To Kill A Mocking Bird

This is certainly one of my favorite movies.

This first clip is complex and unique in one special way as is the second and that is the way the father Atticus, for me, epitomizes the role of parent  and manages “shame”.

Here we see, so well, how shame and humiliation is inevitable. Rarely has a child actor done as well as Mary Badham as Scout.

I start with the “Mocking Bird” scene (Atticus is recounting to the children that he was told that it was “a sin “to kill a mocking bird””), the table scene where Scout succeeds wonderfully in humiliating her guest so innocently for pouring syrup on his afternoon repast. She is immediately feels the sting of the maids scolding form the kitchen and her eyes look downward and the head is bowed.

Atticus? He is the observer and is letting his children be children. The scene switches to the kitchen and you see the difference in the parenting styles, now the real scolding, the maid, raised voice and strict instruction and head profoundly bowed.

Next Scout, now no eye contact at all, runs out to the porch with Atticus, close behind. There is a lot of pain here but Atticus is wonderfully calm he knows it will pass. But for Scout the withdrawal script of shame has take hold: I am not going back to school!