consumerism of 1960s culture and that the audience does not see the growing issues in American society because the camera is concerned solely with Ben’s perspective, who is too self-absorbed to take notice of such things. 308 The opening scene of the film shows Ben on an airport walkway collecting his possessions, a metaphor for the conveyer belt of life which he must fight against in order to prevent himself from becoming a possession of materialistic society. The camera lingers on a sign ‘Do They Match?’ which becomes a prelude to Ben’s ultimate decision on where he ‘matches’ in society, with Mrs. Robinson and his middle-class parents, or with his own generation, who are attempting to redefine their boundaries and identities. Ben’s role has been widely debated and while he is viewed as the original rebel by some, recent critics have produced a damning reassessment of his character. Stevens sees Ben as an embodiment of political activists who were striving to have their voice heard 309 and views Ben’s struggle to find an identity as “inextricable from The Graduate’s historical context.” 310 Cardullo regards Ben as a moralist whose actions always have some value to a wider moral compass. 311 In contrast to this, Jacob Brackman has described Ben as a “countercultural apologist” 312 and Rosenbaum states his utter confusion at Ben’s ‘rebel’ label. 313 The sole interaction Ben has at a drive-in restaurant with the counterculture of his generation results in him rolling up the roof of his car to drown out their music. While this can be 308 Aaron Cooley, “Reviving Reification: Education, Indoctrination, and Anxiety in The Graduate, ” A Journal of the American Educational Studies Association 45 (2009): 371. 309 Stevens, Mike Nichols, 93. 310 Ibid. , 95. 311 Cardullo, Film Analysis, 110. 312 Whitehead, Appraising the Graduate, 1. 313 Stevens, Mike Nichols, 90.
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