With the enactment of a series of statutes and regulations, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Suffrage Act of 1965, the past apartheid in American society has in fact been abolished. The suffrage of blacks was not only further expanded, but more and more blacks began to rise to the top of society.
During this period, there was Robert Weaver, the first black man to enter the Cabinet, the first black Senator Edward Brooke, and the first black Justice of the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall.
In 1962, Hollywood used a deafening "To Kill a Mockingbird" to expose the painful scars of social discrimination against black people, while "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" 5 years later used a more warm and subtle way to focus on the black group that had entered the upper class.
If the discrimination and humiliation suffered by tom, a black man at the bottom of "To Kill a Mockingbird," is more well known and "common sense," the question posed by "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" is even more thought-provoking—even black people who have entered the upper echelons of society with their own education and efforts are still difficult to avoid habitual discrimination.
One day, joey, a white girl, takes her glue-like boyfriend John (Sidney Porthier) home, but when they get home, Joey's parents Matt (Spencer Qusay) and Christina (Catherine Hepburn) are overwhelmed because John is a dark-skinned black youth.
John was already different from the usual image of a black man—a problem youth who was idle and unlearned, even a criminal who did not do evil—and was already a promising young man with a noble profession (doctor) in the eyes of a white man.
He and Joey had known each other for only two weeks before they fell in love and decided to get married, and when they told Matt the news, they were met with stern objections—not because the two were too reckless and ridiculous to make a decision, but because john was black.
Even more ironically, Matt himself is a liberal newspaper editor who has always advocated against racial discrimination, but when his daughter actually wants to marry a black man, his past theories are all left behind, and Joey's decision seems to him to be a naked betrayal.
Joey's mother, Christina, an artist who runs a gallery and is also an enlightened cultural person who opposes racial discrimination, does not express her opposition as firmly as Matt in the face of the current situation, but there are also considerable doubts.
In stark contrast to the Matts are John's parents, who are invited to a "family dinner." John's father, a retired postman (a typical black man who usually does blue-collar work), not only is he not happy that his excellent son has found a true love home, but he is just as opposed to John's marriage to Joey as Matt. The difference in racial status was already ingrained in his mind, and he no longer believed that there could be any happy marriage between white and black.
This group of character contrasts highlight the embarrassment of racism, and the long-term prejudice and discrimination not only make white people unjustifiably arrogant, but also make black people subconsciously inferior.
At this point, the conflict in the film evolves from a "black-and-white confrontation" to a "confrontation between young and old", and in order to persuade their parents, John and Joey both begin to communicate privately with their parents.
Joey is trying to impress her parents with her love affair with John, when John's mother says to Matt, "What's wrong with the men?" When they get old, they forget what love is? You can only see what you see, money, status, skin color, you have forgotten what it was like to be in love with a girl at that time? What kind of monsters have men become when they are old? Don't you see that these young people are so eagerly in love? Do they need each other so much? Her mom and I knew all this by just seeing the look they looked at each other together, and we knew we were going to stand behind the young couple and support them. But what about you? ”
Under these emotional words, Matt was finally moved. John, on the other hand, told his father about his dignity as an ordinary man: "You see yourself as a black man, and I feel like just an ordinary man." In the exchange and talk of the two generations, the old and the young, the black and the white finally completed their understanding and identification with each other, and the protagonists were finally able to enjoy the family dinner like a family.
Film critics praised "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" as a "prophetic film" that not only crossed the barriers of racism, but also put forward the proposition that "everyone has the right to choose to live their own way", which is the embodiment of the independent and autonomous spirit of the new era.
John's role is played by the first black Oscar winner, Sidney Portier, and most appropriately, he himself is a successful black man like John who has entered the upper echelons of society and achieved a certain social status. But even so, the film still seemed ahead of its time and bold, and it was still difficult for most people to accept Portiet to kiss a white girl.
The film's director, Stanley Kramer, was one of the first independent filmmakers in the United States, and an excellent director with advanced ideas and dedication to truth and justice. In addition to Guess Who's Coming for Dinner, his masterpieces include The Defiant Ones (1958), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), and Inherit the Wind (1960).
His work often focuses on pressing social issues, including current politics (he was a producer of High Noon), crime, justice, mental illness, racism, etc., all of which were the social focal points of the year. Kramer has even been threatened with death more than once because of his critique of these social problems, but he is still shooting the work he wants. The American Film Institute later named the Stanley Kramer Award, a special award for outstanding films that reflected social issues, in honor of his outstanding contributions to this field.