Mrs Robinson

Mrs Robinson by Sabi

“And here’s to you Mrs Robinson – Jesus loves you more than you will know” – a famous song for an infamous woman.

Mrs Robinson. Steely cold-hearted bitch who led Benjamin Braddock astray in The Graduate. Shocked us out of our unthinking sense of what a mother figure should and should not be.

She single-handedly exploded the taboo of teenage boys fancying older women, especially their girlfriends’ mothers.

1967. Mrs Robinson in her detached inimitable way shattered the American dream without even taking her silk gloves off. A high maintenance nightmare – leopard skin lover with sleek stockings and cigarette holder. All that was forbidden in one beautiful face (with fine lines).

Mrs Robinson was not an easy person to like, that’s why I don’t like her. I love her. She made neurosis cool. Antithesis of heroine

– like Audrey Hepburn on prozac without her eternal youth, minus her virginity.

Mrs Robinson is demonized in celluloid. At the end of the film her teenage ex-lover wards her off with a cross so he can save her daughter, and all of humanity. A failed mother, a failed lover. Poor Mrs Robinson, no light or shade in her persona, she represents evil, holding nerdy Ben back from pursuing his career ambition, and from his chance of true love.

Mrs Robinson is a control freak hurtling uncontrollably along the freeway of self-loathing towards mid-life crisis. We can all relate to that. Can’t we?

“Mrs Robinson – you are trying to seduce me…..”