Fifty Years On: Gender and the Role of Imagination in Lindsay Anderson's If…

Abstract

©, Copyright Taylor & Francis. Abstract: Appearing in 1968, Lindsay Anderson's milestone feature release, If…, seemingly reflected the cultural currents of the Western world at that time. A reaction to the demands for a stifling conformity in society, If… presented an alternative vision of life in which an anarchic revolt against authority reached through the institutions of politics, religion, and education and finally found a place to thrive in that most subversive of all places, the imagination. Academic and popular studies have long focused on the roles of the three main youthful protagonists, all men, forced to adhere to the rules and regulations of an English public school. Less realized has been a proper analysis of the role of “the girl” in contributing to If…'s psycho-social metaphor of revolution. Without even an identifying name for the role, “the girl” instead offers the ultimate contrast to the structure of the school/society. While being an outsider in terms of social class and formal educational achievement, it is her sex/gender that provides the greatest contrast to the all-male environment of the public school. This article examines the role of the girl as an important feature in creating a psycho-sexual balance that restores the imaginative act and intellectual “sanity” to the metaphorical family represented in If…'s public school. In effect, If… is an exploration of a maladjusted and schizophrenic world that can only be righted through the application of “revolutionary” therapy, and the therapy most closely aligns with the radical principles of psychotherapy first developed by the filmmaker's contemporary, R. D. Laing, in The Divided Self.