In Gentlemen's Agreement, a "reporter pretends to be Jewish in order to cover a story on anti-Semitism, and personally discovers the true depths of bigotry and hatred." The movie, starring Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire and John Garfield, was a major effort to call the United States and the world to the plight of Jews even in the United States.
We are over sixty years from Gentlemen's Agreement, from which some say John Garfield, who was Jewish, died of a heart attack, Elia Kazan was blacklisted, and Gregory Peck went on to crusade through the movies against unholy alliances that would have a minority crushed through subtle and overt attacks based on race, religion and general ignorance.
One would wonder whether Peck would have sympathized with women or blacks in this election year. The choice for him would have been difficult.
His life was largely male and paternal grandmother. For Peck, who attended a St. John's Military School, lost his mother fairly early in life to divorce and lived with both his grandmother and father, his awakening occurred when he attended Berkley.
Although his tuition fee was only $26 a year, Peck still struggled to pay, and had to work as a "hasher" (kitchen helper) for the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority in exchange for meals. Peck would later say about Berkeley that, "it was a very special experience for me and three of the greatest years of my life. It woke me up and made me a human being."
We all go through such wake up calls. Our choices in life are normally easy, after the crucible of what life can bring to us all.
Many of us sympathize with both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
With the one, we know full well what the issues are and have been. We take strength in the polls that say only a few whites are really against him due to race, but believe the polls that say that blacks are choosing him in the 90% range because of his merits.
Somehow, black women find him more to their liking than Hillary Clinton. Perhaps they also find her a weaker candidate if they are Asian or white, depending on what those women's experiences were during their life and how much discrimination they face as women.
Signally, Peck's upbringing was largely male but his roles seem to transcend sex. Working as a subordinate in a women's sorority Alpha Gamma Delta which calls itself a "fraternity for women" was what Peck said was his most formative experience. One wonders why.
But what is clear is that his learning while struggling with money should have given him some sense of the sacrifice and achievement required in order to work in an environment that could have been more prejudiced because of his position than race or sex.
We learn little about Peck's views in the reviews of his works. But we learn a lot about timing.
Gentlemen's Agreement came out during the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel, born of the horrors wrought against the Jews by the Germans and the world's angst of having sat by and allowed this to happen despite clear knowledge of the horrors involved. It was a success in part because of these facts, and was a problem for others involved because of their positions in this cause, but largely because they actually were jewish and Peck was not.
To Kill a Mockingbird, playing his favorite role considered the greatest film hero of all time, was an allegory of the United States in 1962.
The novel centers on (from the perspective of his daughter, Jean Louise "Scout" Finch) Atticus' struggle to defend a black man, Tom Robinson, accused of raping a white woman, Mayella Ewell. Despite the fact that there is strong evidence suggesting that Tom is innocent, most of the town takes the side against Atticus simply because his defendant is a black man and the victim is a white woman. Hence, Atticus, his children and his family continually face slander, insults, and sometimes even threats of physical violence from fellow town citizens, schoolmates of Jem and Scout, and even other members of the Finch family. Despite all this, Atticus refuses to abandon the case, and continues to urge Jem and Scout to remain unresponsive to the town's criticism, fearful that they may learn the wrong ethical lessons. Atticus shrugs off all prejudices and insults, forgiving the townspeople for their failings, and continues to work for Tom's acquittal, taking the release of the innocent man as a personal crusade.
It is harder to find an American movie about prejudice against women. Indeed, this has been once again brushed under the rug in this election year, as it has been from generation to generation.
While many men now carry on domestic chores for women who work, the real sacrifice of such efforts is down at the lower end of the economic spectrum for those women who must find work and raise their children as single women.
This difficult plight is not only not showcased today. It is avoided, with our focus centered on the more recognized issues of today - - - Iraq, Afghanistan, veterans, health care, etc.
And this is the truth of the mission really missed by Hillary Clinton this election year. Failing to represent her best aligned demographic.
That women have been relegated by other issues to a backstage role is nothing new. Despite organizing efforts, addressing real discrimination still seems to be more centered on time honored discriminations like race and religion. For reasons lost to most of us, these are considered more important than the facts that women face prejudice at home and abroad. And have no virtually no voice in government.
As their roles continue to include principal responsibilities in cooking, making beds, making certain children get to school and everyone gets fed, women will once again have to rely on men to do the job for them in Washington.
Few legislators are women today. In Congress, the number is appalling. And we continually have trouble with even our elected women doing anything for women while in Congress.
Perhaps our Senators and Congresswomen are just running again and know that the prejudice against women will not change. Even though they are the largest group facing prejudice in the world today, including even the United States, women continue to concentrate on others, as they have been taught since birth.
So, since we cannot rely on women, we better make certain that the Republican and Democratic putative nominees know that they must choose women as their running mates. No male VP candidate will do.
No matter how tenured or smart, no matter how fair, any male simply will not do for this election.
Whatever else we see from these candidates, we must see a woman VP. If only one party chooses one, women should vote for that party.
For we must send a message that Hillary Clinton and all before her fail to voice out of fear that the biased press, including the worst of all Chris Matthews, would further castigate them and find them prejudiced against men.
We must send a message to these candidates that only a woman VP nominee will do.