Frontier. 285 He appointed women to high-level government jobs and founded the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women, whose work established many local, state and federal organisations which would go on to battle gender inequality. 286 Elaine’s character epitomises the cultural dilemma experienced by many young women at the time. The famous lines spoken between Mrs. Robinson and her daughter, Elaine “it’s too late” “not for me” are used to demonstrate the differences between the two generations however, there is little about Elaine’s situation which is empowering. 287 There are only ever two options available to Elaine, one is to marry Carl Smith, a representation of the world her parents want her to live in, and the other to marry Ben. Regardless of whom she chooses, Elaine is locked into her fate as a future wife and mother and there is no suggestion that she can command her own future outside the constraints of a traditional marriage. While wider society showed support for the advances towards gender equality, the film industry was contradicting such monumental events. Kramer notes that, by marginalising women, New Hollywood cinema provided a compensatory action, allowing male audience members to act out situations which society now deemed unacceptable. Films like The Graduate gave men an escape from the expansion of women’s sphere of influence beyond the home and into the domains of business and politics. 288 Nichols uses female characters either as symbols for Ben’s sexual initiation or as damsels in distress 285 Steven M. Buechler, Women’s Movements in the United States: Woman Suffrage, Equal Rights and Beyond (London: Rutgers University Press, 1990), 26. 286 Ibid., 27. 287 The Graduate. DVD. Directed by Mike Nichols. Los Angeles:
Lawrence Turman Productions, 1967. 288 Kramer, The New Hollywood, 72.
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