The History Boys: Analysis

I feel like I've been scooting on the edges of this film for quite some time. It involves so many actors that I love but it was probably too far down on their IMDB for me to notice it.

I finally got around to watching it a few days ago and weirdly I think it may have become one of my new favourites. I say weirdly because on the surface this seems to contain a lot of things I would usually hate. A group of laddish boys aiming to become snobbish over-achievers while they are passed between history teachers, one of which is groping them as he drops them off home on his motorbike... Yeah, what the f&*%k indeed...

At first I was a bit shocked. I didn't know what I thought about it before continuing to think about it all night. Despite all its other merits there is no avoiding the fact that one of the most likable characters is molesting his students and suffers no real consequences.

Then it hit me. We're not meant to avoid it. We're meant to confront it. We're meant to discuss it and we're encouraged to see the facts through everything else, like a historian would.

This whole film is about a battle between facts, emotions, success and happiness and the character of Hector is a vital part of that debate. It also raises some poignant questions about masculinity. If this film had been made with a class of girls it would have been very different because we, as the audience would have reacted differently to it and the students in the film would have reacted differently to it. I think the fact that this story is told with a group of boys in a way that is very realistic to the past and sometimes current expectations of masculinity is deeply important and deserves to be analysed.

I have read the original play the film is adapted from (written by Alan Bennett) but I will only be analysing these themes as they appear in the film although there are some differences I will point out later on. I would also like to point out that the themes explored in this film are delicate and may be upsetting to some. In many ways the mistreatment of pupils makes it very hard to see the other themes explored in the film but it must be viewed as a whole.

1. Approaches to Education

The History Boys is a film about an intelligent group of eight boys at a public sixth-form in Sheffield who are all trying for places at the top universities Oxford and Cambridge. Un-rully and confrontational, the headmaster calls in a new teacher, Mr Irwin, to prepare them for the entrance exams to give them the best chance of getting in.

There are four different approaches to education expressed in the film embodied by the teacher characters. Firstly there are the facts, embodied by my favourite character Mrs Lintott. Then there is the con-artist approach, the journalistic approach pushed by Mr Irwin wherein the facts are second to entertainment. If the information isn't interesting then does anyone really care? Taking the opposite side to the rational one just to grab an examiners attention is a well-known and disputed exam technique. Then there is the worldly knowledge and culture pushed by Hector. That knowledge should be personal, from the heart and not necessarily in service of anything, least all an exam. Finally there is the results driven headmaster wherein the reputation of his school ranks more highly than the boys personal happiness.

I feel this conflict in education is something we've all faced in our lives and continues to be a debate today. The benchmark for what is considered "clever" is constantly changing.

Is it a well rounded knowledge or a specialism of a particular subject? Where does art, sport and expression fit in? These warring views on education and what is best for the pupils vs what is best to get the pupils into Oxford and Cambridge is the most prominent debate throughout the film and by the end, not much of a conclusion is reached (although personally I think Mrs Lintott leaves the film the superior character) since the boys all end up in various professions, some not academic at all even though they received the same education. As it is in real life; a top education does not necessarily equal happiness.

Hector is the kind of teacher you would remember and be able to quote while Irwin is the one that reaps results but Lintott is the one that teaches the knowledge you'll need to carry with you for the rest of your life.

2. Hector

In a lot of analyses and reviews of this film, Hector is often discussed as one of two things. He's either a disgusting and unforgivable character that the film wrongly directs you to empathise with or he is the heart of the film with mentions of his indiscretions completely ignored. Both of these ways, I would argue, are the wrong way to approach talking about Hector.

Hectors actions in the play, are unforgivable.

That is a fact. He inappropriately touches his students with whom he is in a position of authority and trust with. There's no way you can spin that to make him endearing.

However, I would disagree that the film encourages you to forgive him as I have seen written in many reviews. The way Hector's job is reinstated at the end of the film is not due to forgiveness or redemption on any part, but because Darkin blackmailed the headmaster with his inappropriate behaviour towards his secretary Fiona. This is not a "happy ending" it's actually a very depressing one as both teachers get to keep their jobs and this is a thing that we know has happened in schools. The reason so many teachers like the headmaster and Hector have only been brought forward now is because of the hushing up and the toxic attitudes towards it in the 80's.

It is also important for analysing both the characters of Irwin, Hector and Posner to understand the politics and shame of homosexuality of the time the film is set. Hector is a deeply sad and tragic character, his suppression and denial of his homosexuality has corrupted him and drove him to these extremes. While this does not excuse it in any measure I think it goes some ways to explain it. The boys are of-age so it is wrong to categorise Hector as a pedophile but a molester is completely accurate.

The only way Hector is a sympathetic character is hypothetical. What if history was different? Would he still be the same man if a lifetime of self-loathing, shame and loneliness hadn't happened? Would any different sequence of events have led to Hector being a good man as well as a good teacher?

Hector's death puts the audience in an even more polarising position. How do you celebrate the life of a man who did such terrible things? Should you?

Hector had such a big impact on the life and education of the boys and I think it is the most realistic to show it this way. That the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator is often complex and at times soul destroying. Hector was to the boys a brilliant teacher, but he is also responsible for a deep trauma. One that many of the characters will spend the rest of their lives wrestling with and affects Posner the most as he grows up.

3. Posner and Masculinity

The character of Posner, played beautifully in the film by Samuel Barnett, is one of the films most tragic characters. It is a common criticism of this film that the gay characters get a very raw deal, none of them reaching a happy ending. Hector is a molester, Irwin is closeted and Posner...

Well... it's complicated and it's only at this point I'll talk about the play.

In the end of the play Posner becomes a very lonely man. He never has any relationships, his only friends are the ones he makes online, some of whom he talks to under a female alias. In the film however Posner becomes a teacher, one that has the same inappropriate desires out of desperation as his late teacher even though he states he does not "touch the boys".

Part of the reason for this change was that Posner's original ending was deemed too bleak since the film also makes a change in killing off one of the boys in the epilogue, however I'm not sure which one is bleaker.

There is of course an unhealthy implication here that gay teachers are all molesters and pedophiles or at least have those urges. If Alan Bennett wasn't a gay man himself I'd be inclined to see the film as presenting this message too. However, Bennett has gone on record saying that he was most like Posner as a boy. A late bloomer who's voice didn't break until well into his teen years. His mind occupied by puppy-love crushes he didn't understand and more feminine than any of his fellow students.

Younger minded than all his peers it makes sense that everything that happened to him in school would have a deeper, more lasting effect on Posner than it would the other characters. He keeps and remembers Hector's knowledge and almost certainly internalised homophobia towards himself at the thought that he could ever become like him, something that would ironically put him in the same, lonely place as Hector. History repeating itself.

There's a wonderful scene that stands out to me between Hector and Posner. Posner is one of the boys Hector didn't touch. After dissecting a poem that they both find mutual understanding in Posner has a moment of vulnerability. He feels isolated from his classmates. Hector extends a hand to him and in a moment you almost want Posner to take it, to be comforted by someone even though Hector is the last person that should be comforting him. However, before he can take it, Hector withdraws his hand. While you feel relief for Posner in that moment there is also great sadness because there truly is nobody who this boy can relate to appart from a dead poet and a man who feels-up the boys he teaches. In the 1980's I can imagine a lot of boys feeling this kind of isolation and even more so in the 40's when Bennett was at school. For both Posner and Bennett internalised hatred and homophobia is very much a reality.

Posner also brings up some vital questions about masculinity. All the boys seem to possess different outlooks on masculinity. Dakin is probably the most obvious embodiment of this theme. His blase attitude to Hector's actions and his hand in getting him reinstated as a teacher I think says a lot about how boys are taught to just "get on with it". Because they are all 17-18 they are expected by society and themselves to be able to simply deal with these indiscretions, some of them even volunteering for it. An "inoculation" to keep Hector happy so it doesn't progress any further.

Many critics point out how wrong and uncomfortable the boys attitude towards Hector made them feel. I don't disagree but I believe that's the point as I think this is an accurate portrayal of how boys reacted in these situations. Brushing it off as "no big deal" while in reality they are emotionally scarred by it, not willing to show their vulnerability.

This is discussed very briefly in a fantastic exchange between two of the boys.

Dakin : Lecher though one is - or aspires to be - it occurs to me that the lot of woman cannot be easy, who must suffer such inexpert male fumblings, virtually on a daily basis. Are we scarred for life, do you think?

Scripps : We must hope so.

4. Conclusion

After watching this film twice now and reading the play I see more in it every time. Class politics, feminism, what history is, the purpose of art. All of that is discussed in the film through brilliantly worded dialogue.

While the overview of this film may seem bleak I actually find it to be a very hopeful and encouraging film. The majority of the boys, while not becoming scholars, grow up to be happy in the end. It is debatable if their Oxford and Cambridge applications had much of an effect on their life in that regard. There are some brilliant comedy moments and sharp, well written scenes. Not to mention it's hard not to feel something when Posner starts singing Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered to Dakin even if it's sadness knowing that they won't work out.

The acting really is top notch and it's no wonder why so many of these young actors went on to such brilliant careers. Sometimes it can be very hard to sell stuff like this but each of them hold the charisma and emotion to do it perfectly. Frances de la Tour is just incredible as Mrs Lintott. May she be quoted for many years to come.

In conclusion, The History Boys is a flawed film but a special one nonetheless. If nothing else it's interesting to see boys like this written as sensitively as they are. While they are incredibly bright intellectually it's great seeing them develop into more rounded human beings as they are exposed to the different types of teaching.

I'll end with a quote from the film which particularly spoke to me.