In my opinion the thing that aged the worst was the soundtrack. The Simon & Garfunkel songs from this movie are so iconic and timeless at this point that it doesn't feel like a soundtrack to me but like someone made a TikTok edit and put those songs over the film, if that makes sense. Nobody in my generation knows the connection between those songs they heard as part of pop culture and The Graduate. This is an impossible psychological barrier to pass for me. Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence" cannot dissolve into any movie's soundtrack for me when used unironically because I consider it a meme song (Mrs. Robinson as well to a lesser extent). It certainly would not have felt that way back then. I don't feel that way about modern songs with modern movies even though I recognize it is the exact same situation.
The last time I felt this way, I was still in school and disillusioned. Do you not consume unironic media anymore (or ever)?
AI destroying, at alarming speeds, all the bastions of “smart” I think will lead back to a less ironic mood. “I’m so smart” does not impress people who can reproduce your brilliance by asking Claude for “insights, no mistakes.”
I'm not convinced. I'm old enough to remember when people said similar about previous waves of tech (search engines, smartphones, etc.) replacing everything from books and handwriting to thinking. People were talking about "the wisdom of the crowd" and living a "quantified life" as recently as a decade ago.
Being "smart" is not only highly dependent on context beyond what computers can sense or reasonably "live in" (even when you're not querying), but also timing and deeper insight. AI has a very very long way to go if we're even keeping that as a goal for it.
I think it's more often the case that anyone trying to be "smart" can't hide how dumb they are. You're right that nobody is impressed by ego-fragile defensive snark or try-hard quotes. I don't think they ever were though?
The sibling comment was 100% accurate until "unironic and good" and then I have absolutely no idea what they are talking about with Joss Whedon and how AI somehow got shoehorned into the conversation. I watched The Graduate before ChatGPT came out.
You shouldn't take this n=1 anecdote as an authoritative view on my generation either, lots of people in my generation have more empathy and imagination than I do. Have a good night :)
Being racist is part of that movie itself. It is not some kinf of separate thing. It is also part of its appeal and reason why some praise or recommend it.
The second time, I had graduated college, seen more of the world and how people treated each other, and I felt like I got it a lot more. I didn't feel offended by the long awkward moments anymore. It was entertaining and I was able to see the virtues and flaws of the characters, and even recognize traits of myself and other people I knew.
I can't remember for sure whether I've seen it a third time, but I think I have, and it would have been in my mid or late twenties. With that watching, I was able to appreciate it most as a film and a product of its time, and imagine how it might have landed to its audience over the years. My recollection of it now is of someone who is by nature a pretty passive person struggling with the concept of his own agency, which speaks to me personally.
If someone made an updated version of The Graduate, it would have to pick on a different version of conformity - maybe on "I'm different just like everyone else".
An opportune time for a remake would be the 2010s when working at FANG had a similar cachet to working in "plastics"
If that's not apparent already.
(Such a brilliant edit: https://youtu.be/5FJaoRLpf7M?si=iAinUlOIZw3u89Jw&t=85)