• Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

7/29/18 (Sun)

I was never a big fan of Mr. Rogers, who seemed embarrassingly old-fashioned to me back in the day even before Sesame Street was blowing the neighborhood away. But I’m regretting all those years of neglect after seeing this superb documentary of his life – his view of the role of the emerging medium of television in communicating with children, the radical ideas cloaked in his retrograde and laid-back style, his ability to reach out to children (the most difficult audience in any medium). Rogers felt that the pie-throwing and banana-peel humor of the early children’s shows were downright destructive to little minds seeking simple truths, and sought to bring kids up to his level rather than the other way around by addressing them honestly and directly. It’s difficult to imagine today how strange that must have seemed at the time, especially in the show’s childlike setup: sock puppets, crude sets, basic storylines, unhurried style, simplistic themes. But what could be cloying comes out as oddly compelling in the face of Rogers’ earnestness.

Those waiting for dark skeletons to come rolling out of that familiar closet will be sorely disappointed: what you see with Mr. Rogers is what you get. Ordained as a Christian minister, he pursues themes in his shows from that moral universe but cloaked in everyday situations. He is not playing a character named “Mr. Rogers” but living it. Subtle actions like dangling his feet in the same pool with a black policeman were slyly subversive at a time of widespread segregation: rather than screaming or protesting, he used the image as his message, presenting a highly controversial (at the time) situation as perfectly normal. He was living tolerance rather than talking endlessly about it, using example rather than accusation. (It reminded me of how my teacher presented the scientist George Washington Carver in grade school. She told us of his innovative experiments with the peanut without ever mentioning he was black; his picture made that clear without having to go on about it. We had no concept of race but were ever grateful to the dark-skinned guy who, we were convinced, invented peanut butter.)

Rogers obviously had his ear to news and responded in a way that children could understand, including integration, assassination, the Space Shuttle explosion, 9/11 and much more. But his empathy and kindness ran deeper. When he found out a key black actor was hitting gay bars on the off-hours, he asked him to stop for the sake of the show (which in our day would have immediately earned him the ire of the Twitterati and a court case) but kept him on despite the widespread revulsion of gays at the time. Years later, after a program where he told children to be just the way they are, the actor said mischievously, “You were speaking to me, weren’t you?” Rogers responded, “I’ve been speaking to you for years. You’re just now hearing me.” The actor lost it in recalling that, and so did I.

Another memorable scene, in a movie full of them, was the video of Rogers’ historic testimony before Congress, when he single-handedly saved PBS from a government threatening to pull the plug. He speaks before a crusty old senator with such calm, reason and quiet conviction that the senator practically melts before our eyes, admitting to goose bumps and instantly approving the money to keep PBS alive. Rogers’ speech is delivered with astonishing sincerity and passion.

The many tearful moments continue right to end, when a wheelchair-bound boy from an early episode rolls up on stage as a grown man to surprise Mr. Rogers, who is genuinely overjoyed to see him. I defy anyone to remain unmoved by that.

The film offers insightful interviews with family and colleagues, behind-the-scenes footage and representative clips of his and other shows of the era in a swift 90 minutes. But it is Rogers himself who leaves the deepest impression. His willingness to listen, to share, to make everyone feel special as if he were talking to that person alone; his sincere empathy, his refusal to judge – all feel like a lost art. The film presents this reedy man with the corny scripts and tinny voice as a tower of strength, able to maintain that retro 1950s character with such unaffectedness that we trust him utterly. I wonder if he felt in the end as if he had lost the battle, but I was awed nevertheless. As the senator said, “Wonderful, just wonderful.” A big thumbs up.