The other night I watched "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner", with Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. Not the first time I've seen this movie. Sidney Poitier is fabulous, and I'll mention his line in a minute. But afterwards, the three hosts discussed the "white man" and "white father" 'theme dominating the whole film. They ridicule the lines that Tracy's character delivers at the end of the movie, and chide about him telling the black father how things were going to be. I have always had an entirely different take on the entire theme of this movie. The black father is not a main character in this movie, yet no one acknowledged that, and of course it wouldn't be from his perspective mainly. But the thing that got me was the NO ONE mentioned Poitier's line towards the end of the film where the son is discussing the difference between generations. What surprised me even more that no one brought attention to this, was that the host asked the question, about what part of the film or line did they think was critical. No one mentions the line referencing that the dad thought of himself as a black man, and the son thinks of himself as a man. That is so key, so critical...and yet no one wanted to acknowledge that line, and instead were stuck on the whole 'white father domination'. Seriously...I wondered how they could ignore that!!!
