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Aaron L. Jones

Mr. Charles Ladd

English 1213

22 January 2024

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner:

An Examination of Racism in the 1960’s, and Today.

‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’ is one movie that might be worth watching for the sole

purpose of seeing how far our society has come. Set in the 1960’s, the movie does not portray race riots

or protests or any of the events on the macro-scale that were taking place at that time period. Rather, it

focuses itself on one particular couple, and one particular day. From this stage, it deals with all the

macro-issues of racism by representing them all in two families and a handful of friends. The movie has

a relatively simple premise, simple story, and simple execution. However, the issue of race and the

serious dialogue complicate things, turning a simple Romeo and Juliet story into a heart-stirring and

thought-provoking essay on human nature, beliefs, and the cancer we refer to as racism.

One of the characters –and I would argue, the main character- of the movie is Matthew

Drayton, played by the remarkable Spencer Tracy, who also starred in Inherit the Wind. Matt Drayton is

Christina Drayton’s husband, and father of Joey, a young girl who goes on vacation in Hawaii, and

subsequently returns engaged to a black man, Dr. John Prentice. The film focuses on the issue of

interracial marriage, an issue considered firmly taboo for films previously. In fact, laws banning

interracial marriage were struck down by the United States Supreme Court only fourteen days before the

movie began filming. I would consider this to make the movie a fairly controversial one, and indeed it

was. The movie was well-received critically, and nominated for several academy awards.
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Something I find especially interesting in this movie is how watered down the issue of race is

portrayed. The characters are all upper-middle class; the black man is a successful and important doctor

who has already made several innovations in his field. He dresses like a white man; he speaks like a

white man, and for all intents and purposes, carries himself in the same manner the Draytons do. He

even demonstrates a superior moral character when he refuses pre-marital intimacy with Joey. His

father and mother are similarly, though more believably, portrayed. His father is a retired postal worker,

a job that at the time, held some prestige. There is absolutely no reason for the Draytons to oppose the

marriage, except for the issue of race alone. Thus, the movie had neatly distilled all the issues of racism

in the 1960’s into solely that of skin color. It had to do this, because at the time this movie was made,

the issues at hand were far more serious than they are perceived today.

After all, blacks in the south had just recently been allowed to vote. Jim Crow laws had only

been struck down a few short years ago. In fact, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. would be

assassinated only a few months after the movie’s release, when it was still playing in theaters. Blacks

were still treated as second-class citizens. To see a black man starring in a role equal to white people in

a mainstream movie, much less marrying a white girl, was ground breaking. The movie had to make

people realize how stupid prejudices based on skin color were; it did this by sugarcoating the realities of

racism, and centering the story on two people who were equal in every way except how the rest of the

world perceived them. The differences between them were far less than the similarities.

The pivotal challenge for the young couple in the movie is Matt Drayton’s disproval, and

inability to willingly support his daughter marrying a black man. Drayton has been a fighter for civil

rights all his life, and he vehemently hates racism. But when he finds a form of racial prejudice in his

own heart, and his own backyard, he finds it difficult to apply his beliefs to his own life. This makes

him realize that the problem of racism in America will not be cured soon, but that it might take “100
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years or maybe even 150” before the issue is stamped out. Dr. Prentice puts it even more bluntly,

saying:

“You and your whole lousy generation believes the way it was for you is the way it's got to be.

And not until your whole generation has lain down and died will the dead weight of you be off our

backs!”

-Blunt or not, he is right. Even the Draytons, who are liberal crusaders for the causes of

equality and human rights, still have their prejudices. Joey and Dr. Prentice seem to symbolize the new

generation, one that is innocent, and absent of racism. This is the generation that defined the 1980’s and

1990’s. This is the generation that has taken us as far as we’ve come. This is the generation that is

dying now. As far as we’ve come, the issue that this movie deals with is still more controversial than

others. Interracial marriage is far more accepted and common today, but it is not as widely accepted as

equality in terms of voting rights or employment. Perhaps we’re one more generation from being truly

equal.

What finally convinces Mr. Drayton that Joey and Dr. Prentice are right for each other is when

Mrs. Prentice, John’s mother, reminds him that John and Joey love each other in the same way that he

loved Catharine when they first met. The classical couple-in-love story reappears, sidesteps the race

issue –as well it should- and continues where it left off. The lovers leave together, and all is well.

Is this how a real life situation would have turned out, with all the controversy resolved within

a timeframe of one day? Probably not, but the movie does tie a neat bow around everything. What is

astounding is that this movie managed to accomplish its goal, making a white audience cheer for an

interracial couple in the nineteen-sixties. This fact alone is nothing short of amazing, especially when

the racial violence present at the time is considered. In order to do this, the movie must be fairly

remarkable.
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I think what makes this stand on its own; however, is the message that we are all people. Not

blacks, whites, or anything else, just people. When the movie was over, I couldn’t help but get the

impression that that was what this movie was trying to convey.