Page 2, Cinematic Depictions

Tom is comforted by his housemaster's new wife, Laura, with whom he is already entranced and infatuated. She tries to offer him "tea and sympathy," as faculty wives often do, but becomes deeply involved in his dilemma. Tom's sympathetic roommate suggests that he have a "date" with the town tramp, a gossip who will certainly tell everyone the next day that he "proved" his masculinity with her through having sex. Laura tries to stop Tom from going on this date, and in this scene Tom attempts to kiss her. When she retreats from the kiss, he bolts from the room and goes on his date, where, unable to perform sexually, he attempts suicide with a kitchen knife. He is stopped from killing himself but is expelled for going out after hours to the woman's apartment. Tom's father is initially overjoyed when he thinks Tom got in trouble because he proved his manhood through sex with a woman, but is stricken and contemptuous when he discovers Tom could not complete the sex act.

Meanwhile, Laura and her husband are revealed to have serious marital difficulties. She asks him why they "rarely touch any more." Although she wants to preserve her marriage, she wants a man who is more emotionally sensitive and expressive than her husband, who is jealous of Laura's interest in Tom. She points out, "I gave him the affection you didn't want and wouldn't have." She acknowledges a desire to give Tom a sexual experience that would quell his doubts about his manhood. She accuses her husband of needing "a scapegoat to reaffirm your shaky position" about being a man.

Later, Laura discovers that Tom has run away, leaving a suicide note, and she finds him in the woods. She tries to convince him that he is indeed manly, but he says he will never again try to be sexual with a woman. After a brief inner struggle, she kisses him and this leads to a sexual experience that will presumably consolidate his identity as a man. It is implied that Laura is doing him a great service, perhaps even making a sacrifice to save him. There is certainly no hint that sexual abuse of a minor by an adult is involved. In the play upon which the movie is based, Laura has a famous curtain line that in the movie version she says before the two make love: "Years from now, when you talk about this -- and you will -- please be kind."

The movie is much vaguer than the original play about the accusations of homosexuality, and focuses instead on Tom's effeminacy. In addition, it contains an odd addition, apparently written at the insistence of the Breen office, the Hollywood censors responsible for safeguarding the moral tone in movies, and the Catholic Legion of Decency (Russo, 1987). They would not permit a story line in which homosexuality was mentioned explicitly or adultery seemed to be encouraged, although they apparently were willing to allow the movie to show a sexual relationship between an adult woman and a schoolboy. Because of their concerns, the movie is framed by a flashback from Tom's ten year school reunion. At the reunion, Tom finds a letter from Laura, who separated from her husband immediately following her liaison with Tom. She wrote the letter after reading a novel Tom subsequently wrote about their relationship. Tom has been indeed "kind" in conveying what happened between them in a positive light, and she thanks him, but says he portrayed her as too "saintly." She wishes Tom well in his marriage, thus telegraphing to the audience that he is indeed not gay and implying that perhaps she did save his life by having a sexual relationship with him. She goes on, however, to say she was wrong to ignore her husband's needs for her, which were as great as Tom's, and that the husband suffered over the years because of her actions. There is no suggestion that Laura did wrong to engage in sex with a high school boy.

It is implied in Tea and Sympathy that "real" men, in addition to always welcoming sex with women, are likely to scorn the women who allow them sexual favors. Listen again to Laura's line before they make love: "Years from now, when you talk about this -- and you will -- please be kind" (emphasis added). She thus suggests that he will become a man and, like all men, will then boast of his youthful sexual initiation. There is no sense that he will consider that she has been sexually abusive or even inappropriate with him, but she does expect him to be abusive ("unkind") to her as he retells their story.

In The Graduate, a dark comedy, Benjamin, a recent college graduate, is not actually underage, but his erotic, tortured affair with Mrs. Robinson, the bored wife of his father's business partner, has the emotional impact of a molestation of an adolescent by an older, more powerful mother-substitute. Her more dominant position is underlined by her remaining "Mrs. Robinson" to him, even when they are having an affair, while he remains "Benjamin" to her. She blatantly and singlemindedly sets out to seduce him. When he says so ("Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me!"), she dismisses his accusation while furthering the seduction and then blaming him for it: "Would you like me to seduce you? Is that what you're saying?" When they are interrupted by the arrival of Mr. Robinson, Mrs. Robinson urgently tells Benjamin that he should telephone her and they can "make some kind of arrangement." Benjamin is confused but obviously excited and aroused by Mrs. Robinson. He does call and makes a date. When he tries to stop their liaison before it is consummated, she pushes him to complete the sex act by pointedly suggesting he is an "inadequate," inexperienced lover. Throughout their relationship, it is clear that Mrs. Robinson is only interested in Benjamin for sex. When he asks if they can converse, she tells him they do not have much to say to one another.
"What happens when we reverse the sex of the participants? ...I believe the issue of abuse would have arisen much more clearly than it did in reactions to the films as written."

The relationship is waning when Elaine, Mrs. Robinson's daughter, comes home and Benjamin's parents press him to ask her out. In the ensuing complications, Benjamin and Elaine fall in love. Mrs. Robinson is viciously determined that Benjamin not get involved with her daughter, eventually accusing him of rape. At the end, Benjamin interrupts Elaine's hastily scheduled wedding to another man, and the two flee together, leaving the "adults" behind. In the final frames, they look at each other on the bus they have taken, she still in her wedding dress, and seem to have no any idea about what will come next in their lives.

Harold and Maude is an eccentric comedy about the relationship between Maude, an 79-year-old woman, and a young man. Harold is of indeterminate age, since he looks fifteen or even younger, but he drives a car, seems to be out of high school, and is eventually pressed by his mother to marry. His preoccupation with death and suicide is compellingly conveyed through blackly humorous scenes of staged suicide attempts and attendance at funerals of people he did not know. Maude, on the other hand, despite her age and commitment to dying at the age of 80, is full of zest, passion, and enthusiasm for life. Their story is erotic in the literal sense of the word; it is about how eros (life) is transmitted from Maude to Harold. Nevertheless, a mostly understated sexual component is present. They dance, there is a scene in which they wake up in bed, and Harold decides to marry Maude. At the end, Maude has serenely committed suicide on her eightieth birthday. Harold, while grief-stricken, has been transformed from his former melancholy, joyless state into an animated, alive young man. The film is hyperbolic rather than realistic in tone, and its message is that his unconventional relationship with Maude saves Harold's life.

The Last Picture Show follows Sonny and Duane, two teenage boys in their senior year of high school in a dusty, rundown Texas town. In one of the major story lines, Sonny begins an affair with Ruth, the 40 year old wife of his football coach. Ignored by her husband, desperately unhappy, looking pinched and old, Ruth has been spending her time going to doctors for various ailments. At the coach's request, Sonny drives her to one of these appointments. Ruth is tearful afterwards, and slowly she and Sonny draw closer to one another. Sonny is eager for the sex Ruth seems to offer him, and in a short time they become lovers. While he refers to her as an old lady when talking to his friends, he seems to care for Ruth, at least up to a point. As the months go on, Ruth blossoms, beginning to look younger and far prettier than before. The depth of her feeling for Sonny is apparent. The two joke about how the coach would shoot them both if he discovered their affair, but they do not seem very worried.

Most of the people in the tiny town know about their liaison and seem to accept it. However, Duane's former girl friend, a spoiled and selfish beauty, learns of the affair from her mother. Momentarily unattached and bored, she is outraged because Sonny had always wanted to be her boyfriend, and she sets out to seduce him. She succeeds easily, and Sonny does not show up for his next rendezvous with Ruth, who is distraught and crushed. He never contacts her, and does not allow her to visit when he is hospitalized following a fight with Duane over the girl they both want. Sonny only returns to Ruth after the hit-and-run death of a retarded boy he had cared about. At first, Ruth rages at Sonny for never having contacted her, even to break things off, and tells him he would have abandoned the retarded boy just as he abandoned her. As she sees his pain, however, she allows him to hold her hand, and the implication is that they may begin their affair again.

Summer of ‘42 is a bittersweet, nostalgia-drenched coming-of-age movie, a memory story about a 15-year-old boy, Hermie, and his introduction to sex. The first part of the movie concerns Hermie and his two buddies as they explore the world of adolescent sexual awakening while summering with their families at the seashore. In this section, Hermie has a crush on Dorothy, a beautiful war bride in her twenties who lives in a house by the beach. He sees her with her husband while the husband is on leave, and, awestruck, finds ways to meet her and strike up an acquaintance. There are comic moments as he tries to sound grown-up and sophisticated, while she accepts his attentions in an appropriately grave manner, treating him seriously as a person, but not in any way as a suitor. These scenes are juxtaposed with other humorous scenes in which Hermie and his friends try to understand what happens during sex. They discuss how to feel a girl's breasts, and there is an extended farcical scene in which Hermie works up the courage to buy condoms in a drugstore. The boys meet up with girls their own age, and Hermie's best friend "scores" with one, to his own surprise.

Meanwhile, Hermie continues his infatuation with Dorothy, egged on by his best friend. He drops by her house one night and finds her grief stricken at the news that her husband has been killed in action. In this last part of the film, Dorothy clings to Hermie for comfort. As the scene slowly and seemingly without intention becomes erotic, she wordlessly invites him to her bedroom. Tears streaming down their faces, they make love, clearly to give her solace. In addition, of course, Hermie is introduced to the adult sexuality he and his friends have been trying to understand throughout the movie. Quite implausibly, Hermie, though frightened, is a far more tender and able lover than anyone might think after an earlier scene in which we see him with a girl his own age, putting his arm around her in a movie theater and awkwardly attempting to touch her breasts -- to succeed only in cupping her shoulder.

After Hermie and Dorothy make love, no words are exchanged except for goodbye. When Hermie returns the next day, Dorothy has gone. She leaves him a sensitive note that simultaneously thanks him, makes it clear this night will never be repeated, wishes him well, and says that some day he will grow to understand what happened. Hermie never sees her again or hears what happened to her.
Lushly scored by Michel Legrand, the movie presents the sexuality as sweet, touching, and understandable under the circumstances. Dorothy's good-natured understanding of Hermie's adolescent crush and his sensitivity to her needs when her husband is killed are idyllically portrayed. Conveniently, they never have to face one another after their sexual encounter. There is no sense of trauma, and we assume he is a better person for this experience. Yet, the movie begins and ends with voiceovers that give pause to a careful listener. At the beginning, Hermie as a man says, "Nothing, from that first day I saw her, and no one that has happened to me since, has ever been as frightening and as confusing. For no person I've ever known has ever done more to make me feel more sure, more insecure, more important, and less significant." And, as the movie closes, he says, "For everything we take with us, there is something we leave behind. In the summer of ‘42 . . . , in a very special way, I lost Hermie forever." These voiceovers subtly suggest that Hermie's childhood ended prematurely, and that the relationship with Dorothy in some way may have stopped him from other, more mature and mutual relationships with women. Nevertheless, the tender romanticism of the story leaves the viewer with the sense that Hermie was a lucky boy, and that Dorothy was fortunate to have had him to turn to in her grief.

It can be argued that in all these films the boy was having consensual sex with the older woman. Is this true or is it merely a sexist assumption about boys and men always welcoming sex when it is offered, especially by a woman? What happens when we reverse the sex of the participants? Imagine for a moment the audience's reaction to these story lines: A teacher's husband seduces a sexually uncertain high school girl in Tea and Sympathy. A middle-aged, married Mr. Robinson sexually exploits the newly graduated daughter of his close friend and business partner in The Graduate. A dying eighty-year-old man has a final, life-affirming erotic encounter with a teenage girl in Harold and Maude. A middle-aged, lonely high school coach has an affair with a high school girl in The Last Picture Show. An older married man hears of his wife's sudden death and turns to a 15-year-old girl for sexual comfort and solace in Summer of ‘42. Had these been the story lines, I believe the issue of abuse would have arisen much more clearly than it did in reactions to the films as written.

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