On the surface, “The History Boys,” seems to be a fitting film to review in the wake of this week’s harrowing news.
Set in a 1980s all-boys prep school in England, the film follows a group of rambunctious teenage boys who, in pursuit of acceptance into college, are suddenly placed under the tutelage of a new instructor with challenging ideas.
Yet, the movie makes a point of deviating from typical high school fare. With homosexual themes intermixed with intellectualized discussions about the definition of history, the final message of “The History Boys” seems to be that there is no logic in anything, much less the past.
As our country deals with a senseless tragedy, this message seems all the more relevant. Education, the film argues, is not something that starts or stops when bells ring and classes end. And knowledge, when mingled with moral ambiguity, can sometimes seem either irrelevant or menacing.
Early in the film, a teacher is revealed to be a pedophile. Granted, the instructor isn’t doing much more than fondling his male students – this point is repeatedly emphasized – and the boys who are abused don’t seem terribly troubled with the molestation.
Right off the bat, the film challenges the viewer to set aside common evaluations of decency and let ideas, instead of cultural virtues, take over.
Still, by the film’s conclusion, it’s hard to sympathize with pedophilia, however mild, and it’s debatable whether the movie does more to hurt the gay rights movement than anything else.
While “The History Boys” seems to suggest our intolerant society has forced homosexuals to behave immorally or to break acceptable social boundaries, the assumption still exists that the temptation is omnipresent.
This film seems to perpetuate the stereotype that homosexuality is associated with pedophilia or sexual deviancy. At one juncture in the movie, a male student who was molested blackmails the principal to protect the pedophilic teacher’s job. The principal apparently groped a female secretary. This development aims to show moral equivalency among people of all sexual preferences. Yet, if this point is meant to be reassuring, it fails.
If one thing can be said for “The History Boys,” however, it is that the film doesn’t blink twice when challenging ideas we have about our precious educational systems, the overblown sanctity of adolescence and the reality of history – that sometimes, sh** just happens.
Grade: C+