Years ago there used to be a farce on London’s West End that ran literally for decades – “No Sex, Please. We’re British!” (I think that’s the title – it’s been a while.) Anyway, those days are long gone, as we know, and the latest Oscar-worthy import from Blighty is “An Education,” a fascinating film that is the subject of the latest POLIWOOD. Although Lionel and I both liked the film, we disagreed about what the movie was trying to say. Have a look at our discussion, then see the film. It’s worth the money and time, in this rare instance. Anyway, it’s London, 1961, just before Carnaby Street, the Beatles and Swinging England are about to emerge, when a shifty thirty-two year old man picks up a cute, bound-for-Oxford sixteen-year old….
“we disagreed about what the movie was trying to say.”
There is no real mystery. The leftist establishment has longed campaigned for sex between minors and adults. I have not seen this movie, but most likely the sixteen-year-old girl is being portrayed as sufficiently mature to make decisions regarding her sex life. Have we already forgotten the overall film industry’s defense of Roman Polansky? And yes, the film because of its politically correct message will be a strong contended for a number of Academy Awards. This is the number one priority if one desires to capture a nomination. And that’s why countless individuals like myself no longer care about this once respected institution. The Academy awards are now a joke.
The real lesson of the real life affair that figured in the source material (the diaries) is two-fold. First that teen age girls WILL almost always choose older guys because, well, they are older. Men not boys. Teen girls are just as lust-driven as boys. Second that the affair had severe long-term consequences. The boys her own age were viewed negatively (in comparison with the man who was her lover), the “romantic getaway” of Paris was made into a lie, one that prompted a later lie when she went away to Paris again with a boyfriend her own age.
Yes, the movie did indeed try to glamorize the relationship, and normalize it. But part of the source material and the story itself makes the relationship itself negative. After all, the girl does not end up with the older guy but rather dismissive and suspicious of boys her own age. I mean, after the relationship with the older guy the girl is unable to have a nice, normal, happy relationship with a boy her own age.
It sounds like the theme is a lot like the latest Woody Allen movie that you and Lionel discussesd And, as David Thompson said so succinctly, it’s just another effort by the entertainment media to mainstream another cultural taboo.