The release of The Graduate marked a shift in cinematic approaches that vividly reflects the changing political tides in America. America’s attitude toward sexuality, and that attitude's reflection in film, changed rapidly between the release of The Apartment in 1960 and Myra Breckenridge in 1970. Was that evolutionary sea change a mere reflection of social change, or were the movies released during that period themselves responsible for the shift in standards?
The Graduate was released in the middle of the sexual revolution of the 60s. The sexual revolution was a widespread movement that changed prevailing attitudes about sexual and interpersonal relationships drastically, pushing the standard towards a more lax and independent notion of sex and its effects. To refer to The Graduate as a seminal film in the evolution of the "sex comedy" is almost to understate its importance. A "sex comedy" is a time-tested genre dating back to the ancients, and is quite simply a comedic narrative motivated by sexual themes. Mike Nichols’ comedy almost singlehandedly contravenes and subverts every generic convention that audiences raised on Hollywood filmmaking had come to take for granted. When Benjamin Braddock took Mrs. Robinson up on her sexual proposition, the sex comedy was forever changed. At the time, the story of a broken sexual taboo between a young man and an older woman was scandalous, but marked a loosening of sexual and political mores that characterized the late 1960s and early 1970s. Indeed, the character of the sexually frank and ruthless Mrs. Robinson remains an iconic figure, still the first character who comes to mind at the mention of the "older woman."
One of the most memorable conventions of the romantic comedy is the wedding as the pinnacle event. From Shakespeare to The Philadelphia Story to Father of the Bride, comedies almost always ended with a wedding. While The Graduate nods to the wedding convention, it subverts it by casting Elaine as a runaway bride, leaving her husband to be at the alter in favor of a more open-ended future with Benjamin. A similar plot point had been utilized in The Philadelphia Story a few decades earlier. Despite the odds being stacked overwhelmingly against them, Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant's characters end up tying the knot for the second time in a wedding intended for Hepburn and another man. What differentiates these two films, however, is that while The Philadelphia Story still ends tidily in a happily-ever-after marriage, The Graduate refrains from giving the audience such a neat ending, instead leaving us with an image of freedom rather than confinement: the young couple riding away from the chapel on a public bus.
The Graduate's treatment of sexuality and traditional conventions of the sex comedy also reflects the changing form of masculinity in the 1960s. Benjamin Braddock is the quintessential stand-in for the countercultural youth, without actually being countercultural. He breaks sexual taboos, he is disillusioned with the demands of the marketplace and careerism, and he is sensitive and respectful of his beloved Elaine, rather than paternalistic and professionally ambitious. The future for young men in the 1960s was less clear-cut than it had been for their post-war fathers. Benjamin's confusion and less-assured aspects reflect the uncharted dimensions of masculinity that were emerging in the late 60s. The Graduate ends with a wedding, but not a marriage. It ends with a loving couple intact, but absolutely no guarantee of their being able to sustain a relationship. The Graduate is a sex comedy to be sure, and a funny one at that, but its mysteries and ambiguities aptly reflect the time in which it was released.
