American Film and Culture (spring 2013) — Final Paper Abstract Due Date. Please submit a one-paragraph abstract detailing the topic of your paper on April 9th at the start of class. Paper Due Date:...

MOVIE ANALYSIS
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Analysis of the Movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
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MOVIE ANALYSIS
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Analysis of the Movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
The 1960s was an era in which the American society witnessed a
renewed phase of evolution. The American political system, the
American social system and the American economic system all went
through some radical changes during the 1960s. It was a period in
which Americans witnessed the emergence of important social movements
including the civil rights movement, the student movement etc and it
is this period in which the American social system went through a
radical change influenced by some major legal changes like the ruling
of the Supreme Court in the case called Loving v. Virginia declaring
all laws banning interracial marriages as violation of the
Constitution of the United States of America (Weschler, 2000). The
demand for socio-economic and political equality on the part of the
blacks, the demand for unrestricted biracial marriages, and the
growing tension between the whites and the blacks all composed the
1960s and most of these important characteristics of the period have
been reflected in one of the greatest American movies of the 1960s,
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Directed by Stanley Kramer this movie is
not only the representation of the social and political dilemmas of
the 1960s but it can also be considered as a movie that showcased the
changing role of women in the American society and it is the role of a
decision maker.
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is a comedy infused with racial
content “in a period where black and white marriages were not
considered as natural. Historically, mixed marriages had been illegal
MOVIE ANALYSIS
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in most states of the United States and still illegal in 17 states”
(Agsous, 2013). The major characters in the movie include John Wade
Prentice (played by Sidney Portier), an accomplished black doctor who
works for the United Nation’s World Health Organization, Joanna
Drayton (played by Katherine Houghton), a sweet young white woman who
falls in love with John while on a vacation in Hawaii, Matt Drayton
(Played by Spencer Tracy), Joanna’s father and a wealthy liberal
newspaper publisher who believes in equal rights for blacks and
whites, Christina Drayton (played by Katherine Hepburn), Joanna’s
mother and a learned lady who runs her own small art gallery and
supports the civil rights, Mr. Prentice (played by Roy E. Glenn Sr.),
a retired mailman who is also the father of John, Mrs. Prentice
(played by Beah Richards), who is John’s extremely sweet and
thoughtful mother, etc (Weschler, 2000).
The political condition of the country was a volatile one during
the 1960s and the dilemmatic condition of the American society as well
as American politics have been amalgamated meticulously by Kramer to
gift the American audience with a movie to remember for years to come.
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is a movie which is based on the story of
young white woman and a young black man who are determined to marry
each other without paying any heed to the social norms of the time. In
other words it is a story about Joanna and John and “how the people
around them, including their parents, friends and others, react to the
news of a possible marriage between a black man and a white woman”
(Weschler, 2000).
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As stated earlier the theme of the movie is not one but multiple.
Primarily the theme of social norms and culture predominate the movie
along with the theme of political condition of the 1960s America. The
influence of the work of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks are
visible in the movie (Gerry, n.d.), and the attempt to establish a
marital relationship between a black man and a white woman in the
movie is a pointer to the efforts rendered by those liberal minded
blacks and whites who tried to bring about a socio-political harmony
within the country through the movements like civil rights and
movements against segregations. Moreover, the obscure political
condition of the 1960s has been represented by the trust of Joanna on
the liberal ideologies and principles of her rich father and her
learned mother. And this trust can be termed as a true representation
of the political turmoil of the concerned period because gradually
with the progress of the plot...