What dates the picture, besides Bette’s unpersuasive fat suit, is that higher education is spoken of throughout as a remote and impenetrable exotica, which I suppose it was in 1895 (when the film is set) or even 1945 (when the film was made). The subsequent expansion of universities is about as civilising a thing as western societies have done since the war.
It might also be what brings them down. Polls have suggested for a while that education is more or less the best predictor of one’s openness to populism. Voters without a degree favoured Donald Trump over Kamala Harris by 14 points. Among postgraduates, she won by a scarcely believable 32 points. There was a similar pattern with Brexit. As the university year begins, it is timely to explain why.