# Help ID this film/TV scene please **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 25, 2006, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-id-this-film-tv-scene-please/358222 "2006-05-25T18:46:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jombi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f19dbf/32.png) [@Jombi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jombi)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2006, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-id-this-film-tv-scene-please/358222/1 "2006-05-25T18:46:43Z")
(I first posted this in the thread “elementary film ID” and then realized maybe it was out of place in that thread. Sorry for the confusion.) I’ve been wondering about this scene that is burned into my brain: A poor black family in the South, maybe sharecroppers, in a decrepit old house. The scene is out in front of the house. The young boy has a pet rooster in a small cage, and the mother tells him the family needs to eat his rooster. The boy cries, etc. The mother sheds a tear but is stoic and firm, tells him they must eat the rooster. Obviously trying to put on a brave face and teach the boy to be tough about such things. Then she pulls out a big carving fork, one of those two-pronged things you use when cutting a turkey, and tells the boy to kill the rooster with it! He eventually does as he’s told and starts jabbing the rooster in the cage with the big fork, crying hsyterically but, I assume, learning to be a strong man. Mother sheds a tear but seems firm in teachign her boy this lesson, whatever it is. Horrible scene that still makes me shiver. I saw it when I was very young, and I think it was on PBS or at least was something ostensibly educational. Any ideas what this was?? ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-id-this-film-tv-scene-please/358222/2 "2006-06-28T00:24:11Z")
That’s [The Sky is Gray](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0081525/). It was a short story before it was a movie.