In class we have been watching scenes from The Graduate. One of the scenes that stuck out to me was when Mrs. Robinson confronts Ben in his car when he comes to pick up Elaine for a date. Soaking wet she gets into the car and commands him to keep driving. For once Ben stands up for himself and tells her that he and Elaine are going out and there’s nothing Mrs. Robinson can do. With a loathing look that could melt the flesh off of someone’s face Mrs. Robinson orders Ben to “Do exactly as I say!!”. Ben acquiesces and continues driving, Mrs. Robinson makes it clear that she doesn’t want Ben to come near Elaine ever again. It seems that Mrs. Robinson won’t be content until everyone is as miserable as she is. By allowing herself to become attached to Ben she became vulnerable. After Ben jilted her because of his “love” for Elaine she realized that once again she was left alone, and if she could not have what she wanted then no one else could either. She threatens Ben that if he doesn’t obey she will tell Elaine everything. Ben disbelieves that she would do such a thing and Mrs. Robinson dares him to defy her. Ben dashes out of the car (all the training on the track field really starts to pay off) and Mrs. Robinson unused to opening her own door stays fumbling with the locked door. Ben beats Mrs. Robinson home and dashes up the stairs into and blurts out the truth to the unsuspecting Elaine. A hysterical Elaine forces Ben out of her room and shuts the door. What I found interesting about the way the scene was shot was the fact that Elaine’s room is decorated in white and the walls in the hallway are a glaring white as well. As Mrs. Robinson slumps against the wall dejectedly watching the scene, her black robe is starkly contrasted with the purity of the white hallway. This scene is highly symbolic and uses white (Elaine) to represent the “good and pure” and the black (Mrs. Robinson) to portray the “perverse and tainted”. Analyzing this scene from our classes viewpoint I drew a connection between this scene and Diana Meehan’s theory about the images of women. In his book on cultural studies Barker introduces theorist Diana Meehan introduces the way that women are portrayed on US television. Meehan postulates that women are portrayed in several different images and suggests that “representations on television cast ‘good’ women as submissive, sensitive and domesticated while ‘bad' women are rebellious, independent and selfish.” (307). In this scene it is very clear how Elaine stands to represent all that which is pure and desirable in a women. Mrs. Robinson on the other hand is obviously the bad women who is to be avoided at all costs. Though I too was repulsed by Mrs. Robinson’s character I found it interesting that my reaction was exactly what the makers of the film expected of me. Unbeknownst to me this scene served to reinforce a certain ideology of what makes one woman “good” and another “bad”.
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