"The Graduate is the satirical coming-of-age comedy that became an emotional touchstone for an entire generation", states yahoo.com's movie critic. This film is exceptionally pointless at first glance. However, with a careful eye for detail one can begin to acknowledge the significance of this type of film in the morally absent time of the 60's. This film shows the correlations between today and six and a half decades ago and the impact of our actions showing indefinitely the well-known phrase, "What we do in life echoes in eternity", Russell Crowe: Gladiator. I believe that this film was and is important for society as a whole to watch.
There are exactly two correlations between the setting of the movie and present day. These are the need to rebel from society, and the detachment felt from ones parents as one becomes a young adult. Dustin Hoffman's surprising good portrayal of the confused state Ben Braddock was in showed the viewer the need to rebel as a young adult. The rebelling came in the form of an affair with Mrs. Robinson played by Anne Bancroft. This type of rebellion is common among young adults especially amid those being pressured by authority figures and those questioning who they truly are, claims co-author Ross D. Parke of the book Family-Peer Relationships. Ben Braddock's rebellion comes from his feeling of need to "conform" to what he believes society wants him to be. I feel that when he started his relationship with Ms. Robinson, he was thinking that he had finally done something that wasn't his parents' idea. This in itself was a whole new feeling for him and he loved it. Today this type of behavior can be seen in college students, who feel the need to break away from the expectations, set by their parents. The same motivation can be seen in almost all of today's youth's ranging from binge drinking to drugs and promiscuity. The second connection between present day and the 60's is that kids and young adults alike still feel a sense of detachment from their parents.