“Individuals Are Powerless Against Prejudice”’

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To what extent do the texts you have studied support this idea? The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and the film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner directed by Stanley Kramer, both deal with related themes of racial prejudice. Both texts reveal prejudice to be an adult behavior that is taught or learnt as well as prejudice born from ignorance. Though both texts explore the idea of prejudice being entrenched in society there is hope seen in both text that this prejudice may be overcome. Both texts through differing techniques support the idea that individuals do have the power against prejudice, there individuals are not powerless against prejudice. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner tells the story of Joey Drayton, a young White American woman and Dr. John Prentice, an African American. The challenge they both face is to obtain the approval of both their parents to be wed. Kramer uses head shot close ups on Mr. and Mrs. Drayton to shows the initial shocked and horrified reaction to the news of this mixed marriage. This initial reaction is then replicated by Kramer through John’s parents when are first told of his white love. In each of these shots almost the exact same reaction can be seen; vague, blank eyes, dropped jaws conveying overall stunned expressions. This reaction depicts the obvious prejudice held by both parents. Kramer then contrasts this adult held prejudice by cutting from either stunned parent to Joey’s fresh and open facial expression shown through close ups, contrasting adult prejudice that is not present in Joey’s youthful face. This idea of prejudice absent unless in youth unless taught suggests that individuals are not powerless against prejudice as the hope lies in the unprejudiced youth. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee also depicts prejudice being an adult behaviour which is learnt through exposure. Lee writes ‘My Folks said your daddy was a

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