*Spoilers Ahead, Duh*
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? produced in 1967, directed by Stanley Kramer, follows John Prentice and Joey Drayton throughout the day after returning home from Hawaii. The plot follows the whirlwind engagement between a white woman and Black man after knowing each other for only a few weeks. The pair returns to Joey’s home to share the news of her engagement with her parents. They are only in for one night as John Prentice must fly off to Geneva to help the World Health Organization. Joey’s parents spend most of their time discussing the issues that the couple will face, with her father being more adamant about not giving his blessing for the marriage to take place.
Eventually, John’s parents join the fold and his father also voices objections to the marriage. Mrs. and Mr. Drayton leaves the house before dinner to get some ice cream where Matt Drayton hits another car and acts like a buffoon. In the midst of this all the viewer also meets three prominent figures: Monsignor Ryan, a friend of Joey’s parents, Tille, the housekeeper, and Hilary St. George, the terrible woman we will talk about later. Mrs. Drayton and Mrs. Prentice have a conversation on the patio discussing their crotchy old husbands. Eventually, Mr. Drayton gives a white-man-knows-best speech about acceptance and love, finally giving his blessing.
This movie is problematic for many reasons and as Alex and I watched this film we couldn’t help but notice the timing of choice for this film. We really had no context to what the film would be about, but nonetheless we watched it in the middle of two important historic events. The Black Lives Matter movement and the Coronavirus pandemic both of which has influence in the movie (the interracial couple as well as the fact that John works for WHO). The only interesting white person in this movie is Christina Drayton who sends Hilary to fire herself from the art gallery for being such a racist asshole. Joey Drayton plays the whole “I don’t see color” thing throughout the film which is super problematic. Tillie is a Black female character created by super racist white screen writers and so much of her behavior is also really terrible. OH MAN, Monsignor Ryan is a hoot--he’s charming and sassy all in a little bundle of Catholicism, which, who knew that’d be one of the best parts? Mrs. Prentice has one of the more thoughtful roles in the film, talking with her son about following his heart. She is a gem. The husbands of this film made us want to rip our hair out. Both are just tools. Particularly, Mr. Drayton’s speech at the end of the film where he preaches “love is love” and “I love my wife, therefore you must love each other” and a whole arsenal of crapola. He basically just comes in at the end, after spending the entire movie being an asshole, and white-male-saviors the whole movie ending (not to mention how the Black man at the end of the film is type casted to be an angry old crumpet). Classic stuff. Overall, the movie was entertaining and made us laugh while giving us a space to talk about some of the incredibly clear problems of this film.
Score: 13.5/20
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