When Love Wins Over Society

Tonight's marathon is a direct followup to the marathon titled: When Society Fails On Love. To give a brief recap of the theme of that marathon. That marathon centered around romances that ended with sad endings because society failed to bypass the ignorance or discrimination during their respective time periods. Those films were Terrence Malick's The New World, Romeo and Juliet 1968, West Side Story, Far From Heaven, and Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain. In that marathon, each romance was doomed to fail because society failed to look past racial barriers or gender for acceptance. Tonight's marathon is the parallel to  that one in which each romance that's presented here mirrors the other except the ending is much happier and more emotionally satisfying. One wouldn't think that there wasn't more to add after an ending like Brokeback Mountain, but there actually is in terms of doing a reversal marathon with the same theme instituted. For tonight's marathon, we have on the following menu:

Pocahontas 1995, Lion King ll Simba's Pride 1998, A Bronx Tale 1993,  Guess Whose Coming To Dinner 1968,  and Anna and the King 1999.

Now this feels like a worthy follow up to When Society Fails On Love night. Nearly every kind of love story from the previous lineup is present here with the theme being when love prevails over societies misunderstanding culturally. Terrence Malick's The New World is parallel to the 1995 animated film Pocahontas, Romeo and Juliet 1968 is now Lion King ll Simba's Pride, West Side Story is now A Bronx Tale, Far From Heaven is now Guess Whose Coming To Dinner, and Brokeback Mountain is now Anna and the King. All these love stories are iconic in the sense that they all tested societies level of tolerance and acceptance while showing the discrimination that each couple relationship endured. The first movie of the night is the 1995 animated classic titled Pocahontas with Mel Gibson as the voice of John Smith. The film is a landmark achievement because it became the first animated film in history to tackle the theme of an interracial romance. The film centers around an English soldier named John Smith sharing a forbidden romance with the daughter of an Algonquin chief named Pocahontas. The timeline of this romance is placed during the period when English colonists invade seventeenth-century Virginia. The supporting cast is voiced by the talents of Christian Bale who was also in Terrence Malick's live action version of Pocahontas titled The New World in marathon one, Linda Hunt, and Judy Khan as Pocahontas. Whereas The New World ended with Pocahontas marrying Christian Bale's character instead of Colin Ferrall's John Smith due to the pressure placed on both of them for sharing a forbidden romance, Pocahontas uses the love of Pocahontas and John Smith to help ease the rift between the English and Native Americans and bring the two sides together like Romeo and Juliet, minus the deaths. The second movie of the lineup is the surprisingly decent direct to video sequel to Lion King titled Lion King ll: Simba's Pride. In this sequel to the Disney classic, the story focuses around the daughter of Simba and a relative of Scar sharing a forbidden romance that ends up becoming the key to a resolution of bitter feud between Simba and the relatives of Scar, uniting both sides. The sequel gets points for taking on the theme of Romeo and Juliet and not duplicating the first film but creating it's own story. It's a great parallel to the 1968 classic Romeo and Juliet directed by Franco Zefferelli. Whereas the two star crossed lovers in Romeo and Juliet end up killing themselves due to feeling their love would never be accepted by both families, Simba's daughter and Scar's relative Kovu ignore what people say and carry out with their love, forcing Simba to strengthen his relationship with his daughter and accept reality. The third movie in the marathon is the great coming of age tale called A Bronx Tale. The film stars Robert Deniro as a bus driver struggling to keep his son from growing up to become apart of a local mobster's party during the 1960's in the Bronx. While this is happening, Deniro's son calogero befriends and fall in love with a young African American girl in his neighborhood named Jane while the Italians and Blacks share strong racial tensions. There is no better parallel to West Side Story than this film with both films dealing with tensions between two groups and a love that stands right in between them. Chazz Palminteri's powerful screenplay shows a young Italian boy growing up in a rough neighborhood and having a more open mind than everyone else around him. The love prevails in Bronx Tale compared to West Side Story because the two young lovers bypass all of societies prejudices and continue to date as implied by the dialogue in the final scene of the film. The fourth movie of the marathon is the 1968 landmark classic titled Guess Whose Coming To Dinner starring Sidney Poitier, Katherine Hepburn, and Spencer Tracy. Generally considered as the film that opened the door to the theme of interracial romance, the film focuses on a liberal couple being forced to rethink their stance on race when their daughter brings home an African American fiancé. Nominated for ten academy awards and winner of two including one for best actress for Katherine Hepburn, Guess Whose Coming To Dinner arrived at a time where the civil rights movement was at it's peak and change was on the horizon for America. It is the perfect follow up to Far From Heaven where Julianne Moore played a 1950's housewife who falls in love with a black man in her neighborhood after catching her husband in love with another man. That film ended with her and Dennis Haysbert's character parting ways feeling that their love can never be de to the racial tensions that are present in their neighborhood. The final scene of Guess Whose Coming To Dinner has Spencer Tracy making an epic speech about if two people really do love each other regardless of differences in skin color than nothing else should matter. It is indeed one of the most powerful speeches in film history. The fifth and final movie of the ending feels like the perfect parallel to Brokeback Mountain with Anna and the King. Starring Jodie Foster and Chow Yun Fat, the story centers around a widowed English schoolteacher  named Anna Leonowens, and the King Of Siam played by Chow Yun Fat. The two share a burning romance during the 1860's with racial tensions colliding from both the Siamese and English governments. Whereas Brokeback Mountain ended with the love failing because of discrimination getting in the way and Jake Gyllenhaal's character getting killed for being homosexual, Anna and the King ends with the two fully realizing their love for each other and the Siamese King coming to the realization that he can actually love just one woman and not need to be married to several. It is a bittersweet ending because while Jodi Foster's character decides to return to England, they share one last dance, inspiring the King's son to become a great leader that treats everyone equally.

So what is the message behind this marathon compared to When Society Fails On Love. This marathon says that love between two people can prevail if the rest of society disagrees with it, and if you really believe in that love and it is real, then life will find a way.

Our Parallels for both marathons for this evening: