To Kill a Mockingbird/Trivia
Trivia about To Kill a Mockingbird includes:
- Fan Nickname: Tequila Mockingbird.
- Hey, It's That Guy!: Boo Radley is played by Robert Duvall in the movie (his film debut).
- So, the man that is falsely accused of rape survives into the 23rd century to become Admiral of Starfleet, only to witness the planet he was put in charge of be nearly destroyed by an intergalactic probe, and then be put on trial AGAIN for trying to incite a war between a dying race that stands against every one of his values? I-rony!
- Life Imitates Art: At a couple of points in the movie, Scout, who is only just learning to read, sits on Atticus' lap to visually follow along as he reads aloud. Decades later, real-life educators began recommending this very technique to parents who wanted to help their youngsters learn to read.
- Moral Guardians: The novel is routinely the subject of requests to be removed from libraries. The American Library Association lists of 100 most frequently challenged books by decade have always included To Kill a Mockingbird, usually in the top 25.
- Write Who You Know/No Celebrities Were Harmed: Scout was based on Harper Lee's childhood, Atticus on her lawyer father, Jem on her four-year older brother, and Dill on her childhood friend Truman Capote. Boo Radley was based on one of her neighbors, and Tom Robinson was the amalgam of several cases. Ultimately everyone in the book is based off of someone from Lee's childhood -- details and examples can be found in the book's Wikipedia article. The townspeople were not amused.
- However, the book was Vindicated by History in Monroeville (Lee's hometown). They perform a stage version of it every year with Audience Participation for the courtroom scene: the audience is segregated as they were in the courtroom, and twelve men from the crowd are selected as the jury.
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