"The Powerful Play Goes On and You May Contribute a Verse". Robin Williams, Dead Poets Society and an 8th Grade Crush

Jay here.

I was thirteen when I first saw Dead Poets Society.

I think I saw it when it premiered on HBO. My reaction to it was something entirely new. It was like a freight train ran me over. I had never been "moved" by  a movie before. When you're that young its safe to say that you aren't really in touch with your emotions, but there was something about Peter Weir's little drama that struck a chord with me. I think it was the first film that ever made me cry. I didn't know that movies were supposed to make you both so sad and yet so inspired at the same time.

Up until then, like a lot of boys my age, my favorite movies tended to be less intellectual than Dead Poets Society. If I remember correctly here is what my top ten might have looked like in 1989:

10. The Road Warrior
9. G.I. Joe: The Movie
8. Predator
7. Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
6. Transformers: The Movie
5. Raiders of the Lost Ark
4. Star Wars
3. Die Hard
2. Aliens
1. The Empire Strikes Back

To be fair, a few of those are actually really good and deserving to be on a list like this. I didn't really seek out movies like Out of Africa or The Last Temptation of Christ at that age, ok?

So, what was it about Dead Poets Society that grabbed me? Well, it was Robin Williams obviously. He starred as John Keating, the newly hired English Literature teacher at Welton Academy, a private preparatory school for boys. The young men who attended his class would be treated to his unique style of instruction that began with him commanding them to tear out the forward to their textbook. Written by man named Pritchard it presented a scale that could be used to rate the effectiveness of prose or poetry. Keating calls such an idea "excrement" demanding his students rip out the pages.

Williams was magnetic to me as he stood in front of his class proclaiming to them that in his class they would "learn to think for themselves again" and "learn to savor words and language". He seemed to effortlessly combine both his bombastic comedic delivery with a more serious and passionate personality. I thought his performance was the best I'd ever seen, and I was not fit judge anyone's acting at that age. At the time I didn't know why, but I bought in.

Robin Williams was nominated for his second Best Actor Oscar for playing John Keating, an English Lit teacher who was ahead of his time in the 1950's.

Also, there were the students in his class who he influenced to start this club, that celebrated individuality. Neil (Robert Sean Leonard), Tom (Ethan Hawke), and Knox (Josh Charles) were the main three. Each of them had a personal character arc that showed how Keating inspired them to do things they might not have done before they met him. Knox got up the guts to pursue a girl from the local public high school. Tom comes out of his introverted shell to reveal he is a brilliant writer. Neil follows his dreams of being an actor, despite his father forbidding him, and gets a part in the community's production of A Midsummer Nights Dream. His rebellion would have tragic consequences when his father pulls him from the play. I wanted to grow into a teenager like these guys, full of passion and not afraid to express themselves through words and action.

I grabbed the cable guide (yes, in those days the guide was not programmed into the cable box, but actually came with the newspaper) and leafed through looking for the next time HBO would be showing Dead Poets Society. The next time it came on I would be ready.

As the HBO logo flashed across the television screen I quickly popped the VHS cassette into the VCR. Pressing record I watched the movie for the second time. As the weeks went by, I would watch the movie several times. It got to the point where I could quote Keating's speeches to his students. He recited words written by names I had never heard before:

Thoreau, Whitman, Tennyson, Shakespeare (ok, I'd heard of that one), Frost, Byron, Shelly, etc., etc.

The quotes seemed to speak to me.

I had a blank journal that I grabbed off the shelf and started writing down the different quotes that Robin Williams and the other actors were saying throughout the movie.

"Most men live lives of quiet desperation."

"Oh Captain, my Captain."

"I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived."

I wrote out all of the quotes carefully, with the best penmanship I could muster. I carried the book with me and would write things in it from time to time. In all sincerity, I thought it made me look smart.

I took it with me to my 8th grade Honors English class. My place was at the very front, left side of the classroom. Exactly two aisles over a girl named Megahn played with her pencil as she looked bored. She wasn't quite Goth, that fashion trend had not really reached Great Neck Junior High in '89, but she seemed to always wear black. She had jet black, wavy hair and wore a black leather jacket. I remember she had dark brown eyes that were almost never turned my way. I didn't speak to her and she didn't notice me.

Megahn was light years ahead of my time and I was just trying to catch up. She was a member of the Drama Club and along with a few other students was heavy into acting and putting on plays. She had a good friend named, Trey who also was in the club with her. I could often see them talking together and I wondered what their conversations were about? I imagined they could be like the kids in Dead Poets Society, discussing the importance of Ibsen's A Doll's House to early feminist movements or arguing over whose poetry was better, Eliot or Keats. At my lunch table, my friends and I discussed how Wolverine would clearly kick Spider-Man's ass. She reminded me of Sherilyn Fenn from Twin Peaks, someone so cool to the point of being almost alien.

Somehow I had to get her attention. I felt like Knox in the movie trying desperately to get the girl, Chris, to notice him. If I could somehow show her I was just a smart as her. That I knew about plays and books and stuff, she'd see I wasn't like all the other boys.

The English class Megahn and I were in was taught by a smiling and, I hesitate to say, rather large woman named Mrs. Poe. I know, ironic isn't it; an English teacher with the last name Poe? I remember that she had a small plaque on her desk that read, "A Clean Desk is the Sign of a Sick Mind". I sat directly in front of that desk for a year while we read and discussed To Kill a Mockingbird, Island of the Blue Dolphins and The Diary of Anne Frank, among others. What I didn't know was that Mrs. Poe had started to have her doubts that I belonged in her class. During a parent/teacher conference she had confessed to my mother that she felt I didn't belong in Honors English. I was not applying myself, she explained, and I was too quiet in class and not engaged in the daily discussions on the current assigned book.

Mom asked Mrs. Poe to give me another chance. She explained that it was just that I was shy and she would work with me on my assignments. That night I was supposed to write a paper on The Diary of Anne Frank. When she was in 7th grade, my mother also had to do a report on Anne Frank. She knew enough to help me write it, which was great because I had neglected to read the book. Hey, playing Final Fantasy on my NES and saving the world from ultimate destruction just seemed more important . . . . and fun.

With Mom's help I had my essay complete. I knew that if it was good enough she might have me read it front of the class. She had done this before with other students. This was my chance to impress Megahn by proving how smart I was. The essay had to be exceptional so I decided to include a Robert Frost quote that I had heard in Dead Poets Society.

"Two roads diverged in the wood and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."

Somehow I tied Frost's line about walking to the beat of your own drum and applied that to Anne Frank's situation and how, even though she was a prisoner in that attic hideout, she was never captive in her mind. In retrospect I don't know that it makes sense but amazingly Mrs. Poe loved it. She asked me to read it front of the class, telling them that my essay was the only one to truly encapsulate the themes behind the classic book.

So, there I stood, reading my paper in front of twenty other kids and the girl who was my first crush was sitting directly in front of me watching me for what was probably the first time. I mean, really noticing me. I was sure when I got to my quote from Dead Poets Society she would be super impressed at my mature intellect. I got to the Frost line and after I read it I could hear a murmur throughout the classroom and also I noticed many of the kids started looking at each other as if to ask, 'Did we just hear that? Did he just drop a quote?' Megahn looked away from me as if she sensed the other students reaction.

Mrs. Poe thanked me when I was done and then addressed the class, explaining why my essay was so good and why Frost's words were appropriate. When the bell rang I left class feeling like the fucking MAN. I was ready to wrestle a tiger, punch a grizzly bear or drink a glass of 100% pure grain alcohol mixed with rain water. Yes, that was a gratuitous Dr. Strangelove reference.

I was now convinced that Dead Poets Society was more than just some tearjerker movie that I had latched on to. It now had given me the means to save my spot in Honors English and woo the girl of my pre-adolescent dreams.

"Hey! Nice paper, Robert Frost!", someone jeered from behind me.

It was a boy named Jared who sat behind me in class. He and some of the other guys were gathered nearby. They laughed at his joke.

"Yeah," one of the other boys sneered, "You gonna write some more poems tonight, Frost?"

They all laughed again as I noticed that many of the kids in the hallway were starting to watch. Several yards away I saw Megahn at her locker turn to look in my direction and then quickly look away. This was a disaster! They were not impressed by my paper - they were making fun of me for it.

"Robert Frost! Robert Frost!", the group of boys started to chant. I was mortified and turned to walk away as fast as I could. I was sure Megahn had seen the whole thing. She had also just seen me turn tail and run. Any hope I had of getting to know her better, had been flushed down the toilet.

Fuck Robert Frost.

This was all his fault. Stupid poet and his dumb roads. I bet none of those guys would think Robin Williams was so nerdy if they had watched the movie. They were probably too brain dead to even comprehend the brilliance of Dead Poets Society.

For weeks I was called "Robert Frost" by countless boys at school. Even ones who weren't in the class and hadn't heard me recite my essay called me the name. I wondered if I was the first kid to ever get bullied by being called a famous American poet's name? I all but gave up on having any kind of interaction with Megahn. She just ignored the taunting.

These things sometimes have a way of working themselves out. I would stand up for myself, call my tormentors idiots and point out that at least I knew who Frost was. Eventually they stopped.

Poet, Robert Frost, whose words I dared to evoke in Honors English class.

As 8th grade wound down I was leaving class when I heard Megahn talking to her friend Trey about the Drama teacher at Cox High School and how excited she was to be taking his class. I knew exactly what I had to do to get another chance to get to know her. I had to take that class when we moved on to the 9th grade. I had to become an actor, like her, and then we would certainly spend more time together. It was a stroke of genius. I'd never acted before, but how hard could it be?

I was excited all summer long. I figured that not many guys would be taking Drama so I liked my chances of getting some stage time with Megahn. If I was any good maybe she would like me? I know, I know, I was like a nerdy, fourteen-year-old stalker. Looking back I'm embarrassed, but hey I just wanted to talk to the girl. She seemed so unique and self-aware and I really was excited to be acting for the first time.

I waked into my first day as a freshman in high school and anxiously awaited 2nd period. I walked into the theater and sat down in one of the aisles up front looking around for any sign of Megahn. She was no where to be seen. The bell rang signaling that all students should be in class and she was still not there.

The teacher began roll call. Name after name went by with the other kids in the class affirming their presence after they heard their's called. It wasn't long before he finally called out Megahn's name.

No answer.

"Megahn? Megahn __________ ?"

"Ummm. She moved," a girl towards the back spoke up. "She went to live with her dad in California, I think. She's really wants to be an actress, so she's moved out there to be closer to LA."

I held my breath. Son of a bitch! You mean I signed up for this class and she isn't even here? She's gone forever? Well, that figures, I thought. I guess nothing was ever going to happen between us. She was way out of my league anyway, I knew.

What did happen is that I discovered something about myself that I may not have ever discovered without her. I really liked acting and I wasn't that bad at it. In fact I was pretty good. I was assigned the role of Tom in Tennessee Williams', The Glass Menagerie. I performed a scene from it as the final for the class that year and I got an A+.

Later, when my family moved north to Delaware I tried out for the school play at my new high school and I got a big role in Neil Simon's, Brighton Beach Memoirs. Theater became my passion and what I lived for. I made great friends with similar interests. Suddenly it wasn't lame to be smart and into poetry and plays. I could be myself and in some ways I have a girl I barely talked to and a movie about a prep school teacher to thank for that.

A couple of weeks ago I was shocked to hear of the untimely death of Robin Williams. All at once I remembered seeing Dead Poets Society and it reminded me of how that movie impacted me. I recalled my crush on Megahn, which I hadn't thought about in a long time. I was sad that such a talent like Williams had to be snuffed out like it was. His performance as John Keating wasn't his only great role and it may not have even been his best, but it meant something to me at a formative age. For that, I thank him.

Even if I did take the whole "language was created to woo women" thing a little too literally.

Epilogue: When I began writing this column I decided to, on a whim, Google Megahn just to see if she was out there. To my surprise she actually did become a professional actress. In a stroke of nearly unthinkable irony she guest-starred in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of my all-time favorite television shows. I must have watched the episode she is in several times without realizing that it was her on the screen.  She has also written and produced other films along with her acting in movies and other TV shows like Dawson's Creek.