Watching Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner as a child was vivid.  The cast was exquisitely formed, creating a film that has survived the passing of decades and is, sadly, still relevant to society today.  The characters in the film who displayed racist tendencies throughout were shocking.  Growing up in an environment so different, with such a drastically opposite upbringing and moral foundation, it was horrifying to see their behavior and know that their outlook was, and still is, shared by so many.  At the same time, it was a pleasure watching Katharine Hepburn’s banter, and was a very witty, humorous film despite the serious topic.  Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is both conventional and unconventional.  It used two hugely successful leads, and had a focused goal that was clearly achieved by the end of the film.  The film however, was not socially or politically conservative, choosing a path that challenged viewer’s opinions.  Despite this, the film was closer to conventional than unconventional.   At the beginning of the film, when Sydney Poitier and Katharine Houghton are in the back of a taxi cab on their way to her parent’s house, the taxi driver keeps looking at them in the rearview mirror.  When first watching the film as a child it was unclear why this was happening.  In recent years it became obvious that the driver could barely believe what he was seeing.  Whether he approved of the situation is questionable, however either way, it was something he had likely never before witnessed.  Education and understanding of race relations in the 60’s made this inference possible.  Reading the reviews from when the film first came out, brought to light details that were not noticed before in the film.  One critic especially, Roger Ebert, described the scene wherein Sydney Poitier confronts his father’s views on inter-racial marriage as out of character in reference to the rest of the film.  Though this view can be understood, it is more likely that Sydney Poitier’s character simply lost patience.  He is presented throughout the film as the perfect man; thoughtful, intelligent, witty, kind, generous, honest and much more.  Nonetheless, every person has their limits, and his were understandably already under a great amount of strain.  More than likely, his father’s forthright opinion was the beetle that pushed his considerable patience down the hill.  Films are both historical artifacts and works of art, which embody their time.  The film encapsulates a time when marrying someone of a different color was not only unheard of, but social suicide.  Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner seeks to encourage awareness of just how unfair this fact is, and accomplishes its aim beautifully.  It points out the blatant racism at work in America with brutal yet subtle efficiency.  Looking back at it from current times, race relations have improved hugely for most of the country.  Furthermore, although inter-racial couples still encounter prejudice, their relationships are more widely accepted all over the world now than when the film was created.