During the movie The Graduate something that lingered in the back of my mind was what was motivating Mrs. Robinson to seek this relationship with Ben. After re-watching a number of scenes it becomes apparent that Mrs. Robinson is looking for youth.
Youth is a big theme from The Graduate and Mrs. Robinson is a symbol for the future or the longing for youth. In the scene when Mrs.Robinson invites Ben back to her house, and she tries to tempt him which leads to Ben accusing her of seducing him, she takes it as a compliment instead of an insult. This alone how all she wants is somebody younger to want to have feelings for her and make her feel like she is young not old and washed out. In that same scene when Mr. Robinson comes home, he talks about how you can never be twenty-three again. This scene is what shows us that Mr. and Mrs. Robinson both regret decisions they made when they were younger and wish they ventured out and had flings instead of tiring the knot.
An important way to show this longing for youth from Mrs. Robinson is how she is clothed throughout the movie. In almost every scene between her and Ben she is wearing clothes that women who are old mothers and married shouldn't be wearing especially cheetah print. This all tells the audience that Mrs. Robinson has a serious insecurity problem about age and tries to make up for it by wearing flattering clothes.
The whole relationship between Mrs. Robinson and Ben also felt like Mrs. Robinson using Ben as almost vitamin D, keeping her young and healthy. In an odd way she was sucking the life out of him and putting him in a position where she was taking his youth and he was losing it. The director shows this by having Ben do nothing but be with Mrs. Robinson instead of doing what normal twenty something year olds should be doing.
Another way the director showed us Mrs. Robinson was searching for youth was the rack focus in the scene Elaine finds out Ben has been having affair with her mother. I believe the rack focus in this scene shows that Ben has replaced her with something younger and it is the only scene Mrs. Robinson isn't in make up. The camera is focused on young Elaine and when it switches focus to Mrs. Robinson it shows her wrinkled and older than ever shown, hinting to the audience that Mrs. Robinson wasn't getting her youth anymore from Ben.
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| Provocative Clothing on Mrs. Robinson |
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| Rack focus showing old and unmake up'ed Mrs. Robinson |
I agree that Mrs. Robinson is looking for her youth. I think she is resentful of the way her youth was taken away from her, when she chose to raise Elaine and marry Mr. Robinson rather than continue with her art career. Like you said, her costuming was very age inappropriate and it felt like she was trying too hard to look young. Her skin was also very fake looking. When she begins to undress for the first time in Elaine's room, she has tan lines that make her skin look old and leathery, unlike Ben or Elaine's. Once she finally had Ben, she stopped wearing cheetah which reveals that she finally got the youth she was seeking. Throughout the film we see her more and more vulnerable, especially in the two stills you included above. I think this is when she realizes that she had gone too deep.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the point you made about Mrs. Robinson using Ben as a vitality drug because as she grew more and more powerful, his life spiraled more and more out of control.
I also agree that Mrs. Robinson is looking for her youth and that Ben's liveliness is being drained from him by her. Ben is portrayed as having nothing else in his life once he gets back from college, but Mrs. Robinson. Together they have to be secretive they can't go on dates or anything public because of the risk of people seeing the two of them. They in a sense were using each other because Ben was looking for confidence and Mrs. Robinson was looking for youth. However I don't necessarily agree with the fact that older women shouldn't wear animal print. I believe that she wore this as a symbol of her preying on Ben but not because it was inappropriate or provocative.
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