I study Literature and Cinema, which is not too far from my original thoughts about a major. Over time however, my academic interests have veered more specifically towards the cinema portion of my interdisciplinary major. There is something in the medium which I find more compelling, more relatable, and more tangible than written work. My thesis will therefore be more film-centric. Specifically, I have decided to study a sub-genre of film, which I will call boys’ school films: works centered around the lives of boys at a single-sex school. In various ways (which I hope to delineate and articulate through my genre study), these films are charged and engaging in a way that other films are not. My thesis will examine my personal interest in these films as well as their general appeal.
Though I had a brief focal interlude with science in high school, I leaned consistently towards the humanities, specifically literature. It seemed natural that when I started college, I assumed I would study literature. I began that way, and then my thoughts strayed— to urban planning, medicine, something more practical. Through dabbling in those courses, I realized soon that what I wanted out of them was more about human nature than about planning our science. And so I returned my thoughts to literature, and discovered the CUNY Baccalaureate Program for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies. The program allowed me merge my passion for literature with what had become an unstoppable interest in film, an interest that became serious one summer when I joined Netflix. I suddenly embarked on a project to watch films— as many as possible, as often as possible. Working from lists of top films to oblique references in conversations and in other films, I began watching.
Even before my serious cinephilia developed, a type of film that consistently stood out for me was the boys’ school film. Something in the camaraderie, the fighting, the cigarettes and the cologne always emerged poignantly. Perhaps as an only girl between two brothers I have always been fascinated with decidedly male spaces and experiences. Also, growing up in an observant Jewish family, this sort of separate maleness was a part of daily life: the synagogue (both prayer and extra-prayer activities) was dominated by men, study was separated by gender after the age of ten, and certain types of study (i.e. Talmud) were mostly cordoned off to women. It is not as though I was resentful of the separations, just extremely aware. And curious. Specifically, my brothers’ high school experiences (all-boys), though in some ways unique to their school, excited me, intrigued me. Their tales presented me with this world of epic antics, ranging from the benign to the malicious. A recent run-in with one of my brother’s high school English teachers jogged my wonder at this boys’ school behavior, so distant from my high school experience at an all-girls institution. Where their high school years were colorful, mine were bland, giggly at best.
I would like to study this boys’ school mystique by working through a solid body of these films. I am compiling and refining a list, which at this point includes mostly American films, one British film, one Swedish film, and possibly a few French Films. For comparison’s sake, I will also examine a couple of films set in girls’ schools (though as expected, there are fewer of those around). Certain themes of power and sexuality, as well as the role of the institution (religious, educational, correctional) in society will be essential in my study of this subgenre. The overarching question I will ask is: what makes the narrative of institutionalized young men so compelling? And, how does it come forth so successfully through the filmic medium? I will try and distill the elements of this specific sub-genre through watching the films, comparing and contrasting them, and complementing them with philosophical, psychological and sociological observations and readings.
My role in this project is to help myself and others understand something better: why the space of a boys’ school is so unique, and why films set in such institutions are so gripping. Ideally, my readers will range from a general one, including young students and filmwatchers to a more specific one, perhaps, of educators and mental health professionals. I hope to connect with the readers as someone who can shed some light on a certain kind of relationship and experience among young men. I would like to open my audiences’ minds to what is at work under the surface of these films. Hopefully, as I do that, I will gain an understanding of what I see and what I feel as I watch these films.
