The History Boys: so many things that made me feel like shit

I'm sure there is some merit to this movie, but I had a very hard time noticing it underneath all of the awkward light-heartedness that made the entire story feel strange, forced, and pointless.

(Spoiler alert, by the way)

The main thrust of the story, they tell you on the netflix slip description, is to convey the differences between the purpose of education and knowledge for truth and the purpose of education and knowledge for advancement. This point is talked about some, but for me greatly overshadowed by the incidents of molestation the beloved teacher subjects his pupils to. When first introduced, one is unsure if it is a joke because the boys talk about it as if it is. Their instructor asks at the end of class if anyone would like a ride home on his motorcycle and the boys hastily busy themselves with packing their schoolbags. After one student leaves, saying something to the effect that he is taking one for the team, the other boys explain that the teacher is a homosexual and pathetic and touches their crotches when they ride the bike home with him. Ha. Ha.

When this fact is brought to the attention of the headmaster by a crossing guard who sees it happen to one of the boys, the main emphasis is on how sad it is that this teacher has been asked to retire early and not on the fact that he has repeatedly touched his students in inappropriate ways. The incident (and those preceding it) are explained away as unimportant in a couple of ways: 1) the boys are of age, so it's not really that bad, 2) the boys don't seem to mind that much, so it's okay, and 3) the teacher himself says that his fondling of their packages is more of a "benediction than molestation" that he is merely admiring their junk and not really doing much of anything.

1) The position of power that this man has over his students makes it wholly inappropriate. That is part of the reason that sexual harrassment exists. People in the workplace may be "of age" but if a boss touches an employee without consent, the power dynamic and possible coercion make that act illegal. 2) This is part of where the movie really loses me...at first, the boys seem very distressed and uncomfortable, desperate to find an excuse to not ride with the teacher because of the inevitable crotch pat they will receive. Then, when they find out he's leaving, two of the boys seem to rejoice in the fact that they will not have to go through that experience again, joking about it with one another. One of those same two boys then goes to the headmaster and bribes him with his own act of sexual harrassment of a female student in order to help his teacher keep his job so that he can continue to touch future students. He uses his apparent girlfriend's experiences of being fondled by the headmaster against him and rather than getting her out of that situation or punishing him for his behavior, he promises not to tell if they re-hire the other molester. Sweet. 3) Unwanted touching is unwanted touching, no matter whether it's to admire a part of someone's body or to get off. If someone pulled that sort of crap excuse on me ("I was just admiring how awesome your boobs are") I would punch them in the nuts and tell them I was only admiring how intensly they are able to feel pain.

This movie is overall sad, and not really in the story, though sad things happen. The sad thing is that it tries very hard to deal with important things in a real way and just flounders in the shallows of a few subjects rather than getting deeply into any of them. There is an obvious theme of homosexuality and what it means to different people as there is one student who is gay and in love with another boy, a new teacher who is also in love with the same boy, the main teacher, Hector, who has secretly been gay but is married, and the boy who everybody loves is attracted to the new, hot teacher. There is almost a hookup between the new teacher and this boy after they have graduated, but it doesn't end up happening even though the audience ends up wanting it to as it seems more appropriate than the relations that have been happening as the power dynamic is no longer an issue after graduation, it's consensual, and both guys are smoking hot. But they don't really deal with homosexuality, just touch on it lightly and move on without taking anything too seriously.

This film is continuously missing the mark. They have what seems like should be a very strong female character (one of two in the whole film not counting the crossing guard) who at one point launches into a rant about how the whole of human history is men fucking up while women "follow behind with a bucket" cleaning up after them. First of all, she's missed the point. History is about everyone and no matter who is in charge, men or women, they are going to fuck up. She ends up sounding like she's whining about how bad all men are, which is exactly the rhetoric that drives men away from feminist ideals, while she should be talking about the actual presence of women that is not talked about. On top of this fallacy about something that is very important and is supposed to carry passion, the boys and men in the room are sniggering the entire time while another teacher goes on about women and history. We see shots of the men rolling their eyes at each other and not giving the woman who has taught them so much the respect of honestly listening.

The main point seems to be that history is an accident and this message only comes through in the one good scene (not even a great scene, just good) of the film at Hector's funeral when the movie becomes surreal and time stops and the woman teacher turns and wonders if any of the boys will come to her funeral and talks to each of the boys about what they end up being in their lives. Here is where we get a glimpse of what this story was trying to acheive the entire time and failed miserably at doing. This film is obviously trying very hard to have substance, but ends up as watered down soup.

This reviewer thinks that the translation into movie from theater is the issue with the film and I would be curious to see if I liked the play better, but I'm not sure I could watch it with an open mind after seeing this.