Beware of Prejudice and Misinformation – To Kill a Mockingbird
In the series of films that I’m choosing to watch together with my 12-year old grandson, the turn had come to watch the classic film To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee’s novel from 1960 already got its film version in 1962 with Robert Mulligan as the director and Gregory Peck in the role of lawyer and family father Atticus Finch.
My grandson’s first question before we started the film was what a mockingbird is. In our Swedish subtitles the word is translated with songbird. Mockingbirds mimic the sounds of other birds and animals they hear. Within the film Atticus explains for his son Jem how and when he learnt to use a gun. He ends with saying: ”Remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” Jem checks with the maid what his father meant, and she adds: ”Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy…but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
There are two story-lines in the film. One begins with the Finch children Jem and Scout and their new friend Dill trying to get a glimpse of their neighbor Boo, who is kept in the cellar of his home by his father. Boo is a mentally-disabled man who in their imagination has become a myth, a kind of bogeyman. Their prejudice doesn’t allow them to see anything good in him. But he is one of the mockingbirds in the story, trying to sing as beautifully as he can. If the children would try to creep into Boo’s skin for a moment, they would see and recognize this beauty.
The other story-line is the trial in which Atticus defends the black man Tom Robinson who is falsely accused of raping a white woman. In the context of the Deep South of the Thirties with its racial prejudice there is no way to see anything beautiful in this man. He cannot be heard. He is one of the birds that need to be killed.
To Kill a Mockingbird appeared to be a great movie for discussing with my grandson how prejudice, myth and misinformation makes us deaf to the beauty in the song of people different than ourselves. It is a conversation that is needed so much in our time in our different contexts! Everywhere we find mockingbirds whose songs deserve to be heard! When we make the effort we will find dignity, tenderness and love in the most unexpected places!
Rinus/Nov 2022
*image posted under fair use of copyright material in recommendation of the film
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Dear Rinus, I have seen To Kill a Mockingbird multiple times and your reflection on it makes me want to open myself to it again in the coming days. The story of your film journey with your grandson is so inspiring to me. I hope to do that one day.