'Head' with mortarboards
June has left me with two discoveries: the verb "to graduate" and the Yankee ESO graduations. They are related. A couple of weeks ago, teenagers announced that they "graduated" or "did not graduate" to indicate whether or not they had completed Compulsory Secondary Education. Before, we simply said we had passed. Or finished whatever. Even a university degree. "Graduate" sounds more important, even if we're talking about the minimum requirements of the educational system. I've seen several photos of boys decked out in jackets, ties, and broccoli-style hair, tousled and styled to perfection. The girls, in evening gowns, even though the graduation is in full sun and the humidity is still suffocating. They set up a stage with a sign that says "Class of 2025," and then they throw their mortarboards in the air.
The reference point for all this for my generation is that episode of Feeling alive In which the most relevant thing was that Brenda and Dylan had sex for the first time. Everything revolved around her virginity. It was a reactionary series about a family, the Walshes, who would champion Make America Great Again today. But it doesn't matter, because we've seen it a thousand times in movies and on television. And almost always the same archetypal first-time things happen, with trivial matters of supreme importance. From an adult point of view, of course. But that's how adolescence should be. And Americans will always have a tradition to export. One that we will welcome with open arms and broccoli-style hair.
Actually, I have a third discovery, which has shocked me much more than the other two: learning that students can graduate having failed one, two, or even three subjects. "The decision depends on the faculty," they told me when I asked, astonished. In other words, graduating doesn't necessarily mean having passed everything. So, a student might drop a subject at the beginning of the year and focus on thinking about what their graduation dress will look like. Donna, Brenda's friend at Feeling of Living, would have appreciated this bull. They left her without a title because she drank a few glasses of champagne. And her father, Aaron Spelling, who was the producer, kept her celibate for 200 episodes. Poor thing. That's how conservative they were in Beverly Hills. If I have to choose a prom, without a doubt, I'd choose CarrieLet the blood flow.
