When Mio first saw The History Boys in high school, he might've been too young to unpack what was going on. But fifteen years after the film adaptation's release, he and Mandy are ready to revisit it in the second episode of The Req Room's Summer Semester. How does one make sense of its problematic depictions of teachers and students? Is The History Boys the antithesis to inspirational teacher movies like Dead Poets Society? And how do the differences between the Alan Bennett stageplay and the Nicholas Hytner adaptation affect the script's tones and themes? Find out in this episode! Also, Mio asks Mandy a question about Georges St-Pierre.
cw: spoilers; plot heavily involves power abuse and inappropriate relations between students and teachers
DISCLAIMER: We encountered some technical issues in recovering the audio track from our usual recording platform, so some of our early episodes this summer may feature less-than-average sound quality. We apologize for the issue and hope to fix it soon!
Show notes:
- The History Boys (2006, dir. Nicholas Hytner)
- National Theatre Live 50th Anniversary, which featured the French scene from The History Boys
- Dead Poets Society (1989, dir. Peter Weir)
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Our theme music: 64 Sundays by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Artist: http://www.twinmusicom.org/