went far beyond wishing, and sometimes so do we.

Always we must keep in mind what we learn in the Bible, "Do all things to the glory of God."  If we do that; if we stay the course; if we persevere, then we are in the race all right, but we are in the right race.  We have no idea of what is going to happen to Ben and Elaine when reality continues to set in.  It's one of those mysteries.  Optimists might point out that the two of them had more in common than not.  The pessimists might point out that Ben and Elaine don't have a future whatsoever.

"Do all things to the glory of God."

God Bless.