The History Boys: Difference between revisions

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A stage play by Alan Bennett and later a 2006 film, ''The History Boys'' follows a group of mostly bright students from a Sheffield [[British Education System|grammar school]] as they prepare to sit the [[Oxbridge]] examinations, all hoping to study history. Taught their facts by Mrs. Lintott and culture by the inspirational Mr. Hector, they suddenly find things shaken up by the arrival of the temporary contract teacher Mr. Irwin, who aims to get them through their exams by cheating.<ref>Possibly.</ref> Throughout the term, issues arise between the different teachers and [[Dean Bitterman|the headmaster]] about how and what the boys should be taught, while the boys themselves grapple with their relationships to their classmates, their goals and their teachers. The movie deals frankly with both student-teacher relationships and the perceptions of homosexuality in the 1980s, but despite its serious moments, it never loses its razor wit, ultimately managing to be both thought-provoking and fun.

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* [[All Gays Are Pedophiles]]: The Headmaster displays this attitude when he reprimands Mr. Hector for groping his pupils.

* [[Berserk Button]]: Mrs Lintott takes the revelation that Hector has been molesting her students relatively well, but it's easy to see her horror.

** Later she also delivers a brief, to-the-point [[What the Hell, Hero?]] on the same subject.

** "WILL YOU SHUT UP ABOUT THESE EXAMS!"

** Don't dismiss the Holocaust in front of Scripps or Posner.

* [[But This Is Ridiculous]]:

* [[Country Matters]]: Done through an extended war metaphor of all things. Other times, the characters state it directly.

* [[Deconstruction]]: Oh yes. Following the strange ideas of the new teacher actually benefits the boys, the gay pedophile teacher is actually a very tragic figure, and not everything comes to a happy ending.

* [[Ephebophile]]: Hector.

* [[Ironic Echo]]: In a conversation with Irwin about halfway through the film, Hector says that he doesn't want the boys to grow up and refer back reverentially to their love of "''literature''" and "''words.''" At the end of the film, at {{spoiler|Hector's funeral}}, Felix uses these exact words and tone to describe {{spoiler|Hector's legacy}}.

* [[Jewish and Nerdy]]: Posner.

* [[Kick the Dog]]: Done a lot to Posner.

* [[Love Martyr]]: Posner.

* [[Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness]]: Straight down the middle, probably. It is a ''very'' funny film, but is also very moving and raises some issues that leave the viewer in gray territory. This is invoked by Hector in a conversation with Irwin about halfway through the film. He says that he actively introduced the boys to "the tosh" in order to counteract the general seriousness of the rest of the story.

* [[Someday This Will Come in Handy]]:

* [[You Make Me Sic]]: A variation: "Actually Hector would like that — 'your sucking me off'. It's a gerund. He likes gerunds."

 

[[Category:Films of the 2000s]]

[[Category:The History Boys]]