Cinema In Context

Bringing racial tension home. Sarah Watt, Max Tarrant, Jeremy Downing and William Chen discuss the films Get Out (2017) and Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner (1967). The discussion touches on: uncovering racial prejudices in society that both films investigate; how the films shift social perceptions on issues like interracial marriage, and both the problematic and successful aspects of that; the gap between generations, when social expectation ideals are different between parent and child; the connection between films Night of the Living Dead (1968), Stepford Wives (1975), Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Keanu (2016); the role of the maid in both films and how it comments on the expected social position of African Americans; the strength of the performances from Catherine Keener, Alison Williams and Daniel Kaluuya; the lens from which we watch a film and investigating how things have or haven’t changed.