what if he wasn't a doctor ??
say a sanitation worker.
sharei think the parents would have a problem if the daughter fell in love with a sanitation worker of any race.
sharethe class thing.
shareI think director Stanley Kramer wanted the character written as so "perfect" -- so smart, so wealthy, so professional, so handsome, so polite...
...that the ONLY reason for the marriage not to be approved would be his color. No other excuses allowed.
Of course, the daughter seems out of his league....and a real ditz.
Sadly, the film isn't as dated as it SHOULD BE. Racism has reared its ugly head again (after so much progress
in the '60's and '70's). I also agree that parents like this would NOT want their daughter married to ANYONE
that wasn't a high-earning professional. So the man "needing to be" a doctor goes beyond race.
Anyway, can you imagine their disapproval if she came home with a FEMALE? (A female DOCTOR, of course. ):
I also agree that parents like this would NOT want their daughter married to ANYONE
that wasn't a high-earning professional. So the man "needing to be" a doctor goes beyond race.
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That's very sophisticated take on it. Kramer was quoted (somewhere, I don't have it now) about wanting Poitier to be so perfect that race would be the only factor of trouble but, yeah....he was being held to "elite" standards in THAT household.
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Anyway, can you imagine their disapproval if she came home with a FEMALE? (A female DOCTOR, of course. ):
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Well, in studio-made 1967 films that I can recall(vaguely) lesbianism was treated more as a "kinky" thing; racial matters cut to the issue of civil rights in a "prestige" way. I am thinking of "The Killing of Sister George" and a terrible scene in the Frank Sinatra private eye movie "Tony Rome" for their treatment of the lesbian woman.
But all the way back in 1962, William Wyler's "tasteful" version of "The Children's Hour" certainly tried to be more sensitive to the issue (except one of the women hangs herself...)
I still don't think a high-end professional couple of ANY race would want their (educated, or not) offspring
to bring home someone of a different race for a future spouse. Same with their adult child bringing home
a same-sex thing. As I wrote, things haven't changed that much.
But I'm not a parent, and can only imagine the difficulties (it still is) in accepting your adult young offspring
bringing home someone you feel might cause them pain. I haven't seen the film in eons, but I feel
that Tracy and Hepburn's characters are afraid of the scorn their daughter (and grandchildren) would
experience, as opposed to their social shame.
I still don't think a high-end professional couple of ANY race would want their (educated, or not) offspring
to bring home someone of a different race for a future spouse. Same with their adult child bringing home
a same-sex thing. As I wrote, things haven't changed that much.
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Likely not, still. But I can't really say...these are sensitive times.
Didn't they remake this some years ago with the late Bernie Mac in the Tracy role, and an African-American daughter bringing home a white fiancée? I didn't see it, I wonder how they treated it.
he was too good for her.
shareBut she is white. I work with some Indian guys who have a real hard on for white women, they will date the fattest, ugliest, dumbest white chicks around all because they are white. That is what matters to them.