Final Project | VERZUZ TV Podcast: Guess Who – Sidney Poitier is That You?

The episode of Versus TV titled "Guess Who? Sydney Poitier is that you?" discusses the adaptation of the film "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and its influence on the 2005 adaptation, "Guess Who?" The host examines Sydney Poitier's star persona and how it is portrayed in both films. The adaptation of Poitier's persona is seen as haunting the newer film, but it is also negotiated and bent to reinforce the message of the film. The film focuses on the love of a black father for his daughter and challenges stereotypes. However, the film lacks a deeper exploration of race and history. The host concludes that Poitier's persona is dichotomous and can be negotiated and reconstructed across demographics, but it can never be fully captured. Greetings lovely listeners. Welcome back to another episode of Versus TV. I'm your host Sydney Ware and our episode today is entitled Guess Who? Sydney Poitier is that you? If you haven't guessed by the title today we will be discussing the quintessential American film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner along with the adaptation Guess Who? I'd rather not focus on the obvious today and compare the original source text and its adaptation. Instead I want to look more closely at the adaptation of the star persona of the male protagonist in the film which is played by Sydney Poitier and how it influences the 2005 film Guess Who? Poitier portrayed himself through his persona as a man of dignity, class, humanity, and what is considered as a quiet determination. These characteristics are most prevalent and inherently built in his star persona due to the fact that he was the first black movie star and therefore an icon. Because of Poitier's persona as a symbol of progression in the United Statesian society he's also alienated and isolated from the black community. Linda Hutchian has a book entitled A Theory of Adaptation. In her chapter called Beginning to Theorize Adaptation she discusses theories furthering deeper thoughts surrounding adaptations. She references Michael Alexander's term for ways to think of adaptations which he calls palimpsestuous works or works that are considered by the text they are adapting. Essentially she's saying that we always sense the presence of a source even as we directly experience the adaptation. Because Poitier's persona is so pervasive within American media and therefore reverberates throughout American society I would like to use Poitier's persona as a framework to see if it in fact haunts the adaptation as Hutchian proposes. Is Poitier's star persona transferable to a predominantly affluent black cast nearly 38 years later with a white male lead? Interestingly enough my answer to this question is yes. But ladies and gentlemen it is not that simple. Poitier's persona subtly bleeds through the film but it is through negotiations of give and take and what I mean by that is this. The collective memory of Poitier's persona is constant and consistent and in this way it does haunt the adaptation as Hutchian suggests. However when and how Poitier's persona shows up is negotiated. Guess who does this by how they use Poitier's persona and bend and flip it at will to reinforce their own message which is that it's centered around a father specifically a black father and his love for his daughter that knows no bounds even when he is wrong. And if you don't believe me listen to what I'm about to say next. A March 2005 cover story for Jet magazine discloses what the overarching theme of the film is along with its subtle nuances. When discussing the plot of the film the cover story says quote producers said they want guess who to reflect the feeling every father has when he realizes that he's got to let his daughter go. Most fathers have the expectation that their daughters would choose a man similar to them in temperament and substance. Producers felt it was a way of portraying all those dashed expectations in a relevant and comedic way. That said end quote. That said guess who seeks to display a black father's love for his daughter and in this way makes connections between the source and the adaptation by centering its sentiments on loving without limits. This may seem like a deduction from Poitier's persona being that John's relationship with Mr. Prentice in the original film seemed really strained. However this is actually the star's persona at play. Percy shows up as a good father for his children as well as being a faithful husband for 25 years and achieving a life of affluence. All of this is the Poitier way. In fact Percy mentions that his father was a bellman for 60 years and we find out that he is a bank loan officer which harkens back to the original source text and mirrors Poitier's character John who's a medical doctor even though his father was a mailman. It is apparent to me that the director Kevin Rodney Sullivan takes notes of the subversion of socioeconomic status in guess who's coming to dinner and attaches it to a black man in guess who and runs with it. He is cited in Jet Magazine saying I also love to challenge stereotypes. It's always fun to flip things on their ears. By allowing Percy to subvert the stereotypes placed on black men the adaptation gives room for Poitier's star persona to become even more relevant and highlight the affluence of his own character John. Percy also occupies that this liminal space of being exceptional while also being isolated. By having a taste for things that seem abnormal to a black man like enjoying NASCAR, refusing to drink alcohol in public, and having no other black male friends that are within his socioeconomic status or higher Percy embodies Poitier's persona in the sense of respectability politics. He is so exceptional so a cut above the rest that he is therefore isolated. However the subversion of black stereotypes also reifies others. If Percy is a cut above the rest that still enforces reinforces this idea that other black men not within his socioeconomic status are unacceptable which means he is rare. This is proven by the interaction that Percy has with the cab driver after realizing that he is not Simon. It wasn't enough that he was black but he had to have the credentials attached that Simon did. This is also reinforced at the beginning of the film when Percy describes Simon to his personal assistant and the camera zooms in on a well-dressed black man. In fact Sullivan pushes the subversion of race so hard in this film that the major issue of race in the former film is now replaced with class and status. A 2005 interview from the TV Guide cites the film as quote a slapstick remake of the earnest guess who's coming to dinner end quote. It says the film quote actually resembles its socially conscious predecessor less than it does meet the parents spiced up with a dollop of the still sensitive subject of race. And I would have to agree because the film predicates itself on the subversion of race, gender, and socioeconomic status. The initial issue of race is now undermined and it becomes nuanced by class. I surmise that this conflict became prevalent due to the fact that writers and producers did not consider what we now know to be intersectionality. Factoring intersectionality in makes Simon a poor contender as a stand-in for John. Although the subversion is meant to be simple from black to white it becomes more complicated. Because Simon's socioeconomic status comes into play he cannot compete with John. Matt Drayton has to admit that John Prentiss looks good on paper. Everything was exceptional except for the fact that he was black unlike Simon. He was raised by a single mother. He recently lost his job and I would consider him a habitual liar. In this way Simon cannot measure up to the weight of Poitier's persona. However I do have to say that Poitier's persona still peeks through Kutcher's performance in the most subtle ways. In his article Sidney Poitier it is no great way to be a symbol Arthur Knight discusses how Poitier performs pleasure. Although Bernie Mac undoubtedly plays a part in the comedic elements of the film I would consider Simon as a sort of pleasure pot simply because throughout the movie the audience is literally laughing at him. He becomes a source of pleasure and playability. Even when he is caught in a lie or in compromising positions in front of Teresa's family he's easily forgiven and then understood. For instance when the family was together in the dinner scene Simon repeated extremely inappropriate jokes but was forgiven because he was goaded by Percy. Another clear correlation between Poitier's star persona and Simon is their willingness to teach chastity and intertwine destiny with their pupils. Knight says that Poitier is so often the helper of whites and often isolated from other African-Americans. In the same way Simon helped Percy not only in remembering how to tango but to win back the affections of his wife. Also Simon is cut off from the only white counterparts we see him interact with. Knight also mentions portrayals of Poitier as interconnected with his white co-stars saying that he seems virtually always tied to even defined by whites almost never African-Americans. By the end of the film it is clear that Simon is also defined by the Jones family and vice versa. And I found this piece really interesting particularly because of how the connection and definition of Simon by the Jones family is made prevalent. Because Simon came with Teresa and is essentially financially destitute he waits for a train to take him when they temporarily break up instead of taking a cab back to the airport. Again he has no visible friends as far as we can see. The movie ends with a reconciliation between Teresa and Simon but we're not able to see him get his job back. We're not able to see him have a future outside of the Jones family. Even the risk he wanted to take in the stock market through his former associate was left open-ended. As far as we're concerned their future is forever intertwined because the only thing that we are certain of is that the younger couple are willing to get married again. And James Baldwin makes a similar point as quoted in Knight's article wherein he essentially argues that Poitier's portrayals in his films are stuck in time. He says quote simply to be trapped in one's history and attempt at the same time to accept deny reject and redeem it. Both Simon and Percy are stuck in this endless loop. Simon accepts that he would rather be jobless than work for a boss that is assumedly prejudiced, rejects Percy's attempts at thwarting him and attempts to seem prepared for marriage by lying about his career status and then ultimately redeeming himself by telling the truth about his career status. Percy also comes to eventually accept that Simon may not meet all his expectations while rejecting stereotypes placed on black men and finally redeeming himself by allowing his daughter and Simon to be together without his interference. However both men as well as the Jones family are stuck within this loop of history because there's no direct acknowledgement of past or upcoming future. Throughout the film both Percy and Simon have tense interactions with one another which made for a comedic effect but also has some serious undertones. Roger Ebert says in a 2005 interview in his self-titled blog that Percy sleeping with Simon in the same bed quote leads to several scenes which are intended to be funny but sit there uncomfortably on the screen because the humor comes from a different place than the real center of the film end quote. I suppose the jokes fell flat because the jokes danced around the issue of race by presenting stereotypes but never truly addressed the historical issue of race in this country. I want to bring back up the dinner scene because I believe it's a great example of this. Simon says he does not appreciate jokes that he's heard about black people but ends up repeating them anyway. Interestingly enough the entire Jones family laughs with Simon. However things take a turn when Simon makes a joke about a black man keeping a job. Clearly that's a sore spot for Percy but the movie just leaves us hanging. Percy nor anyone else in the family provides clear connections as to why this joke was offensive to the Jones family or even bigger connections between the stereotypes repeated and the history connected to them. Basically none of those pieces are linked together because the film suffers from an absence of history for the characters that is reminiscent of Poitier's star persona. In her article The Poitier Effect, Racial Melodrama and Fantasies of Reconciliation Sharon Willis discusses this idea of stories that are attached from history that is prevalent in Poitier's work. She says this traction of the Poitier figure seems related to his capacity to embody a moral authority that derives from his innocence and innocence that is also rooted in his detachment from history. End quote. We see the same semblance of Poitier's persona in Guess Who. Because the characters are detached from history we have to receive perceive what the Jones triggers are without ever having to deal with the more complex issue of race than simply stereotypes and subversions and the characters refuse to give us any backstory. And Ebert agrees with this. He says if the movie had spent more time walking that tightrope between the acceptable and the offensive between what we have in common and what divides us it would have been more daring. Instead it uses sitcom and soap opera formulas that allow the characters easy ways out. But what I think Ebert does not realize is that the adaptation is simply aligning with the persona that came before it. That both of these young couples arrive on screen with no past no future and a quick fix for their issues. Willis states it beautifully when she says these interracial encounters never told the story of the past that produced them or of the future that they could construct. Because we are free from the ramifications of history and future in these films they're given permission to tie all the issues presented up in this neat little bow and in them by how they assume the world ought to be instead of living in the reality of how it is. Although I've discussed a number of connections within the two films that I find really interesting I find this to be the most astounding. Poitier's persona is intelligible in both figures because of their layered liminality. On one hand Simon is John's direct predecessor and because of that he undoubtedly has traits of Poitier's persona inherently within his character. However because Simon is white clumsy and a bit of a screw-up Poitier's persona becomes divergent. On the other hand Percy is the lead black man in the film with more than one connection to Poitier's persona. One being that Poitier would have undoubtedly had an effect on Bernie Mac as the first black icon and therefore an example to the entertainer according to author Knight. Secondly because Bernie Mac's character is an admitted subversion of black stereotypes and Poitier's too, this places them in a similar demographic as black men. However Bernie Mac is a departure from Poitier's persona as well. According to Knight it was important that Poitier be seen as an actor not an entertainer. He says Poitier forgoes many of the conventional and in the case of blacks given work in Hollywood stereotypical means for representing pleasure. Bernie Mac is a comedian and undoubtedly brings that to his role as Percy which is exactly what Poitier did not want to be considered. Because of these reasons as much as Poitier's persona manifests itself in Percy and Simon the pair are a divergent form of Poitier's persona as well. This is due to Poitier's persona being dichotomous in nature. Because Poitier's persona is red dichotomously the way that Poitier was read is inserted in both characters. As a result both semblances of him are semblances of him but neither fully embody the role of the star's persona. With that being said I answer the questions I posed in the beginning. I do believe that Poitier's persona haunts Guess Who? At the same time I believe that the choices to subvert race also undermine Poitier's persona. Because Poitier's persona is contradictory there's a dichotomous perception of him received by his audience and iterated according to those nuanced interpretations. This dichotomy reveals how Poitier's dichotomous persona can be negotiated and reconstructed across race and demographics due to intersectionality. But also how his persona can never be completely captured due to the nexus of the time period, social issues, and progression of the time. Thank you so much for listening again I'm your host Sydney Ware with Versus TV. Because one thing about us, we're gonna talk about all the things. Bye!