Guess What's Coming (May 17, 2012)
Last week I stumbled upon a rebroadcast of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner starring Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, and Sidney Poitier. There were many other fabulous actors of the time in the film, but they were the headliners. As I always do when watching this film, I blubbered through the whole damn thing. I've probably seen it twenty times, but from the first frame to the last I can't look away and I constantly have to wipe away my tears, and last week they flowed like the river Jordan.
Yeah, I know, in the chest of every cynic beats the heart of a romantic, but I think there's more to it than that. I think that recent events surrounding the issue of gay marriage, marriage equality, or whatever you want to call it, gave the film a whole new meaning for me, certainly an aspect of special poignancy. The reactions of all the characters in the film to the central "problem" of the story - a young mixed-race couple who wants to marry - are so honest and so heartfelt that there is simply no way not to relate it to what is going on today with gay marriage.
I think Matt and Christina Draper, the parents of the young white woman, as portrayed by Tracy and Hepburn, must perfectly embody the feelings of many good people today who can't quite accept the validity of marriage between a man and another man, or a woman and another woman. But, in their hearts, they must know that all that truly matters are the feelings between the two individuals involved. And if those feelings are as deep as those between the fictional John Wade Prentiss (Sidney Portier) and Joanna Draper (Katherine Houghton), then, really, how can you deny them the same civil rights that are available to other American couples who feel that way about each other? I think that over time reasonable, intelligent people will come to that conclusion about gay marriage.
Having said that, I have no illusions about the rocky road toward acceptance of gay marriage in my lifetime; I notice that in the South, where I now live after many years in New York City, people still raise an eyebrow when they encounter mixed-race couples, even more so when they encounter gay couples. This is especially true of older generations, even some among my own generation. Yet even among older people, feelings of shock and rejection over mixed-race marriages have softened over the years. I have to believe that, eventually, the same will be true of attitudes toward marriages between members of the same sex.
Who knows? Maybe someday, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie will play the aging parents of a young man or woman who wants to marry another young man or woman. Oy vey, the tears are welling already.
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