The History Boys (2006) - Shipwreck 4

The movie is good, even though the acting is a little too theatrical for me (well, the film is based on a play -- and has the same cast).

In The History Boys we follow a bunch of smart kids from a less than stellar grammar school in England preparing to try for Oxford and Cambridge.  Of the three teachers preparing them for the task, two are certainly gay, and the other could be a lesbian (like, seriously). 

Of the 8 students, one is gay and out, another is kinda bisexual.  It is the 80's but no one has a problem with their sexual orientation.

We have gay content from beginning to end, some of it very very good, but the balance, I think, is negative, and that's a pity: The History Boys would have otherwise been a highly recommendable movie.  The soundtrack, filled with sweet 80's tracks, is pretty good too.

I will talk about the gay content after the jump as it will ruin the plot quite a bit.  In any event, despite what I think of the light for the gays, I would be curious to know if you share my views.  Let me know if you see the movie.  You can queue it on Netflix or get it on DVD.

[SPOILER AHEAD]

[SPOILER AHEAD]

So, the nice thing is that everybody likes our gay Posner (played by Samuel Barnett); the object of his affection (Dakin, played by allegedly hot Dominic Cooper) has no problem with it, seems to like the attention, and even hugs our gay as a consolation prize at the end.  Very nice. 

Dakin even goes "bi" and becomes interested in Irwin (the teacher played by Stephen Campbell Moore), who is kinda hot in a bookish way, and, after a little struggle (after all, it's a student hitting on him) agrees to a date in which he will suck Dakin off "or something."  But Irwin is not the only male teacher interested in male students, the older teacher Hector (played by chubby Richard Griffiths) is also keen on groping his students.

In one way or another, all the out gays in the movie would like to touch or be sexually involved with younger people, mostly students.  And I did not like that, I think that fact alone is enough for a Shipwreck rating.  We have Hector groping his students and his students not seeming to care so much (the movie downplays the impact of Hector's actions on the students).  We have Irwin trying, but not too hard, to resist the "Dakin temptation," only to ultimately agree to hook up with Dakin (who was able to convince his teacher to "live a little").  But that's not all.  We are given a glimpse of everybody's future, and we see that our gay Posner becomes a teacher and his character, speaking on himself in the future, says that although he never touched a student, he struggles with it.  That really did it for me. 

I mean, you could even think that the straighties are also shown in a bad light: the Headmaster (played by Clive Merrison) also groped a younger employee.  But he is the only straigtie in that position, while all of our gays have pedophlic (or at least borderline pedophlic) feelings.  So, Shipwreck rating it is.  You can try to contextualize (it's the 80s, maybe the school system in England, then, caused it, etc.), but I don't buy it. It's bad, and it looks bad for us.

Oh, and the references to famous gays (Oscar Wilde, etc.) are all a little derogatory :-(

Comments

[Stephen]

A pedophile desires a child under the age of puberty; a pederast desires an adolescent in or past puberty. Though the power differential is striking between teacher and student, the guys in this school are not children.

[Queer Beacon]

Hey Phil, what an interesting reaction you had to the movie. Thanks for sharing it. I agree that the theatrical acting is sth people can stand if they know it's coming -- the movie is good.

[phil]

I started to watch the movie about a week ago, got bored with the slow pace and annoyed by the stagey way everyone talked (I felt I could hear the writer typing the words; people in real life just do not talk this way) and so I stopped watching after 30 minutes, not intending to finish. But what I had seen so far kept running through my mind and over the next few days I kept thinking about the characters I had seen, all of whom are quite endearing. So I put the DVD back in and finished watching it and ended up liking the film...a LOT. The stagey speech didn't bother me again. Perhaps because I was used to it from the first time and knew what to expect. I liked it so much I called a friend over and we watched it together the following night. I enjoyed it even more the 2nd time and he enjoyed it. I can't say I would recommend it to anyone without a few warnings, because not knowing what to expect may initially turn people off as it did me. People should know it's based on a play (that's why they talk so stagey), that it is slow at times but ultimately quite interesting and satisfying, contains no explicit scenes or nudity (brief gym scene but nothing shown). It's unusual for me to dislike a film so much, then have it become one of my favorites.