Notes on An Essay on "Jewish Themes in THE GRADUATE(1967, dir. Mike Nichols)" by Brenton Sanderson

https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2020/07/26/jewish-themes-in-the-graduate-1967/

The Jewish Angle in THE GRADUATE has been much discussed. But whatever its implications and meanings, there's no denying the brilliance with which Mike Nichols made the movie, something that eluded him in later works... though CATCH-22 has its moments and CARNAL KNOWLEDGE is pretty compelling as an arty take on the Sexual Revolution. So, the talent has to be discussed in relation to the film's impact. THE GRADUATE would likely have failed with critics and audience in lesser hands, whatever its message. It's like almost no one talks about GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER or just about anything by Stanley Kramer. Though Nichols ultimately didn't turn out to be a great director, he made one great movie, THE GRADUATE, much like Ridley Scott surpassed his limitations one time with BLADE RUNNER. Likewise, other key works by Jewish directors of the period must be considered(even in criticism) with an appreciation of their power as artists, wits, dramatists, expressionists. Even if there is a Jewish angle to THE GRADUATE and other works by Jewish artists, there is much more than mere ethnic propaganda. Stanley Kubrick made 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. Roman Polanski made ROSEMARY'S BABY. Stuart Rosenberg made COOL HAND LUKE. Arthur Penn made BONNIE & CLYDE. Arthur Schlesinger made MIDNIGHT COWBOY. Richard Brooks made IN COLD BLOOD. Earlier in the decade, Blake Edwards made BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S. Though Sidney Lumet would come to greatness in the 70s and 80s, he was emerging as a force as well. (Norman Jewison, who made IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, isn't Jewish despite the name.)
Now, not all the above-listed directors attained greatness. Rosenberg made one great movie, COOL HAND LUKE, but was mostly a journeyman director. But for whatever reason, it was the Jews(and then some Italian-Americans) who were most adept at hitching onto the new sensibility and conceiving new possibilities for Hollywood. Of course, many new or newer talents were not Jewish. Sam Peckinpah, Robert Altman, Hal Ashby, and the like. But Jewish film-makers were among the key figures in the development of New Hollywood. They were bolder, hungrier, more curious, more radical, more hip to trends. They were also among the most admiring of the great European directors(most of whom were not Jewish) and some Japanese ones. Their impact on cinema was somewhat akin to Bob Dylan's on Rock Music, though it's arguable that the only Jewish film-maker to match the cultural significance of Dylan was Stanley Kubrick who struck a chord with both critics and the audience. To be sure, cinephilia of the Film Generation was somewhat different from the attitudes of Youth Culture. Whereas Rock fans had close to zero interest in pre-Rock music and foreign music — though Folk Rockers were more reverent of the past and other cultures — , Film Culture was about remembrance and international curiosity. So, the seminal film critics of the 60s didn't just discuss the latest trends and hottest hits but wrote extensively about foreign cinema and classic Hollywood. College kids who had no interest in music prior to Rock might nevertheless look up to Howard Hawks and Orson Welles as cultural heroes and icons.
Still, despite the respect accorded to the Old Hollywood greats by Andrew Sarris, Peter Bogdanovich, and their acolytes, the fact is the culture was changing fast. So, while even young cinephiles might marvel at a John Ford Western or Frank Capra comedy, they no longer believed movies could or should be made that way. There was a new spirit in the air, and Jewish film-makers were among the first to run with it. And yet, the Europeans and Japanese had been ahead of American Cinema in personal expression and experimentation. In a way, the new batch of Jewish film-makers had a greater affinity for non-Jewish-controlled foreign cinema and were rebelling against the Hollywood System controlled by old-fashioned Jewish executives and careerists. And they had their chance because the Old Studio system was either dead or moribund, just barely hanging on, as the result of Hollywood's loss of theater monopoly and the rise of TV.

One can socially critique movies like COOL HAND LUKE, THE GRADUATE, BONNIE AND CLYDE, and many others as hostile and subversive, and there is certainly a Jewish angle to this. Still, the real power and effectiveness of these works owes to their artistry, brilliance, and deeper implications than their apparent message, be it blatant or esoteric. It's like Shakespeare's HENRY V is more than a 'nationalist' piece of propaganda. Also, they were refreshing because there is a bit of anarchist in each of us that roots for the oddball, eccentric, maverick, outsider, or underdog. (The audience rooted for Sylvester Stallone in ROCKY because whites had become underdogs in boxing.) And the similar strains could be found in European and Japanese movies that were, if anything, even bolder in thumbing their noses at the established order and social norms. Nagisa Oshima, Shohei Imamura, and Hiroshi Teshigahara were not Jewish. Neither were European directors like Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard, Bo Widenberg, Fassbinder, Gillo Pontecorvo, and etc. So, in some ways, the Jewish American directors were following in the leads of European and Japanese cultural pioneers and enfants terribles, though one could argue that modern radicalism anywhere in the world was inspired in part by Jewish Influence.

At any rate, Jewish Power of Propaganda cannot be understood apart from the talent and visions that go far beyond whatever the original 'political' intent may have been. In some ways, David Mamet is an unpleasant Jewish chauvinist, yet he is also artist and thinker enough to raise questions and face truths that challenge his ethnic biases. (In contrast, Aaron Sorkin is a mere propagandist-hack, albeit a talented one.) Sergei Eisenstein's propaganda films are crude as message but works of genius as experimental formalism. ROSEMARY'S BABY would likely have been a third-rate movie in the hands of someone other than Polanski, just like JAWS would have been one more dumb monster movie if not for Steven Spielberg. (Polanski and other Eastern European directors are a special case. Whereas most of the great Western European directors were non-Jewish, many of the Iron Curtain's 'new wave' directors, especially in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, were Jewish. Though the White Right generally sees Jews as radical leftists, many of these Hungarian and Czech 'new wave' Jewish film-makers were problematic to communist authorities for their espousal of individualism, irreverence, satire, and/or something approaching libertarianism. Most were liberal than leftist, highly problematic as communism regarded liberalism as a bourgeois conceit. And even if not pro-capitalist, they leaned more towards social democracy than communism. Polanski detested communism, and Milos Forman, the Czech Jew in exile, found great success in Hollywood with ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, which would be very un-PC today, and AMADEUS, a work that is, at once, subversive of authority and defensive of genius as natural hierarchy.) Talent goes a long way, and whatever ideological agendas or ethnic biases may have shaped the works of Jewish directors, the top Jewish talents were not only born with natural intelligence but grew up with a genuine appreciation of arts/culture. As such, Mike Nichols' main objective was to make a popular but personal art film inspired by the cinema of Europe. (Nichols was especially impressed with Fellini's 8 1/2. THE GRADUATE also has nods to Michelangelo Antonioni and Francois Truffaut.) But if some American directors miserably failed at making Art Films— THE SWIMMER had all the elements to be a great piece of personal film-making but suffered from strained uneven direction, and Lumet's PAWNBROKER is an embarrassing assemblage of obvious homages to European Art House — , others found their own stride, and THE GRADUATE may be the most significant work in this spirit. At first glance, it seemed a Hollywood movie riffing on European Art film mannerisms, and yet, it was so genuinely American and Hollywood. Moreover, Nichols, unlike Lumet before him, totally made the work his own. Instead of imitation, he drew inspiration and found his own beat and rhythm. As such, while THE GRADUATE may resemble a work like BLOW-UP by Antonioni, it has a uniqueness all its own. Also, the great appeal of movies like THE GRADUATE and MIDNIGHT COWBOY owed to American Jews being less hung up with intellectual conceits. As much as they admired European cinema, they also loved humor, effect, and fun. Increasingly with European Cinema, there developed the purist notion that true art cannot be much fun or rely on time-tested conventions. Also, theory began to dominate practice. For instance, Pier Paolo Pasolini began his film career with lively works with expressive actors, but along the way, he got this idea that actors shouldn't act dramatically. Godard's films got increasingly self-conscious. Ingmar Bergman's films grew colder. Now, an artist who really knows what he's doing can make it work, as in the case of Robert Bresson. But too many aspiring auteurs in Europe became allergic to doing anything that might violate the monastic or radical mission of cinema as art or commitment.
In contrast, Nichols had far fewer such hang-ups. So, even as he drew certain ideas from European cinema, he was mindful to lots of humor along with the songs of Simon and Garfunkel, whatever worked. Such use of songs might have aeen deemed as cheating or relying more on non-cinematic expressions than on the pure possibilities of cinema. But the use of songs did wonders for THE GRADUATE, just like the use of classical music added another dimension to 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. So, Nichols and others like him had the best of both worlds: The new language of Art Cinema as personal expression but also the eagerness to please and win over the audience with timeless tricks of entertainment. And that is why THE GRADUATE, like HAROLD AND MAUDE, works on so many levels. It is seriously committed to cinema as art but also shameless in presenting a good show. New Hollywood was closer in spirit to Serious Rock — Later Beatles, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, CCR — than Modernist Music that took out all the fun from music.

So much of PC mentality is reductionist in evaluating works for their 'toxicity' level, e.g. 'racism', 'misogyny', 'sexism', 'homophobia', 'antisemitism', and etc. It's too bad that this tendency exists on the Right as well. Now, it's fair game to notice socially or politically problematic ideas and messages in any work, but the question still remains, why do certain works, regardless of their moral or political content, have such power and influence on the audience? And here, we have to address the matter of talent, brilliance, originality, and/or genius. While THE GRADUATE isn't the work of a genius, it is a brilliant piece of film-making, one where everything clicked together. (It both supports and subverts the cult of the 'auteur' as its miracle couldn't have been possible without Mike Nichols' guiding hand but also depended so much on the chemistry among the assembled cast and crew.) And also a poetic one, even if it amounts to pop-poeticism, like the songs of Simon and Garfunkel. Likewise, THE GODFATHER movies would likely have been nothing special and soon forgotten but for the understanding, knowledge, and skills brought to it by Francis Ford Coppola. There's no point to condemning or praising an entire work because of its said politics.

Turman bought the rights to the book for $1,000 and sent it unsolicited to Jewish director Mike Nichols (born Mikhail Peschkowsky) who signed on to the project. Turman’s search for financing led him to Jewish film mogul Joseph E. Levine—“the schlockmeister of the world”—who put up $3 million... Nichols assigned Jewish screenwriter Buck Henry (born Henry Zuckerman)... Songs by the Jewish duo Simon and Garfunkel were used for the soundtrack. Given the many Jews involved in the film’s production, it’s hardly surprising that Jewish sensibilities and ideological fixations pervade the final product.

But Jewish finance and Jewish producers had long been a dominant force in Hollywood. Also, Jewish writers had been embedded in Hollywood since its inception. And many music composers were Jewish. So, THE GRADUATE is hardly different from works of Classic Hollywood in the preponderance of Jewish money and talent.

In the hands of director Mike Nichols, however, the story became a scathing critique of bourgeois WASP American culture and the oppressive burden it purportedly imposed on young Americans. Nichols employs two recurrent visual metaphors to symbolize this oppressive culture: black-and-white stripes and water.

Many people saw the movie that way, but I'm not sure Nichols meant it that way. When pressed about Elaine and Benjamin by a young female fan of the movie, he answered that they'd probably end up just like their parents. Also, even though there is gentle mockery of upper middle class life, it's hardly hateful. (If anything, even as the audience is glibly laughing at the 'shallow' people in the movie, they are attracted to displays of affluence and the good life, also true of works like LA DOLCE VITA and LA NOTTE. Would THE GRADUATE have been as successful if it were about a working class guy living in a tenement? MARTY with Ernest Borgnine proved to be more or less a one-off thing.)
Benjamin's woes have less to do with social oppression than loss of youth. He's worried about the future, i.e. it has arrived, he's living in it, so it no longer exists for him. This is a universal problem faced by people all over the world. When you're young, the future is always something in the distant horizon. It's always a day ahead, like the song from ANNIE. Or consider how Scarlett in GONE WITH THE WIND always assures herself that 'tomorrow will be another day'. This procrastination about the future loomed larger among the boomer generation as more of them grew up in affluence, could attend college, and followed their bliss, that was as long as one was young and still at work or play. But school eventually ends, and one must be an adult with responsibilities and burdens. So, even though the movie is based on Charles Webb's novel, its spirit also flows from CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger. Braddock is not a victim of social oppression, that is made clear. His parents provided him with everything. He has a nice big room all to himself. He could attend the college of his choice far from home. His graduation gift is a fancy sports car. And as the movie makes clear, his parents pretty much allow him to do as he pleases. At one time, his father expresses displeasure with Ben's taking it easy, but he doesn't do much about it. Also, Mr. Robinson's advice to Ben is that he should sow some wild oats and have the time of his life(without realizing it would lead to an affair with his wife). Later, when his mother asks him what he does all night long and his answer isn't forthcoming, she just walks away and leaves him alone; she's a very understanding, even permissive, parent.

Ben also has no problem with job prospects. 'Plastics', he can make lots of money working for corporations. Or, he can continue with his education, especially as he got a scholarship. So, what is bothering him? His youth is over and thrill is gone. Whether work or more school, he feels his youth slipped by. It went from looking-forward-to-life to life-itself. He's going through what might be called the Beginning-Age Crisis, the crisis that befalls someone who realizes his youth is definitely over and his first chapter as an adult begins. He doesn't want to be like his parents or their friends, but it's not because he hates them. It's because it means just working, making money, and then growing old and retiring. Such is life, and there is no escape, and it's something everyone must accept at some moment, but Ben simply isn't ready yet to make the transition. (Perhaps, he feels especially cheated because his youth passed him by without him even having gotten laid or fallen in love or done something truly exciting.) And in the 1960s when youth itself became an identity in its own right, the boomers developed this notion of Forever-Young. They said stuff like "Don't trust anyone over thirty" without realizing they themselves would be over 30 sooner than later. So, Ben's problems are essentially personal and psychological(and generational) than social or cultural. The problem is not lack of freedom but too much freedom that he came to associate with youth. Finally, with graduation, he will have less freedom as a full-time worker who just grows older and becomes just another suburban man. Granted, there is a certain irony in his transition from student to full adulthood. On the one hand, he has more freedom after graduation. He doesn't have to attend classes anymore. He's his own man and can do whatever he wants. And yet, it's a freedom of responsibility, a kind of drag and burden. In contrast, while as a student he was more under the control of institutions and his parents who paid his tuition, he wasn't responsible for himself. As a son and student, his sole responsibility was to attend school and get good grades. He was taken care of, and furthermore, he could focus on knowledge and learning than on mundane matters of life. And he could always look to the future as something special. But the day finally arrived, and it just proved to be another day, and all the days following that day will turn him into just another suburban man. His life will be comfortable and affluent but not particularly meaningful, as only a tiny handful of people actually get to pursue their dreams.

The water metaphor is less about societal weight on Ben's shoulders than about Ben's emotional state of melancholy and confusion. In a way, the watery depth is more a solace than a prison. Notice how he keeps running back to his bed room from the graduation party full of admiring friends of his parents. These people are full of affection and praise for Ben. Hardly oppressive, but he finds the situation insufferable because they all remind him of what he will be in two or three decades. So, he would rather be in his room staring into the aquarium. Thus, he feels comfortably numb. The fish, like the ducks in THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, may stand for a more ideal existence. Unlike Holden Caulfield who doesn't know what to make of his life, the ducks naturally know to fly south for winter. The fish in the aquarium need not worry about anything as the tank is cleaned by humans and as they're regularly fed. Having graduated, Ben is out of the fish tank of childhood for good and in the river of adulthood. Later when we see Ben having a good time with his affair with Mrs. Robinson, we see him floating on the water glinting with sunlight. There's the memorable moment with the rain, but I think it was more for effect and mood than symbolism. It also foreshadows his desperate race against time later in the movie. Of course, as he sweats up a storm, he's his own rain-maker.
A special thing about THE GRADUATE is it finds a special beauty in the melancholy. In a way, Ben wants to break out or break on through to the other side, but the meaning is in the struggle, not in the victory. He studied hard all his young life to be a top student and graduated with honors, but it seems hollow once it's behind him. Same with his 'second graduation' with Elaine as trophy wrested from the church wedding. His greatest desire is to win her heart and make her his. It becomes an all-consuming passion and obsession... but once he has Elaine with him in the bus at the end, he begins to feel somewhat empty again. The dream is always sad, even a bit depressing, because its realization seems so elusive, even impossible. The dreamer hopes the dream will become reality, but per chance it does, the result is always bound to be anticlimactic. So, Ben is caught in a psychological trap. A neurotic-romantic, he's given to aching for what's beyond his reach. And yet, upon attaining his dream, he realizes that he was truly happy when he was in yearning. It's like hunger calls for satiation but, once satisfied, soon fades in pleasure.
Once he gets it, he realizes it's just one more trophy and life goes on. It's like the scene in BLOW-UP where a bunch of guys tussle over a broken guitar neck, but it is tossed aside soon after it's taken by one guy. It's the curse of a dream coming true. It just becomes more of mundane reality and loses its luster as future vision.

In a way, Ben's problem isn't all that different from the personal crisis of the young man in BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES. War was hell, and he dreamed of returning home alive in one piece. But as a civilian, he's just another Joe, just another guy working 9 to 5 to make ends meet. As horrific as war was, he was a hero and felt more alive precisely because death was everywhere. But back in the States, where life is everywhere and so humdrum, he feels empty. And when he sees the many bombers rusting in the airfield waiting to be scrapped for metal, he senses another kind of death. End of war means life, but the airfield looks like a graveyard of heroism. Feeling alive isn't the same thing as life. There can be lots of life but no sense of being alive, feeling alive. In contrast, one could feel most alive around death. While Ben hardly had to worry about death, the experience of growing up and graduating from school to school was a kind of adventure of mind and spirit. Every year meant he was rising another level, growing into adulthood. But once an adult, there is growing older but no more growing up. It's like once peak height is reached, there is advancement in years but not in inches(except around the waistline).

Ben's situation in the final part of the movie is like David and Goliath. It’s the same reason we root for Tony Montana who defies the chief kingpin in SCARFACE and takes on all-comers. Ben is the scrappy fellow who pursues his dream come what may and runs off with the girl. But what he does isn’t normal. It’s not normal to expect a relationship with a girl whose mother you had sex with. It’s not normal or very honorable to come between a woman and her prospective groom. The scene where he informs his parents about the marriage says it all. They assume Elaine and Ben came to an agreement, but Ben says he decided on his own and that Elaine doesn’t even like him. And unbeknownst to his parents, there is the problem of Mr. and Mrs. Robinson. (We are not sure when exactly Mr. Robinson found out about the affair.) Ben's father says his plan is half-baked, and Ben says, no, it’s completely baked. And it is. The normal and honorable thing would be for a guy to accept the reality of the girl being betrothed to another. The proper thing is to walk away, but Ben just won’t. To be sure, he decides to call it quits after Mr. McClusky(Norman Fell as landlord) threatens him with eviction, but then, Elaine tells him not to leave until he has a definite plan. And then, Ben is back to his crazy dreamer self.

Things can never be normal with Ben and Elaine even if they do eventually get married. After all, she made her wedding vow and is legally wed to Carl Smith. So, she must go through the whole legal rigamarole of filing for divorce. And if Ben and Elaine were to tie the knot to make it official, they will still be estranged from their parents, especially the Robinsons. Ben’s father can’t be too happy either as his partner in the law firm is none other than Mr. Robinson. In time, Ben and Elaine as married couple will likely end up like their parents, but their lives can never be normal due to strained situations with their parents(and perhaps the scandal of the wedding crash).

That said, THE GRADUATE had an almost universal appeal because it was as sentimental as it was cynical. It was like the Beatles and SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, an album beloved not only by youths but older people and even highbrow types. It was a Rock album pandering to Summer of Love and Youth Culture, but it was also arty and even a bit old-fashioned, with tunes like “When I’m Sixty Four” and “She’s Leaving Home”, a song that is rebellious in message but traditional in delivery. (A HARD DAY’S NIGHT was also a winner with both young and older audiences.) Young people regarded Ben as a rebel-hero who says hell to ‘plastics’, experiments in free love, seeks authenticity, and takes action to realize his dreams. And yet, even non-radical or non-experimental boomers could relate to him because he initially comes across as something of a square and stuff-shirt, someone who focused more on books than all the groovy things happening around the period. Charles Webb's novel came out before Counterculture happened, whereas the movie was made in its midst. The scenario feels all the more alienating for that reason. It's like an early 60s mindset time-traveled to the latter-60s. Now, one might say that those were just a few years, but SO MUCH happened between 1963 and 1967. That sudden sense of change was the subject of FUTURE SHOCK by Alvin Toffler. If Ben were graduating from high school in the movie, he might be ecstatic. Alas, he graduated from college and officially became an adult just when the culture of youth was taking off to new dimensions. He's too young to identify with his parents generation but just old enough to feel out of sync with the youth culture. Thus, he feels alienated from old and young. And yet, he feels attracted to Mrs. Robinson who, though twice his age, seems defiant of growing older by making up her own rules. And part of the reason he may feel such attraction to Elaine is she's still in school and therefore symbolizes the youth that has passed him by, at least in official capacity. Ben was following the track of being an Organization Man than a Creative Soul. Or, at the very least, he's like an Early Beatle with suit-and-tie who suddenly finds himself transported to the Age of Aquarius. For older or more traditional audiences, it was a story about a guy who initially finds escapism with easy sex with an older woman but then falls in true love and wants commitment and marriage. As for the ending, it can be seen as a rebellion against social norms(as how many people crash weddings?) or confirmation of true love, the classic fairy-tale of a hero saving a damsel from distress.

Now, why would Elaine be attracted to Ben when Carl Smith is taller and more handsome(and has good prospects as a doctor)? Ben has personality. Also, Elaine has a soft side and feels for others. Carl Smith is so sure of himself whereas there is a passive/aggressive boyish side to Ben that needs mothering. So, her maternal instincts kick into gear in the presence of Ben. (She is actually more mother-like than Mrs. Robinson who seems bitter that her youth was cut short by pregnancy and marriage.) Also, Ben is a funny guy, and humor goes a long way. Furthermore, love isn’t only about sexual attraction but the feeling of being appreciated. A person can fall in love with the love shown him/her by the other. For Carl Smith, Elaine may be a good catch but not the only one. If she slips from his grasp, he will likely find another good catch. But for Ben, Elaine is the ONLY ONE, and she senses the depth of his passion for her.
And it’s also what happened between them at the night club. Ben was acting like a total ass but later confesses that he went against his nature due to parental pressure. Of course, that’s not really true as the real reason he tried to sabotage the date was because Mrs. Robinson had forbidden him to date her daughter. Anyway, something clicked in that moment. Elaine is a physically a fully blossomed woman, but there is still something of the little girl inside. You can tell she hasn’t yet lost her innocence, and she lives in something like a paper doll world. Ben realizes how much he hurt her, and he does everything to make amends and this creates a special bond between them. With the kiss, Elaine goes from weeping girl to a real woman, and Ben goes from a confused adult without direction to a man who finally understands what gives his life meaning: Elaine as his true love. (At the same time, there is a quality of puppy love.) With Mrs. Robinson, he was toyed with and used, and he used her in turn. It was just about sex and to stave off boredom. An escapism from life. But with Elaine, there is no guile and gamesmanship. He feels natural in her presence. His plan was for a short date where he’d act the jerk, make Elaine dislike him, take her home, and be done with it. But Elaine’s reaction in the night club is more that of a vulnerable girl than an angry bitch. He sees a side of her he never expected, and in turn, he feels born-again when he tries to console Elaine. It's as if he's finally found his true self and no longer feels so alienated. Thus, the problem was less social alienation than auto-alienation. It suggests that an individual is only half-a-person, therefore a person can only be complete when he meets one's soulmate. It lends a mythic overtone to the movie — Greek mythology says Zeus separated men and women from their embrace, therefore life is about men and women trying to reconnect with their lost mates. Much has been made of the Christian and Jewish angle of the story, but perhaps the main appeal is closer to Greek mythology and Western fairy tales. Earlier in the decade, there was a hit French movie called BLACK ORPHEUS, the telling of the Greek myth with black actors. THE GRADUATE is like the Jewish Perseus. At any rate, it was this ‘subversive’ and multi-faceted blend of cynicism and sentimentality that made THE GRADUATE so special. But the same could be said of THE GODFATHER, which is both a heart-warming family story and a cold & ruthless gangster tale.

The perennial theme of Jewish alienation from a WASP-dominated mainstream American society played an important role in how the character of Benjamin Braddock—and the entire film—were conceived by Nichols—though this only became fully apparent to him after the film had been made.

But it works in the movie because even the character in the novel is alienated. Indeed, many leading characters in novels and movies are outsiders, eccentrics, oddballs, or mavericks. We find such characters more interesting. Even Clint Eastwood as Harry Callahan is alienated from the System he works for. John Wayne's character in THE SEARCHERS is something of a misfit, at odds not only with Indians but with fellow whites. Marlon Brando and James Dean became famous as malcontents. Orson Welles said he cast homosexual Anthony Perkins because his closeted neurosis might add something to the character of Joseph K. in THE TRIAL, and it seems Nichols had something similar in mind in having a Jewish character play Ben. I think it works better than it would have with Robert Redford, though a younger Paul Newman, as half-Jew and half-Aryan, might have been even better. Redford, though a capable actor, was rather colorless and inexpressive. The movie wouldn't have been half-as-funny with Redford as Benjamin. Dustin Hoffman was an actor of limited range but fantastic at his best. His Ratso Rizzo in MIDNIGHT COWBOY is genius-acting.

Also, Hoffman-as-Ben has an ambiguous presence in the movie, making it all the more interesting. He's both Jewish and Wasp. Boy and man. Awkward and aggressive. Timid and bold. Calculating and chaotic. The Jew/Wasp tensions within the character intensifiy the contradictions within Benjamin who is both eager and afraid to be free. Hoffman is short but physically fit. Topless, he does have the physique of a long-distance track star. Also, while not handsome, the young Hoffman is rather attractive from certain angles. There is also something of the 'cute' quality that Ringo had. And then, there's the timing and intelligence in his acting, something truly rare in cinema as most actors aren't known for brains.

Ben’s scream in the church is so reminiscent of Rod Steiger’s wailing at the end of THE PAWNBROKER. As for Wasps trapped in the church, that has nothing on the ending of DIRTY DOZEN where Nazi officers are barricaded in the basement and roasted alive with gasoline and grenades. That is one cynical movie. Nazis are so evil they deserve to be slaughtered like animals. But American heroes are a bunch of crooks, criminals, thugs, and psychos. It’s like an insane hashing of BRIDGE ON RIVER KWAI and THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. Truly a dirty movie.

Nichols cast Hoffman, “despite the fact that he was virtually unknown and looked nothing like the leading man described in the script, which called for a tall, blond track star, not a short, Jewish guy with a schnoz for the ages.”

But in the end, we must judge by results, and I think the success of THE GRADUATE is inseparable from Hoffman's shell game of drama and humor. While an actor like Redford or Ryan O'Neal might have been closer in looks to the character in the novel, Hoffman had that blend of straight man and clown that made the role so different and unique. Also, the final part of the movie when Ben is speeding back and forth from LA and Berkeley has something of the silent comedies of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, the tales of underdogs who overcome all obstacles to end up with the girl. Robert Redford running off with the girl would seem less amazing and outrageous than Dustin Hoffman doing so. Buster Keaton was a short guy but one who out-maneuvered the competition and usually came out ahead. Same goes for Harold Lloyd, and especially as Nichols came from comedy background, he was looking for the most comic as well as dramatic actor, and he hit gold with Hoffman.
Now, take Jack Nicholson in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. The character in the novel is much stronger, a tough Irishman who takes on three Negroes in the shower and beats them all up. Nicholson's McMurphy is smaller and weaker and no match for the Negroes, but it's a masterly performance, and he came to own that role. Many, indeed most, movies deviate from the novel or the original screenplay, but at the end of the day, the only question that matters is "Does it work"? Hoffman made it work. But then, Victor Mature played Samson and Charlton Heston played Moses, and they made it work, at least as entertainment.

Hoffman’s anti-heroic character gave the green light for Hollywood to promote “the ethnic Jewish matinee idol and youth icon in the forms of George Segal, Elliot Gould, Richard Benjamin, Charles Grodin, and Gene Wilder.”[9] These Jewish romantic leads were invariably paired onscreen with beautiful non-Jewish actresses like Marsha Mason, Candice Bergen, and (in the case of Dustin Hoffman) blondes like Mia Farrow, Faye Dunaway, Susan George, and Meryl Streep.

It's been said that THE GRADUATE changed the rules of who can be a star in Hollywood, but this is a gross exaggeration. Hollywood always had lots of room for Jewish, ethnic, different, ugly, short, and weird actors, even among Wasps. Alan Ladd was a short guy. Humphrey Bogart, though Wasp, looked ethnic and could have passed for Italian, Greek, Spaniard, or Jew. But he was a big star. Short and funny-looking Mickey Rooney was one of the biggest stars of the 40s. James Cagney was no looker but a tremendous star. The Jewish Paul Muni was in many prestigious roles. Peter Lorre and Edward G. Robinson, both Jewish, became world famous. Short actors were nothing special in Hollywood. Many actors, if not downright short, were hardly tall. James Dean was 5'7. Marlon Brando was 5'9, not exactly short but far from tall. It could be that shorter men gravitate to acting because they have to be more expressive to gain the kind of attention that taller men usually get. How tall is Tom Cruise? Long before Dustin Hoffman became a household name, Frank Sinatra was a big movie star. He was only 5'7, had pocked face, and was Italian. And movie stardom was often less about looks than the hook. Certain actors and actresses, even if not handsome or pretty, had a certain screen presence, an allure. Take Charles Bronson who could even be said to be ugly. But he had a great movie face. Same was true of Telly Savalis and Anthony Quinn. Tony Curtis the Jew played a Norseman in THE VIKINGS and did a pretty good job.

As for George Segal, Elliot Gould, Richard Benjamin, Charles Grodin, and Gene Wilder, they usually starred in lesser or more 'independent' productions. Among the new batch of Jewish actors, the only one whose success matched that of Hoffman in the 70s and 80s was maybe Gene Hackman(though Henry Winkler hit pay dirt as the Fonz on HAPPY DAYS, but that was TV). Richard Dreyfus seemed to be on the up and up but soon faded. Of course, one could count Harrison Ford as Jewish, or half-Jewish. Woody Allen might qualify but he was appreciated more as 'auteur' than actor. (Correction. Gene Hackman doesn't seem to be Jewish.)

Hoffman won the role over Charles Grodin, another Jewish actor who was no model of conventional WASP good looks.

Grodin, though no heartthrob, had a certain goofy charm. And unlike in THE GRADUATE where everything is 'crypto', THE HEARTBREAK KID is very much a public airing of the Jewish Male obsession with the 'shikse'. It is in satirical than romantic mode(as in the case of THE GRADUATE) and, as such, cinematically less interesting but even more revealing of the Jewish sensibility. Hilarious stuff.

Such overt anti-Christian imagery jarred with the film’s first audiences—but was only the start of Hollywood’s disparagement of Christianity, and seems tame by today’s standards.

Maybe Jews are doing white people a favor by bashing Christianity, a religion that originated from renegade Jews. In a way, what is more 'crypto-Jewish' than Christianity? Though Christ is often depicted in Western Art as an Aryan-looking fellow, He was actually Jewish and probably looked more like Norman Finkelstein or Noam Chomsky. And speaking of neurosis, how about the story of a Man who claimed to be the Son of God and got Himself killed over it? Western Civilization is founded on Jewish Neurosis. So, even though Hoffman the Jew plays a Wasp in THE GRADUATE, white people over the eons have been worshiping a Jew with a big nose in the image of European whites. And look at the sculpture of David by Michelangelo. I'm thinking that David, being Jewish, looked more like Jerry Seinfeld or Sean Penn, but the statue resembles something out of Greco-Roman mythology.

At any rate, when will whites find their own covenant with the ultimate power of the universe? As long as whites keep with Christianity, it means they are forever beholden to the imagination and vision of Jews. Also, Christianity, if followed to the letter, is a death cult as we are now seeing in the West. If Christian West was powerful in the past, it was because it heeded only about 1/4 of Jesus' teachings. Go beyond that, and you end up dead. And if you don't, you get blamed for hypocrisy, preaching 'turn the other cheek' while using violence to conquer and control the world. Christianity has been a great religion, but it is now dead. It's very sad in a way, but it means the white race must finally GRADUATE toward a new consciousness with prophets of its own that can meditate on the ultimate power and receive the covenant that has meaning to whites and whites alone.

By the way, thing in the church happens so fast that it hardly registers as an anti-Christian screed. And, whatever the significance of Ben wielding the cross as a weapon, it is funny as hell, and as the characters in THE WILD BUNCH say, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” The outrage element is part of the fun. A little irreverence never hurt anyone.
Also, just look at the church. Its design is so Californian, so modernist and soulless. It looks like a bleached shell devoid of spiritual meaning. A church as status-symbol of the affluent and modern. So, it’s less a Christian ceremony than a matter of custom. They get married in a church because it’s just what people do. And who are among the attendees? None other than Mrs. Robinson, hardly a virtuous character. And there’s Mr. Robinson who pressured his daughter into marrying Carl Smith out of his seething rage at Ben. We don’t know much about Smith the ‘make-out king’, but he doesn’t seem the spiritual type. So, even without Ben’s presence, the wedding is just an empty show, a ritual devoid of spiritual or even much moral meaning. Elaine is getting married to console her father. Her heart is really with Ben.
Ben’s wielding the cross as a weapon could be seen as a desecration of Christianity, but it could also mean he’s the christ-like figure for true love. He’s willing to sacrifice everything, even sanity and limb, for the girl he loves.

The problem with clinging to Christianity in our age is it no longer provides the answers. As such, people need to seek out new visions and find new directions. It’s like a horse. It is highly useful when strong and hardy. But what use is a dead horse? Christianity is now a dead horse. In Europe, it’s totally dead. They say America is still religious, but no one gets fired or blacklisted for insulting God, Jesus, or Paul. But you may be fired and blacklisted even at a so-called ‘conservative’ Christian institution if you criticize Fentanyl Floyd or Jewish promotion of globo-homo. For many Christians, even those on the ‘right’, the highest holies are Jews, Negroes, and Homos. Indeed, many churches would have us believe that god and jesus serve Jews, homos, and blacks than anything else.

Christianity has become a suicide pact. If Christianity still had martial spirit, it would be in much better shape. In the past, Christianity served the West well in the form of 'hypochristianity'. Christianity had to be hypocritical in order to survive and expand. The teachings of Jesus, such as ‘turn the other cheek’ and ‘meek shall inherit the earth’, don't do much for worldly power. Jesus urged people to give away all their wealth, live in righteous poverty, and meditate on spiritual matters. But people who act that way end up dead or oppressed. If they believe in Heaven, they may expect something better in the afterlife. But most people are attached to the real world, and power is about money, weapons, hierarchy, and violence. So, the Christian West at its peak preached one thing but practiced something other. Now, the West wasn’t purely hypocritical and much of its values & practices derived from Christian morality. Still, the kindly side of the West relied on the hard side that kept and expanded power by ruthless means.

But such kind of hypocrisy is no longer tenable, especially as Jews gained power in the West and never lose sleep pointing out all the hypocrisies of the West. This shame has been internalized by most whites. This has led to whites either rejecting Christianity or trying to practice a Christianity that is closer to the spirit of Jesus’s teachings… which can only serve as a death/suicide cult. Worse, there are so many idiots or opportunists who seek to use the church as a club for other agendas, often satanic in nature, like globo-homo and worship of savage Negro as Magic Negro. And of course, many non-religious and anti-religious people are possessed of a zealotry derived from puritanical strains of Christianity. If the church in our times is an empty shell devoid of spiritual passion, post-Christian passion of radicals is like fanaticism without a meaningful vessel. Shell without flesh and flesh without shell are, of course, both doomed. Form without content and content without form are both ultimately useless. Christianity, both Protestant and Catholic, is dead as a useful and virile creed. When the Vatican has Pope Francis as top leader, what does that say? What is Mainline church in the US but promotion of globo-homo and Magic Negro? What is Evangelicalism but about More Wars for ‘Muh Israel’? There is the Orthodox Church, but it has no meaning to most Greeks who are secular. And in Russia, it is a museum culture than a living one despite all the new cathedrals built.

In the first scene of the film, Benjamin rides to the left on an airport conveyor belt as everyone else accedes to the airport’s public announcement system’s request to “Please stay to the right.”

I think 'stay on the right' in that moment meant stay to the right on the conveyor belt or in walkways, which is conventional rule in all places. It's like people usually walk on the right side no matter which way they're going.

In One Dimensional Man, he argued that advanced industrial societies like the United States repress their populations by creating false needs via mass advertising, industrial management, and modes of thought which resulted in a “one dimensional” universe of thought and behavior which stifled people’s capacity for critical thought and oppositional behavior.

Even if we disagree with Herbert Marcuse's solutions, was he wrong in his critique of consumer-capitalism? Look all around today, and corporate-consumer-capitalism is a big part of the problem. The rise of Pop Culture as Main Culture has led to the one-dimensional idiot. And we need critical thought and oppositional thought more than ever.

In the end, the real problem of whites was not 'authoritarianism' but complacency. Post-war boom made white people lower their guard and care mostly about the good life. They became passionless with crass materialism. The boomer generation rebelled against such complacency with utopian dreams and commitment to authenticity, but they too came under the power of materialism as their main inspirations came from pop music and TV. Like Peter Fonda said in EASY RIDER, 'We blew it'. If the Greatest Generation drowned in alcohol, the boomers failed to find nirvana in pot smoke, which is now just more big business.

Reich claimed the role of traditional “repressive” Western sexual morality was “to produce acquiescent subjects who, despite distress and humiliation, are adjusted to the authoritarian order.” Marcuse agreed with Reich that the “liberation of sexuality and the creation of non-hierarchical democratic structures in the family, workplace and society at large would create personalities resistant to fascism.”

There is obviously some truth to their claims. Any form of repression, sexual or otherwise, is to create a more stable order of unity and consensus. And it is true that 'sexual liberation' will undermine fascism as each boy and girl will be more into hedonism and self-gratification than suppressing one's individual desires for the good of the whole, the volk. If German youths in the 1930s had mostly been into sex, drugs, and rock & roll, would they have paid any heed to Hitler? And same could be said for youths under communism, which is why communist nations did all they could to suppress individualism as expressions of capitalism.
More interesting is why Marcuse and others blamed capitalism for the repression when it was obviously the forces of capitalism that were leading to the triumph of hedonism, 'sexual liberation', individualism, and youth culture of impatience. Maybe, it was difficult to immediately abandon the ideology, Marxism, that had shaped them for so long. Consciously or subconsciously, maybe the Frankfurt School was seeking to serve as the bridge that would allow the left to go from communism to capitalism as the more useful ideology.

The Frankfurters were right that 'sexual liberation' would be bad for fascism. But they overlooked how 'sexual liberation' would lead to the rise of new barbarism. After all, sexual politics is hardly egalitarian as alpha males usually win and as women prefer winners over losers. Some women seek out long-term winners who gain success in professions, but other women seek out short-term winners: the thugs, studs, and athletes. So, instead of resulting in the peaceful eternal summer of love where everyone is happy with good vibes, it has led to the rise of demented heavy metal culture, rap culture, pornification of even kiddie culture, and countless displays of narcissism & vanity, indeed as if everyone is a diva, his or her own 'hitler'. Fascism represses and channels virile barbarian energies in the service of civilization whereas the raw barbarian energies of 'sexual liberation' has led to the degradation of family and society, resulting in lots of violence and stupidity. Black African savages demonstrated that sexual licentiousness is no immunity to ultra-violence. Being sexually far less inhibited, blacks were generally unable to repress their wilder energies for the development of civilization, but they were murderous just the same. And the European barbarians long long ago were less hung up about sexual morality(before the coming of Christianity and its stricter ethos), but did that prevent them from rampaging other communities and raping and pillaging, i.e. acting like Alex and his droogs in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE? Indeed, people like Marcuse seem blind to the fact that National Socialism gained in popularity precisely because Jews pushed the most demented kind of anti-values in the Weimar Period, leading to a new barbarism. Degenerate personality leads to social chaos, which leads to people demanding an authoritarian personality to clean up the mess.

Frankfurt School was right to critique capitalism-consumerism and its mind-numbing and conformist influences, but its proposed solutions were useless because people like Herbert Marcuse were not honest, not least with themselves. Marcuse wailed against fascism, but he meant goy fascism. As he was pro-Zionist, he was for Jewish fascism. This is a key truth about Jews. They are so virulently anti-fascist precisely because they want fascism only for themselves. It is through fascism that both the right wing and left wing of a people can unite into a combined force. Fascism serves as the bridge and bond between left and right. Don’t make them fight one another but work together. This was the basis for National Socialism and Zionism. Where both ultimately failed morally is they went from nationalism to imperialism. Just like Jews hated Christianity and Islam for passing the secrets of the Jewish God to goyim, they hate fascism because it allows goyim to develop the kind of power specialized by Jews. Leo Strauss was a ‘rightist’ while Herbert Marcuse was a ‘leftist’. But what did they have in common? They were proudly Jewish and Zionist. For all their ideological discourse, identity came first. Zionism was created by Jewish socialists and Jewish capitalists working together. So, even as whites should give credit where it’s due — Frankfurters made useful criticism of capitalism and consumerism — , they must forge their own answers and solutions to problems, one that prioritizes the needs of whites. Jews are often interesting in their critique but useless in their proposed solutions, at least for goyim, as the utmost priority of Jews is to maximize Jewish power, not to make goyim more powerful. Frankfurt School is like a doctor that diagnoses the disease but advises the wrong cure.

In a way, much of modern form of Jewish Alienation derived from acceptance by White Society. Jews were both ragging Wasps for not being sufficiently accepting of Jews AND fretting too much assimilation may lead to loss of Jewish identity.

So, even as Jews felt alienated from Wasps, they also felt increasing alienation from their own roots. The more they became modern and Western, the less they felt traditionally bound to Jewishness. It’s one reason why Jews cooked up ersatz-form of being Jewish, such as being fixated on the Holocaust or celebrating Globo-Homo. Barbra Streisand’s YENTL is both celebratory and critical of Jewish Tradition, and it features a woman posing as a man to be accepted into the world of Rabbis. Around the same time, Blake Edwards made VICTOR/VICTORIA and soon after, there was TOOTSIE where Hoffman plays a ‘woman’. And Woody Allen made ZELIG. Paradoxically, Allen’s film seems to imply that the thing that Jews most fear as being harmful to Jewishness, which is assimilation, is also what most defines Jewishness. In other words, Jews have developed remarkably adaptive strategies of assimilation. And yet, even as Jews morph and blend into goy societies, at the end of the day, they revert back to Jewishness; they don’t really transform into the other. It’s like an octopus can take on all sorts of shapes but returns to being an octopus. But if an octopus is so fluid and flexible in its shape and structure, is there a core structure to octopus-ness? Or is the essence of the octopus to have no definite form? It’s no wonder Jews are so into trans-business where there can be infinite number of ‘genders’. It’s like sexual Houdini-ism. ZELIG is almost like a satire of an intellectual Nazi movie about Jews.




More Notes:

Plenty of white goy novelists had written about vices. Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books are about lost souls who indulge in all sorts of dubious behavior. SUN ALSO RISES is more ‘degenerate’ than THE GRADUATE, book or movie. THE GREAT GATSBY is a deeply disturbing novel, about both wasps and Jews. The anti-Semite Celine pioneered a new kind of writing, and his stories were filled with people of questionable character, to say the least.

Also, Jews at the time were making fun of themselves. Don Rickles roasted everyone. Woody Allen loved to crack jokes about Jews(as well as goyim). Mel Brooks made THE PRODUCERS in 1967. It mocks everyone, especially homos.

And if anyone subverted conventions of the movie Western(which owed a lot to Jewish Hollywood), it was the Catholic Italian Sergio Leone.

One notable advantage of Jews in arts & letters for the longest time was they had to grit their teeth and tolerate and even accept things they didn’t like. In other words, they couldn’t keep kosher in dealing with the wider world. There were too many goyim, and they were too goyish and too Christian and too powerful, as well as often anti-Jewish and willing to express such feelings. And yet, this made Jews stronger in a way. It may be that losers can’t be choosers, but those who are forced to choose everything can take ideas from all sides and can grow in empathy. Jews couldn’t cancel Celine, and so, he wrote and came to be a major influence on Jewish authors such as Philip Roth. Jews couldn’t cancel Richard Wagner(except in Israel), and so many Jewish composers drew inspiration from him. Jews couldn’t cancel Christianity, so they wrote some of the best Christmas songs. So, even as Jews felt resentment, they drew ideas and inspirations from the other side. They had no choice, but this made them stronger. If a vegan is forced to eat meat, he may resent it but he will grow stronger with extra protein. If anything, he will grow weaker if he has the power to ban meat and stops eating meat. Because Christians and whites could either ignore or suppress Jews in the past, they could keep only with what they liked. In contrast, because Jews had to deal with goy culture that was all around them, they came to learn a trick or two from what they didn’t like. Kubrick used Richard Strauss in 2001, but suppose Strauss had been canceled and banned because he worked in Nazi Germany.

In a way, it could be Jewish cultural power could now be waning precisely because they’ve gained the power to shut down things they don’t like. So, many interesting talents and thinkers are canceled and blacklisted. Jews may feel safer and more secure as the result, but they’re also creating a culture where everything must be Jew-friendly and suck up to Jews. We now live in a world when Jews can cancel people like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, TS Eliot, Richard Wagner, Celine, Gore Vidal, Knut Hamsun, and many others for their antisemitism, real or imagined(or exaggerated). By suppressing lively goy cuture, Jews have less inspirations to draw from the goy world. Indeed, just look at American Conservatism once it canceled people like Joseph Sobran. As the new rule revolved around ‘Is it good for Jews?’, conservatism turned into all-out cuckservatism.

Maybe Jews realize the dangers of this development on some level. In the past when Jews were surrounded by plenty of goy culture and expressions that weren’t always Jew-friendly, they learned to adapt, learn, draw inspiration, and be vigilant. But in a Jew-power world that has made everything so kosher-friendly and Jew-secure, not only will Jews have less ideas to draw from the goy world(as Jew-friendly hacks are favored over controversial talent) but Jewish kids may grow up nonchalant, apathetic, and lazy. Why should the young ones worry when every goy is always praising Jews and when Jews can easily cancel anyone deemed ‘antisemitic'(or even ‘homophobic’ or whatever)? Jews will become like spoiled princeling brats. That may be why Jewish Power exaggerates the ‘antisemitic’ threat just when goyim are more slavish to Jews than ever. It could be that Jewish Power is nervous that Jewish young may become slack and take things for granted in an overly kosherized world. So, tell them there are nazis lurking everywhere because… uh… anyone Jews don’t like is a ‘nazi’. The more Jews gain nazi-like power for themselves, the more nazis they see everywhere.

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Ethnic actors were a big thing in Beach Party movies.

Frankie Avalon. And brunette Annette Funicello the cutie surrounded by blondes.

Lovely moment:



And a decade after THE GRADUATE, there was the musical GREASE where ‘greaseball’ Travolta hook up with blonde Olivia Newton-John.


Two kinds of youth movies: Ones made in the moment and ones that dwell on nostalgia or autobiography.

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, THE GRADUATE, SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, BREAKING AWAY, and RISKY BUSINESS reflect the times in which they were made.
In contrast, AMERICAN GRAFFITI, FOUR FRIENDS, DAZED AND CONFUSED, and C.R.A.Z.Y revive bygone eras. The latter films have less chance of becoming dated because they were made after the fact with more perspective.
And then, there are movies made in the moment but reflecting an earlier era. Scorsese’s MEAN STREETS is set in the 70s, but he drew inspiration from his youth in the late 50s and 60s. As such, the character of Charlie seems somewhat obsessed with moral hangups of an earlier era. Something similar is afoot in SOCIAL NETWORK. Aaron Sorkin projected his generation’s Jewish neurosis onto Zuckerberg, a creature of the 2000s whose world was very different.

A precursor of THE GRADUATE was A MAN AND A WOMAN. It used the stylistics of the French New Wave in service of pop romantic fantasy, and it was a hit and won awards. But Lelouch’s technical mastery was questionable and he resorted to too many musical montages and visual trickery to compensate for weak plot and characterization. There is a lot for film-makers to learn from THE GRADUATE but not so much from MAN AND WOMAN, which only works in short bursts as proto-music-videos. Still, what a nostalgic journey to a France that is now lost to Diversity.


Another film that might have inspired Nichols may be IL SORPASSO(THE EASY LIFE), especially in its use of music.


While some white guys may not want to see blonde girls with Jews or Italians, it’s much worse now as the blondies are with the Negroes.

But then, white men pioneered this race-mixing business. They impregnated the browns of South America. They got black women pregnant in the South. There was the legend of Pocohontas. And plenty of white soldiers overseas had affairs or sex with women in Asia and South Pacific. There was SAYONARA before THE GRADUATE. Marlon Brando had a strange fetish for brown women.. and Robert DeNiro only seems to go for blacks. And James Bond got it on with women of all races.

Jewish Hoffman played a Wasp in THE GRADUATE, and David Lean chose Egyptian Omar Sharif to play a Russian in DOCTOR ZHIVAGO. Sharif also played Genghis Khan, and so did John Wayne. Brando as Okinawan in TEA HOUSE OF AUGUST MOON was funny as hell, but Rooney as Japanese in BREAKFAST was even funnier. Anthony Quinn as Greek in ZORBA really did work.

Italians often got Anglo or Northern European actors to play Italians. They were into dubbing.


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THE GRADUATE has great film-making. As different as DOCTOR ZHIVAGO and THE GRADUATE are, they clicked with the audience. LOVE STORY also had memorable music(pretty good schlock), but the film-making was only adequate/good, nothing more. In contrast, THE GRADUATE really is a visual and rhythmic marvel with Nichols throwing so many tricks out of the left field and without being too showy about it. (Both DOCTOR ZHIVAGO and THE GRADUATE are about discovery and struggle of True Love amidst familial concerns, personal commitment, ideological struggles, and power manipulation. Zhivago truly loves Lara but is married to a nice girl. Lara truly loves Zhivago but is also married. She married her first boyfriend quickly as escape from the tormented affair with an older man. But if Zhivago ultimately doesn’t get Lara and had everyone weeping in the theater, Ben does get Elaine.)

I agree the Simon and Garfunkel songs are great. Minus the music, the movie would seen more satirical, sardonic, and biting. It’s the music that softens the edges and provides a romantic mood, sentimental shading.

When the image and sound really click together, it makes no sense to discuss them apart. It’s like the alchemy of Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone, Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Hermann, Hiroshi Teshigahara and Toru Takemitsu. Nichols and Simon hit it off like Ben and Elaine. Nichols and Simon clicked not so much because they saw eye-to-eye but because the music served as counterpoint as much as padding. “Sounds of Silence”, “Scarborough Fair”, and “April Comes She Will” add something missing in Nichols' comic-cynical style. The song with which the two sensibilities finally converge is “Mrs. Robinson”, a tongue-in-cheek rendition of Middle Class Americana comparable to Rolling Stone’s “Mother’s Little Helper”.

I can understand why many people are put off by Hoffman’s presence or personality, but it is brilliant acting. Also, his voice, being both throaty and nasal, perfectly convey’s Ben state of mind and stage in life. He’s both man surging with testosterone and boy who wants to run back home. And, his deadpan demeanor mixed with shaky nerves is for the ages. With Anne Bancroft, he’s like a shy dog being played by an experienced feline. It’s both cartoony enough for laughs and human enough for tension.

Genuine mood is really hard to do. There are cheap ways to create mood with filters and lighting, but Nichols sustains a consistent mood throughout the film, through light and dark scenes.

And the camerawork is purposeful and edgy, making it both classic and radical. It seems perfectly perched between the rule-book and burn-the-book. The tricks of timing Nichols honed in comedy and sense of staging he got from theater did wonders. Welles also specialized in Audio Entertainment(radio) and theater before entering cinema. Nichols borrowed various styles but matched them seamlessly. The hand-held camera is reminiscent of Cassavates and Godard but pieced subliminally with other styles.
And he went for unconventional perspectives. For instance, when Ben is walking to the right through the guests at the graduation party to head for the stairs, the camera faces away from the stairway leading opposite to Ben's direction. As such, Nichols has to ‘awkwardly’ jerk the camera leftward to show the stairway except it’s done so deftly that this breaking of rules seems natural than false or gratuitous.
Later, when Ben and Elaine are running from the church, can anyone think of a better way to show the bus than by tilting the camera from top to bottom, creating an impression of a bus dropped from the sky, manna from heaven? And the cut from a telephoto shot of Ben and Elaine running from the church that grows blurry to a long shot conveys the sudden shifts in mood and momentum in that charged instant. Nichols was so attuned to every moment, something generally missing in Old Hollywood and even most European cinema, albeit exceptions like JULES AND JIM, a work that is both classic and experimental.



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TIGER MAKES OUT, also released in 1967, was Hoffman’s first film. A small role. He shows up at 5:20 in the video below. The movie seems a more raw expression of Jewish hang-ups.



PRESIDENT’S ANALYST, also a 1967 movie, pushed the satirical tone of THE GRADUATE to the hilt. THE PRESIDENT’S ANALYST was prescient about the future of technology and mankind. Big Tech taking over everything.
It was both written and directed by Theodore Flicker, Jewish. As such, it is a more personal work than THE GRADUATE. The Liberal father is the guy who played Ben’s father. (He also played a Liberal parent in TWO FOR THE ROAD, another 1967 movie that was hip to new trends. Written by Frederic Raphael, a Jew with massive chip on his shoulder.)




Robert Redford did take on a romantic comedy role in another 1967 movie BAREFOOT IN THE PARK. 1967 was quite a year.


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Some other interesting ethno-swapping.

The TV movie GETTING MARRIED has an ending not unlike that of THE GRADUATE. In it, Richard Thomas plays an Italian-American.


In BREAKING AWAY, some guy in Indiana pretends to be an Italian-American, as if that will make him appear more romantic and exotic to an All-American Girl. Oddly enough, its snobby Waspy character was actually played by Jewish Hart Bochner. And Robert Redford was one of the leading contenders for the role of Michael Corleone.


Maybe the most vicious and disturbing scene about Wasp-Ethnic tension is the wedding scene in FOUR FRIENDS, written by the guy who wrote BREAKING AWAY and directed by Arthur Penn of BONNIE & CLYDE fame.


THE GRADUATE seems to draw certain strains from THE GREAT GATSBY via CATCHER IN THE RYE. Later, when movies like BRIGHT LIGHTS BIG CITY came around, they seem to be riffing GATSBY and GRADUATE, both of which have come to shape American cultural consciousness and love and class. (Michael J. Fox, another shorty, like Davey Jones of THE MONKEES, which also had half-Italian Mickey Dolenz who looked racially so ambiguous. I wonder if Charles Webb was influenced by Kingsley Amis’ LUCKY JIM.)

https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2020/07/oaf-magnificat-kingsley-amis-lucky-jim-thomas-banks.html



Despite THE GRADUATE looking very mod, I wonder if young people today can relate to technological limitations of the period. If the story were to take place today, Ben would be looking on the internet to find information about where Elaine is getting married than driving back and forth between L.A. and Berkeley. And the dial-up phone at the gas station, what an ancient artifact. They still had those back then. Now, even poor people have handy cellphones, even ‘smart phones’, something unimaginable even to billionaires in the 80s, even the 90s. Many young people could relate to BOURNE movies because the guy was so ‘wired’ techno-psychologically. Very tech-savvy young man outwitting all the institutions that made him what he is.

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Too many people ignore everything but the plot and characters. They respond as if they’re reading some second-rate novel. It’s like judging a song by its meaning. Most songs are trite or banal in what they have to 'say'. It’s the same old story about love, heartache, and etc. Beatles' “Yesterday” offers no greater meaning about love or sadness than a million other songs. Then, why is it special? The words, even if banal, are just right. And the melody and delivery create a unique mood. (Same goes for John Lennon's “Norwegian Wood” and Brian Wilsons' “God Only Knows”.) So, we don’t listen to a song mainly for meaning but feeling and mood. Take “Drive” by the Cars and “Every Breath You Take” by the Police. In terms of meaning, we’ve heard countless songs about broken hearts and romantic obsession. But the style and expressions of those songs are so original and overwhelming that they make conventional or ‘tired’ themes exciting and edgy again. Take the song “Brandy” by Looking Glass, a one-hit-wonder band. The story it tells is one found in a thousand dime store novels, but the melody is infectious, the rhythm soulful, and the performance inspired. As such, it is a one-of-a-kind song, as is “If You Could Read My Mind” by Gordon Lightfoot.

The fact that some people just see the themes or spot-the-Jew in THE GRADUATE means they are cine-illiterate. It’s like reading poetry as if it is prose and focusing mainly on meaning. Anyone can make pizza. The basic ingredients are well-known. In basic ingredients, great pizzas are 95% like all the other pizzas, even frozen ones, but they have something extra, subtle but crucial that differentiates greatness from mere goodness or acceptableness. TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA has many of the elements of countless other action movies, but why does it tower over the rest? William Friedkin was on fire, got hold of promising material and fine talent, and everything just clicked. Same goes for MIDNIGHT RUN. Everything came together beautifully.

Nichols got just the right ingredients, and the preparation, timing, and delivery were near-flawless in the balance of comedy, drama, romance, and near-tragedy. It made a difference upon release because it was the bridge between Art Film and Hollywood, between Old and Young, and between Sunlight and Rain. There’s a scene in THE WILD BUNCH where the Gorch brothers look across the river at Mexico and says, “It looks like more of Texas as far as I’m concerned”, and Angel says, “Ah, you have no eyes.” Many people have no eyes. For the blind, there is no difference between Orson Welles' tremendous MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS and the lame one directed by Alfonso Arau. After all, they tell the same story with the same characters. But comparing those two movies illustrates what a difference a directorial vision can make.

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Anne Bancroft looks like Maria Callas, lending a classic greco motif to the story. Oedipus had sex with his mother, and there is a sub-oedipal underpinning to THE GRADUATE. THE GRADUATE is like an experiment of what-if Greek comedy was blended with Greek tragedy.

Tug-A-Gro — Why Leftism, Jews, and Negroes grow More Powerful in the Clash of Civilizations and Empires — Jewish Media Domination elevated Jews, Homos, & Blacks uber alles, and so, All Nations, rightist or leftist, globalist or anti-globalist, use the Moral Currency of Rhapsodizing over Jews, Blacks, and/or Homos

https://www.unz.com/akarlin/russian-libs-owned/

Nonetheless, it was also something of an aha moment along the lines of what I encountered in Berkeley c.2013, as more than ever I realized that Russian SJWs do exist and not just on Twitter.

One reason why SJW-ism spread all over the world isn't merely due to Jewish Media Global domination. It's because even anti-American and anti-globalist governments and nations employ SJW talking points as counter-propaganda against the US(and the West).

Consider Chinese who say 'black lives matter'. Why? Because it's an easy talking point to shame the US that is always criticizing, excoriating, and condemning other nations for its 'human rights abuses'. So naturally, to get back at the US, even anti-American nations will strike at America's Achilles Heel by invoking 'woke' tropes. In a way, most criticisms of other regimes, societies, and nations tend to be 'leftish' in character regardless of the political orientation of the regime in charge. Why? Leftism is about complaints, whereas rightism is about appreciation and reverence. While leftism does have its heroes and saints to revere, it is fundamentally founded on discontent with reality, the system, the order, and etc. It is naturally more polemical than the right. So, the easiest way to discredit or undermine another system is by pointing out all the flaws. And in this, even right-wing regimes end up playing the 'leftist' game. Whether the Soviet Union or reconstituted Russia, an easy propaganda coup to smear the US has been by pointing out its racial problems, especially pertaining to blacks. Soviets made it seem like USSR is the land of the free and equal whereas the US was a nation of rich and poor, white power and black misery. And watch some RT news today, and it often pushes 'leftist' talking points. Of course, not so much about Russia but about the West. It hires Western 'liberals' and 'leftists' because they make the most reliable attack dogs against the West itself. Like Chris Hedges who sees the US as one big penal colony and something out of the movie BRAZIL.

Now, one can criticize a nation, people, culture, or system from the rightist perspective, but rightist energy isn't about complaining 24/7. Even the purity spirals of Christianity are more 'leftist' in character. Conservative Christianity is more about acceptance and resignation and preservation of the status quo. It's Radical Christianity that is 'triggered' by how much the Church has fallen or isn't doing enough. In Martin Luther's time, this had a salutary effect as Protestant Reformers were serious theologians on the meaning of Christ. In today's world, with Christianity remaining as a mere shell in the West, most so-called Christians are really post-Christians who believe the church has relevance merely as a homeless shelter or outpost for various causes with higher 'spiritual' prestige(as decided by Jewish Power that controls the Narrative). As the main faith in the West is now Jews-Homos-Negroes and Diversity(though secondary to Jews-Homos-Negroes), so many churches feel they must accommodate to serving those holy themes. The 'conservative' churches tend to stick closer to the traditional faith but even they are more into Jew-worship than God-worship. What is the #1 theme of Evangelicalism? 'Muh Israel'. And as even Evangelicals are beginning to soften on the Homo issue and get all worked up over 'racism', it's becoming just another kind of SJW church.

Who are the main beneficiaries of all this? Jews and Negroes. On Jews, the argument between Russia and US isn't about pro-Jews vs anti-Jews but about pro-pro-pro-Jews vs pro-pro-pro-pro-Jews. It's a game of which side is more pro-Jewish. Russia will say it defeated Nazism, saved Jews, protects Jews, and has close ties with Israel. US will say it is about loving Jews, remembering Holocaust, and protecting Jews from 'antisemitism'. Now, given that Jews have really messed up Russia with both communism and gangster capitalism, Russia should be anti-Jewish. And US should have woken up by now that Jews are a hostile minority. But as Jews have such media and financial control, all sides feel they must justify themselves as the biggest enemy of 'antisemitism'... or else be condemned as 'nazis'. So, even as the Jews went about undermining Trump and Russia, all we hear from both sides is 'we love Jews'. Tug-of-Schwarz.
And Negroes are also great beneficiaries. From the US side, so much is made of how the nation has come a long way from the dark yrs of slavery and Jim Crow. US uses the black issue as a huge point of pride. "We were once bad to blacks, but now, we see how magical they are and elevate them to demigod status. We love Negroes!!!" But as blacks continue to be socially mired in poverty and complain so much about 'white supremacist' America, nations like Russia, China, Iran, and others jump at the chance of saying, "WE CARE ABOUT THEM POOR HELPLESS NEGROES who are so oppressed, exploited, and mistreated in the 'racist' and 'white supremacist' US." As a result, both white Americans and peoples abroad come under the spell of Negrolatry. White Americans want to take pride in having come a long way and rolling out the red carpet for the Negroes. And 'enemy nations' of America want to take pride in standing up for Negroes as the perennial victims of American 'racism' and white supremacy. Indeed, whether a nation is rightist or leftist, what easier way to rhetorically strike back at the US than by invoking the Black Issue? After all, whereas Jews are super-rich and homos are very privileged in the US, many blacks are still doing poorly. Now, we know why. Blacks are tougher, more impulsive, more given to psychopathy, and less intelligent. That means black frustration with life will often turn to crime and violence and scaring whitey. But many Russians and Chinese only know about Black American Reality through Western Propaganda.

The current West(led by the US) is the most schizo kind of empire ever. Traditionally, empires totally took pride in their imperial glory. This was true of British Empire, Ottoman Empire, and Soviet Empire. Granted, the British Empire did have second thoughts and something like a conscience, as it eventually worked to end the slave trade and the sale of opium. Still, for most of its existence, it was about power and glory. The Soviet Empire was based on leftist ideology, but under Leninism-Stalinism, it allowed no criticism of the Revolution and the System. As such, it was about total revolutionary pride and almost zilch self-criticism.
In contrast, the US empire, though extremely aggressive and arrogant, has as its foundation a kind of self-loathing. US has the most powerful military, biggest economy, and the most aggressive financial imperialism around the world, but so much of US narrative is "US history sucks cuz of 'racism'", "Christianity sucks because of 'homophobia'", "white men are rapists of coeds", "white people are a**holes, white privilege is evil, white fragility is problematic, etc." White America has been the Core America from the beginning, but it is constantly attacked, berated, demeaned, insulted, and humiliated. And as youngsters are impressionable, so many white kids have internalized these propaganda points pushed by Jews.
In a way, one might say US is a very proud and robust empire in that there is no criticism of Jewish Power, the top power that rules. US is about Jews, Jews, Jews and 'muh Israel' from the elites of both parties. In that sense, US empire is like empires of old: It is indeed about the power and glory of Jews. But the neo-imperial narrative is rarely about what the US is really about: Jewish Hegemonic pride. But then, Jews are only 2% of the population and very nervous as rulers. Can an empire sustain itself by elevating the 2% over the majority of whites? Or, are Jews fixing to use Diversity as New Majority as its loyal servants? But can Diversity be as reliable as white cucks and as competent? An empire that glorifies the great majority is surely more stable than one that glorifies a tiny minority. After all, British Imperialist prestige was more stable in the mother country of UK than in India where the British elites had to keep Hindu identity and pride suppressed as a 'national identity'.

But on the other hand, clever Jews may have come upon a formidable formula for empire. After all, what was one of the major reasons for the fall of empires? The subject peoples eventually tired of the occupying power and began to resist. So, the British, French, and Ottoman empires fell apart. But what if an empire erases all notions of conquering people and subject peoples? In other words, while the US military may invade other nations and dominate much of the world, peoples from all over the world can come to the US and become 'Americans'. Or they can go to Europe and become 'Europeans'. Thus, if old empires were a one-way street in the flow of power, the new empire is a two-way street. 'Invade-Invite' means both worlds get transformed. US changes the world with bombs and money, but the world changes the US as immigrant hordes and new elites. In time, they join in the metropole, enter the military, become professors & journalists, and etc. Indeed, consider how so many Third World elites are now pro-imperialist than anti-imperialist. They figure more Western access to their nations means more access to the West on their part. "They take from us, but we take from them." Also, there's the sense that "they criticize us for our human rights problems, but they are also busy criticizing themselves for their human rights problems. Indeed, white professors teach our children to criticize and condemn white supremacism and white racism." (Now, one may argue that the Soviets pioneered this kind of empire, one where Russians had no special privileges over other peoples. A Russian could lord over others, but others could lord over Russians. It was an empire of ideology than identity. Ethnicity mattered less than dogma, i.e. a Lithuanian communist had more power than a Russian reactionary. But as communism was so repressive, it failed to capture the imagination of the world. Who wanted to emigrate to communist nations?) So, this kind of imperialism seems truly 'enlightened' and fair. Unlike old imperialism, it's not about one people conquering and dominating another but ALL THE PEOPLE coming under liberal hegemony. And within this New World Order, whites are just as likely(if not more so) to come under criticism on grounds of 'racism' and etc.

Of course, it's far more complicated than that. Empire of Enlightenment is really a ruse, an illusion. After all, if indeed it's true that ALL peoples should come under criticism and scrutiny, why is there so little talk of Jewish Power, the most powerful power in the West and thus in the world? Why are Jews praised and 'protected' all over the world, from Russia to the US? Why does even Iran go about making a case that "We take good care of our Jews?" How come BLM and Antifa activists hardly go after Jews, and when they do, they get crushed like a bug? Empire of Enlightenment or EOE is really a Jewish Supremacist World Order that creates the impression of New Western Values of 'Diversity' and 'Inclusion' by making it seem like the West is still marked by White Supremacism. Thus, all good peoples — Jews, Muslims, blacks, yellows, browns, Hindus, 'good white liberals', tolerable white cuckservatives, homos, trannies, feminists, and etc. — must all join forces to fight this evil scourge. This creates the impression that all is fair in the New World Order. (Besides, Jews push Diversity on grounds of "Is it good for Jews?" More goy diversity means Jews can play divide-and-rule among bickering goyim.) Gee, the West may invade and bomb other nations, but it is NOT in the service of White Supremacism but 'spreading democracy' and 'fighting terror'. How can it be about supremacism when the West is most committed to stamping out 'white racism' and even 'white privilege'? If anything, the West invites tons of non-white migrants to Europe and immigrants to the US to join forces with 'good whites' to combat White Supremacism. The children of immigrants are taught by good whites to hate 'white racism' as the greatest evil. But, this is to totally overlook the fact that Jewish Supremacism than white supremacism rules the West. It overlooks the fact that Jewish Supremacists are using white mercenary soldiers to destroy other nations, mostly Muslim, and not for 'spreading democracy' or 'fighting terror' but for the interests of Zion and Jewish Power. And it is blind to the fact that Jews invoke 'white supremacism' to deflect attention from Jewish Supremacism as the true master of the West. Even BLM is a ploy on the part of Jews to keep blacks hating whites and to keep whites being paralyzed with 'white guilt'. And what is globo-homo-mania but a Jewish agenda to replace Christianity and natural normality with Queertianity and minority-elite privilege?

In all this, blacks may be the greatest beneficiaries, indeed even more so than Jews. After all, whereas Jews must work very hard to maintain the current World Order, blacks need only sit back and bask in all the love from all the world. Some worthless Negro, Fentanyl Floyd, dies of drug overdose, and all the world loves blacks. Democrats cheer on black rage, GOP doesn't object. Donald Trump says Fentanyl Floyd is an angel looking down on us. European nations broke out in BLM protests. (Some of this was naive and sincere in the spirit of Negrolatry. But it was cynical in some cases as knee-jerk Anti-Americanism. What easier way to justify Anti-Americanism than by mentioning the Black Problem, especially as the universally accepted narrative says black problems are mostly the result of 'legacy of white racism'?) So, blacks can just sit on their ass while both pro-American and anti-American forces around the world chant BLM. After all, BLM is both a form of US imperialism and a form of anti-US imperialism. It is promoted even by US embassies. BLM has officially been declared as the new anthem of America. Americans should take pride in it as the Second Civil Rights. The fact that so many Americans care about Black Lives and condemn 'white supremacist' police brutality means US is a progressive and conscientious nation. So, kudos to America!! (It is also a good way to unseat the white supremacist literally hitler Trump who isn't a real US president but Putin's Puppet or Siberian Candidate.) But BLM is also useful for the 'enemies' of the US. Iran and China are having a field day, watching American cities fall to SJW insurrections that paint the US as an evil nation. The shaming of America taints its image around the world.

In either case, it becomes a game of Tug-A-Gro(Tug-A-Negro). US and its allies tug on the Negro as their darling race, and anti-American nations tug on the Negro to show their love for blacks who are oppressed by US and the West. So, blacks get everything from all sides from this. They not only get adulation in the West but from the Anti-West. The West says, "We are so sorry for the legacy of racism, and we are doing everything and much more to make things so much better for Blacks or BLACKS", and the Anti-West says, "Oh boo hoo, we weep for those wonderful magical innocent Negroes being mistreated by Evil White Racists in the US and West." So, blacks can just sit pretty(or ugly) and receive alms and accolades from all sides. The typical US-China insult-fest goes like this: "Look how those evil Chinese are so 'racist' and treating black Africans like animals whereas we good Americans care so very much about blacks" vs "Look how 'racist' America is oppressing those noble innocent blacks whereas we Chinese are committed to justice and invest so much in Africa to help out the poor blacks." Pure Tug-A-Gro. With Negroes gaining so much from conflicts among non-blacks, they may inherit the world as they are now above criticism from all sides. It's like J. Wellington Wimpy gets all the food while Popeye and Bluto fight one another. It's like Negrollar is the Moral Currency of the World. Because blacks were slaves in the US(the most powerful nation on Earth), black nations/communities are the poorest & most pitiable, blacks tend to be shamelessly vocal(thereby gaining the most attention), and blacks have cool-cred as athletes and rappers(and dong-butt folks), they are both objects of sympathy and fascination.