Film Review: Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner

By Dominica Nemec

As 23-year-old Joanna Drayton sits across from her mother and tells her she’s fallen in love and got engaged, you can see and feel the warmth growing in her mother’s heart. Her adoring eyes glisten as she listens to her daughter’s love story, no doubt remembering the feeling. It isn’t until Joanna mentions an important fact about her husband-to be, Dr. John Wayde Prentice, that he enters the room behind her. No need to mention the fact anymore, though, it’s evident on her mother’s surprised face — Dr. Prentice is African-American.

In the 1967 film, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Matt and Christina Drayton, played by Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, are the upper-class, liberal parents of young Joanna, played by Katharine Houghton. Both parents despise the racial inequality in America during the time, but they struggle with their emotions once the reality hits close to — or rather, in — their home. Their struggle grows when they learn they only have one day to decide whether they approve or not, or the wedding is off, a limit put forth by Prentice but unknown to Joanna. Although interracial couples were much more of an issue at the time, the film is still relevant in today’s culture as we continue to struggle with the acceptance of interracial marriages.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and the legal end of racial segregation happened almost half-a-century ago, in an era when John and Joanna were up against laws that actually forbid interracial marriage in 17 states at the time. That small-mindedness may not be officially sanctioned today, but it is unfortunately still with us; earlier this year, a Cheerios television ad depicting an interracial family caused so much controversy that the comments section on YouTube had to be disabled. Even back then the film scoffed at the stupidity of laws that tried to restrict even the most beautiful of human emotions. As Matt says to the betrothed himself: “You’re two wonderful people who happened to fall in love, and who happen to have a pigmentation problem.”

Director Stanley Kramer (Inherit the Wind, Judgement at Nuremberg) used the characters symbolically: the father represented what the mind thinks, the mother portrayed what the heart feels, and the children simply showed that the times, they were indeed a’changin’. Throughout the film, we see glimpses of the issues Joanna and John would have to face as an interracial couple. Christina’s employee, Hilary, for instance, is appalled at the “situation” poor Christina is in, and the black maid Tillie reduces John to a stereotype by accusing him of ill intentions in marrying a white woman.

Kramer let the writing of William Rose (The Ladykillers, The Man in the Sky) speak for itself, relying mostly on dialogue and only a minimal number of sets. The performances are master classes in acting, although Joanna can appear too naïve at times. While long film monologues can tire the audience, Sidney Poitier’s strong, assertive voice portraying John, and Tracy’s understanding, fatherly demeanor, make your heart pound one moment and melt the next. When John stands up to his own disapproving father and tells him he will not run his life, we all think back to the time when we wanted to tell our parents the same thing.

The classic film earned Hepburn an Academy Award for Best Actress, and is still a heart-warming tale due in part to its tragic history. Only 17 days after filming was completed, Tracy died of a heart attack, and only two days after his death, all racial segregation laws were struck down by the Supreme Court. To add to poetic tragedy, Hepburn has reportedly never seen the full film, as it was too painful to watch Tracy, her partner of 25 years both on and off-screen.

But it is the film’s cultural impact — seen through the lens of America’s racism — that transcends its time and makes it a classic from generation to generation. As John stands in front of his father at the end of his long monologue, his voice softening to a sympathetic tone, he looks lovingly into his eyes and says, “you think of yourself as a colored man, I think of myself as a man.” He was right on point, and even though we still struggle with seeing ourselves this way today, hopefully we’ll all be there soon.

Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die

Lana Del Ray/Born to Die
By Haley Twist

With the release of Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die, America has yet another glimpse into the life of a troubled young starlet. Going a different route from what the country has seen with Lindsay Lohan’s DUIs and Paris Hilton’s sex tape, Del Rey’s poetic lyrics paints the picture in a less in-your-face — and more instructive — way.

A self-made music video of Del Rey’s first single, “Video Games,” went viral in 2012, exposing the singer’s love for grainy vintage film clips and deep, throaty vocals. It was after this when infatuated YouTubers and music bloggers demanded more from the self-described “gangsta Nancy Sinatra.”

But when Born to Die debuted late last year, harsh remarks surfaced about the winged-eyeliner-clad musician, with most of the criticism coming from mainstream music websites like Rolling Stone and Pitchfork. Del Rey’s songs are mostly melancholy indie pop tunes that tell the tales of those longing for something or somebody they have lost.The reviews spoke of Del Rey’s depressing melodies and warned listeners that her messages were out-of-touch with modern America.

Maybe it was the dark lyrics that turned off these listeners, or Del Rey’s perverse notions. But the album is pure, deeply-rooted Americana, and is truthful about what often lies behind the locked doors and underneath the fake smiles of today’s youth: what the singer calls “the dark side of the American dream.”

Backed with soft synthesizers and string instruments, Del Rey’s choice words encapsulate her in the rawest form through the entirety of the album. She exposes her thoughts with no regret, telling the world her darkest secrets. Her blunt confessions, “I wish I was dead” and “I don’t want to wake up from this tonight,” offer a sanctuary for those who, as bluntly as the musician, have an equally messed up way of looking at things.

We hear the singer’s unsettling introspection in “Off to the Races,” a favorite of audiences at live shows because of the song’s rare upbeat rhythm. But while it’s a fast-paced song with sultry vocals over an excited synthesizer, the lyrics are another example of Del Rey’s disturbing thoughts. She begins with low, mature vocals and delicately sings about a girl with intoxicating affection for someone she calls her “old man” who loves her “with every beat of his cocaine heart.” While this could be a twisted father-daughter relationship, the lyrics hint that the song could also be about a young prostitute, as she talks about collecting “gold coins” for her pimp.

At its core, “Off to the Races” depicts a dependency on a father figure, which could be Del Rey’s way of working out daddy issues of her own with a father who sent her to boarding school at the age of 14. Although in an interview with Grandland, Del Rey hints that these issues she so often sings about could simply be a part of her persona.

As the album progresses, Del Rey appears more and more unstable. Almost as if she is changing her mind as the songs come and go, Del Rey primarily insists that she has gotten everything she ever wanted before coming to the wavering semi-conclusion that her fame is meaningless without those she has loved and lost.

In “Radio,” the singer ironically flaunts a look-at-me-now attitude with the lyrics, “Now my life is sweet like cinnamon, like a fucking dream I’m living in.” On “Without You,” she claims “Everything I want I have: money, notoriety and Rivieras. I even think I found God in the flash bulbs of the pretty cameras.” More a tearful cry for help than a statement about her success and independence, she sounds like she is trying to convince herself of these claims.

Even with those self-assuring lines and the many times she refers to her life as “paradise” throughout the album, she contradicts herself by saying, “They think that I have it all, I’ve nothing without you.”

Because the tracks express the depression of the musician behind them, Del Rey’s messages throughout the album are not out-of-touch at all, but instead highlight the raw aspects of youth and young adulthood that so many are ashamed of. Not every relationship is perfect, as enforced by the singer’s sad lullabies.

Del Rey’s melodies not only express her depressions with life and love, but also those of people all over the country. And that’s the honest take on American young life that makes Born to Die a hit.