I thoroughly enjoyed Loving. Although the last scenes that said the husband died in 1975 made me emotional, the movie was overall a happy ending and that satisfied me. I found a lot of similarities between Richard and Mildred’s love story and other struggles of the LGBT community. Of course, the Loving v. Virginia was used to justify gay marriage. I think it’s startling to think that interracial marriage was banned within our parents’ lifetimes, proving that only recently has legal racism been outlawed, meaning society has a long way to go.
It’s egregious to think that there was still such blatant discrimination so far after the civil rights movement. Even after the legalization of interracial marriage, a significant number of white Americans still view it as blasphemous. I think telling the story of the Loving family helps to show that the government has no right to interfere with our lives and that we should be able to love whoever we want to.
I think that it is also important to note that minorities in America also still look down upon interracial marriage. Perhaps it is a misguided way to preserve the culture that they come from or maybe it is just a fear of the unknown. Regardless of its cause, we as a society need to be more open about taboo topics like interracial marriage because even if laws don’t oppose it, societal pressure can still be a major obstacle to overcome.