Below is a transcript from “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”. I re-watched this movie right before Christmas. It’s one of my all time favorites. I am a sucker for a romance. Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn had one of the greatest romances of all time. Katharine loved Spencer with a crazy sort of love, and how could Spencer not have adored Katharine? She stuck by him through his alcoholism and his marriage to another woman.
In the ending scene of this movie, Katharine is crying real tears, knowing this would most certainly be his last film as his health was fading. Spencer gives the speech below with conviction, certainty and a special sort of softness directed at Katharine. It is quite amazing. Even more amazing is that if ”pigmentation” were changed to “gender”, this speech could have been directed to a same sex couple as easily as it was to the interracial couple in the movie. Think about it as you read it and most certainly find this movie and watch it over and over again.
4 bags of popcorn for Katharine and Spencer.
I’m sure you know–what you’re up against.
There’ll be a hundred million people right here in this country…
who’ll be shocked and offended and appalled at the two of you.
And the two of you will just have to ride that out.
Maybe every day
for the rest of your lives.
You can try to ignore those people…
or you can feel sorry for them
and for their prejudices…
and their bigotry and
their blind hatreds and stupid fears.
But where necessary…
you’ll just have
to cling tight to each other…
and say screw all those people!
Anybody couId make a hell of a
good case against your getting married.
The arguments are so obvious
that nobody has to make them.
But you’re two wonderful people…
who happened to fall in love…
and happen to have
a pigmentation problem.
And l think that now…
no matter what kind of a case
some bastard could make…
against your getting married…
there would be only one thing worse.
And that would be if…
knowing what you two are…
knowing what you two have…
and knowing what you two feel…
you didn’t get married.
