Filming Change: Civil Rights through the Lens of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? and To Kill a Mockingbird

Abstract

The 1960s were a turbulent decade in the United States. Significant social changes, especially in the realm of antiracism and antisexism, were afoot. Concurrently, in an echo to such dramatic social change, popular culture was also evolving. This article examines two relevant films to evaluate their ability to perform a moral critique of gender and racial politics in the 1960s. Alongside an analysis of social and political trends and Supreme Court cases, I compare two critically acclaimed industry films, To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), to better understand cultural and political reforms in the 20th century.

Keywords

• civil rights
• racism
• sexism
• guess who's coming to dinner?
• to kill a mockingbird
• sixties
• social change