The History Boys by Cusack and Hytner - Movie Review Example

? Known and Unknown Identities and Truths in The History Boys 25 October Every headmaster’s dream is to have its top circle of students go into Oxford or Cambridge, while every male student’s dream is to have sex, at least, some of them do. Sex and sexuality are taboo in schools, as if students are gender-less beings. Conflict starts when students live in a gender-sanitized classroom, when in reality, sex and sexuality influence students’ lives, including human history. Cusack and Hytner (2006)’s The History Boys examines the purpose of education for teachers and students alike. The essay explores the dramatic elements, theme, and meanings of the film, specifically for four main characters, Hector (Richard Griffiths), Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore), Dakin (Dominic Cooper), and Posner (Samuel Barnett). Their sexuality produces inner conflicts that intersect with outer conflicts with social norms, norms that the basic institutions of society, specifically schools and religion, define and control. The dramatic action is the pursuit of knowledge in education and life and the changes that come from “knowing” and “becoming.” The theme of the film is that the purpose of education is to not teach what is known, but to help students know the unknowns about their society and their identities because this mindset makes them critical of knowledge and truth and sensitive to the vast gender and knowledge imbalances in society. Dramatic action occurs through the action of characters on their inner and outer conflicts about their identities and their knowing of the purpose of education to their identities. Education is supposed to help students and teachers learn what they do not know yet, so that they can become whole individuals. The through action of Irwin is that he changes because he learns that as a teacher, he should not forget his own personal growth. After Dakin and his friends learn that they all passed their respective university entrance tests, he confronts Irwin and offers an indecent sexual proposal. Dakin makes a strong remark on how different Irwin is as a history teacher and as a man because he is more confident and more of a risk-taker as a teacher than as a gay man (Cusack & Hytner, 2006). Irwin is clearly struggling with his gay identity, which he seems to be ashamed of. After the sexually-charged confrontation with Dakin, however, he becomes more spontaneous with his identity, when he rides with Hector on the latter’s motorcycle. The riding act means that Irwin is no longer ashamed of his identity because the purpose of education for him is to learn who he is. Dakin has action through understanding that he does not have to know his exact gender to be comfortable with himself because gender and education are both fluid complex processes in life. When he talks to Irwin about the sexual tension between them, Dakin underlines that he is not completely gay: “I'm not, but it's the end of term; I've got into Oxford; I thought we might push the boat out” (Cusack & Hytner, 2006). Dakin’s main conflict is his rigid sense of heteronormativity, which involves the validity placed on heterosexual relations. In reality, he struggles with his bisexuality. Both Irwin and Dakin are unravelling their sexual identities that they have repressed, and it is their education about sexuality that releases them from the bondage of heteronormative gender norms. Hector and Posner have the same gender conflicts, being gay in a world of masculine education. Posner struggles with his sexuality that he does not want to control, while Hector struggles with his sexuality that he wants to control, but prefers not to because of his justifications that they are mere sexual baptismal rites. Posner confesses to Irwin that he is gay and in love with Dakin, and that he does not want his gay sexuality to be a phase (Cusack & Hytner, 2006). His inner struggle is more connected with his sexual insecurity because of his social circumstances. Posner is aware of the prejudice against gay people: “I'm a Jew. I'm small. I'm homosexual. And I live in Sheffield. I'm fucked” (Cusack & Hytner, 2006). His “given” identity- his religion family, his sex, and his community- contradicts with his “true” identity- the openly gay adolescent he desires to be. Hector, on the contrary, wants to look away from his sexuality, yet he cannot help but grope his students. Despite his repressed sexuality, he manages to teach his students something important about the purpose of education. He tells his students: “Pass the parcel. That's sometimes all you can do. Take it, feel it and pass it on. Not for me, not for you, but for someone, somewhere, one day. Pass it on, boys. That's the game I want you to learn. Pass it on” (Cusack & Hytner, 2006). Hector has a skewed sense of morality for himself, but he does have a noble morality set for his students, which is to learn that education is not about loving it for its own sake or for its financial rewards, but because it will help them to become more respectful of their own identities and to the identities of others. These characters resolve their conflicts through accepting the different effects of education on their lives. First, the youth should not pursue education for the purposes of wealth, fame, and other social expectations. Hector quotes Keats who said: “Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters; enough their simple loveliness for me” (Cusack & Hytner, 2006). The scene implicates the meaning of happiness, where people should use education to find their identities and happiness. They should educate themselves because they have a duty to themselves and to others- to know thyself and to know others without ill judgment but to learn and to love and to live along the way, so that they can achieve true success through happiness. Second, education is not about acquiring clear-cut knowledge and skills, but developing a perspective in life where balance is attained, balance that concerns identity and sexuality with dignity. Mrs. Lintott (Frances de la Tour) shares an important aspect of education. When she says that history is “five centuries of masculine ineptitude,” she asks her students to see their identities and histories from what is not known too- the unknown lives of subjugated genders (Cusack & Hytner, 2006). To know and to develop their identity is to realize that identity is as fluid as education, as beautifully haunting as literature, and as inept as learning history. To learn history is inept because no one can truly know history, because as Irwin says, those who were in history are already dead. The only thing that the present can do to learn history is to remember what it is, where history is to live and to argue from one’s viewpoint, and not the viewpoint of others. Irwin does not want his students to parrot what the mainstream says about history, but to develop their own thoughts from their own analysis and emotions. The resolution of their conflicts is not in knowing everything, but trying to know what is unknown through the knowing of the self. The dramatic action of the inner and outer conflicts involved is resolved through the unbundling of the mainstream meaning of education and truth. The characters change because they learn to accept the truth about themselves and their society without judgment, but only with acceptance for who they are and tolerance for every other unknown thing that they have yet to know in life. Irwin changes into a more open-minded person about his sexuality. He rides with Hector because he accepts their oneness as gay people. They are gay and no longer ashamed of it. Dakin counters heteronormative masculinity and accepts his bisexuality. For him, a sexual encounter with Irwin is just part of thanking him and being himself. Hector accepts his unhappiness with his repressed sexuality, but knows that he is happy being of service to others. He stops justifying his actions and becomes happier for his future struggles. Though he died, he leaves his students free to find their identities without pressure from social and gender norms. Posner celebrates his homosexuality, but he does not let it to be the only defining feature of his existence. When he embraces Dakin in the end, he knows that he cannot have Dakin as a lover, but that is fine with him. He accepts pain because pain means that he is living. The History Boys shows the audience that the history is history, because only the present can decide the kind of history they will leave behind. Sexuality and sex are not supposed to be undermined or repressed, but acknowledged and celebrated as essential aspects of humanity. Education’s main purpose is not to help students enter prestigious universities, but for them to enter the world with better knowledge of their identities and a critical perspective on social and gender norms. The youth is the future and they cannot be the future if they are mere puppets of the past people’s histories after all. Hence, The History Boys is exactly about the future of boys who are ready to reject traditional social and gender norms, where they can be boys without being boys, but boys with their interests and identities intact. Reference Cusack, P. (Producer), & Hytner, N. (Director). (2006). The history boys [Motion picture]. United Kingdom: Fox Searchlight Pictures. Read More