Nathan Gilmour converses with Michial Farmer and David Grubbs about Dead Poets Society, the second of our Robin Williams trilogy. The trio takes on the strange, truncated readings of poetry in the film, as well as the conceptions of conformity and friendship that arise.
As a high school teacher (signature moves: talking too loud and pointlessly waving a pointer around), I found this episode particularly relevant, especially since I listened to it immediately after the unfortunately truncated Profiles interview with Elizabeth Greene. I completely agree that Dead Poets Society and similar portrayals of teaching are pornographically fantastic, and it’s even worse when such “inspiring” stories are true, making me feel simultaneously self-important and inadequate. Okay, so maybe some teacher really did offer hope and stuff to downtrodden, ignorant, sullen children, but I just wish my students would finish their homework more often. Which is rather churlish of me, not least because the fantasy might really come true if I would only become more like the person I am intended to be. Good food for thought; thanks for another worthwhile episode.
I was in junior high (about the first time you come across The Road Less Travelled) when Dead Poets Society came out and never heard any reading of that poem other than the commencement speech “dare to be different sort of thing,” at least not until Orange is the New Black unpacked it for me.
Perhaps I should stop relying on pop culture for literary analysis.