If there’s one movie from the ’60s that still has cultural relevance, it’s “The Graduate.”
It’s been a little more than 40 years since Benjamin Braddock, played by the now legendary Dustin Hoffman, first entertained moviegoers with his awkward antics.
By now, the plot is familiar: Mother seduces daughter’s friend, friend partakes in affair, friend falls in love with daughter.
But Braddock’s affair with Mrs. Robinson (played by the seductive Anne Bancroft) and the pursuit of her daughter, Elaine (Katharine Ross), also symbolized the confusion many college students face as they near graduation, and the questions can be very stressful.
When you analyze the message behind “The Graduate,” it offers students two choices.
You can either do what everyone wanted Braddock to do — get a job, go to graduate school, find a girlfriend — or you can do what’s in your heart.
That doesn’t mean you have to start an affair with the mother of a friends, although it is an interesting choice.
But the underlying message, and one every soon-to-be graduate should hear, is that you have to do what makes you happy.