Tag Archives: “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”

Dec 11

“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”: Messages

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Last year’s Won’t You Be My Neighbor? was a tear-jerking documentary about Mr. Rogers (see previous post). This year’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is fictional, showcasing Mr. Rogers (Tom Hanks) through a based-on-a-true-story tale about his relationship with cynical journalist Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), a guy with significant father issues.

As you can see in the trailer for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, some bonding occurs:

Five of the messages that stand out in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood:

  1. The need for empathy and listening
  2. Feelings are meant to be addressed
  3. The importance of silences
  4. Mistakes happen
  5. Human sainthood isn’t a thing

Empathy

As reported by Ethan Sacks, NBC, the film’s director Marielle Heller was drawn to the idea of portraying the power of empathy: “‘It feels like everyone is saying to me, ‘Oh my gosh, it feels like we need Mr. Rogers more than ever.’ We’re living in scary times and I think we all have that feeling that we’re losing touch with each other and we’re losing touch with the ability to listen to each other and empathize with each other’.”

Feelings

As articulated by the subheading of an article by Mariana Alessandri, New York Times: “Fred Rogers’s belief that we should validate emotions, not suppress them, is wisdom for all ages.”

Through words and actions, Rogers demonstrates to both kids and adults that all feelings can be faced and that everyone can find his or her own outlets for dealing with the tougher ones.

Silences

Rogers not only listens in a way that allows meaningful silences in conversations, he also directs Lloyd at one pivotal point to share a moment of purposeful quietude. Joey Nolfi, ew.com, describes a scene that takes place in a busy diner: “…Rogers asks Vogel to take a minute of silence to consider the people who’ve loved him into being. For the next 60 seconds, Vogel and Rogers sit in quietude while the camera pans around the restaurant…before training on Hanks’ face as he shifts his gaze from Vogel to the audience in the theater, asking us to consider the most important people in our lives as well.”

Mistakes

Richard Brody, New Yorker, on the filming of an awkward “Mr. Rogers” TV segment: “When a scene of Mr. Rogers assembling a tent comes to nought, Rogers, rather than retaking it or seeking another character’s help, completes the scene as is and makes his failure to assemble it the crucial theme, later explaining his decision to Vogel: ‘It’s important for children to know that adults’ plans don’t always work out.'”

Sainthood (Is For Non-Humans)

Fred’s wife Joanne, now 91, was consulted before each of the aforementioned Mr. Rogers flicks. “’Just don’t make Fred into a saint.’ That has become Joanne’s refrain,” states Jeanne Marie Laskas, New York Times Magazine.

Joanne’s refrain has been adopted by people who spent their careers working with Fred in Studio A. ‘If you make him out to be a saint, nobody can get there,‘ said Hedda Sharapan, the person who worked with Fred the longest in various creative capacities over the years. ‘They’ll think he’s some otherworldly creature.’

‘If you make him out to be a saint, people might not know how hard he worked,’ Joanne said. Disciplined, focused, a perfectionist — an artist. That was the Fred she and the cast and crew knew.

Jun 22

Mr. Rogers: Good People, Good Actions Matter

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When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of “disaster,” I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world. Fred Rogers, The World According to Mr. Rogers

Conversely, if you go looking for a negative review of Morgan Neville‘s new documentary about TV icon Fred Rogers (1928-2003), lotsa luck.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor? is about “TV’s Friend for Children,” a good person doing mostly good things, a good person who believed most people could also do good—an important message to help offset the currently ultra-negative tone and actions of Trumpism.

In Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Mr. Rogers conveys attitudes and behavior that may bring tears to your eyes. Watch the trailer:

What Rogers understood is that good people/bad people is not necessarily a binary concept. He would more likely emphasize behavior, i.e., there being more good actions than bad actions, by people who sometimes do good things, sometimes not.

An unrelated post by Glenn Geher, PhD, Psychology Today, may serve to clarify this point:

Many people divide the world into the good people and the bad people. Friend or foe – that kind of thing. But you know, five years in a PhD program in social psychology will knock that kind of thinking right out of a person. One of the most fundamental lessons of social psychology (see Milgram, 1963) is the fact that bad or antisocial behavior is much more likely to be the result of situations that facilitate antisocial behavior – rather than by some internal qualities that are somehow uniquely held by ‘the bad people.’

Or, as stated succinctly by Steve Taylor, PhD, Psychology Today, “In human beings, ‘Good’ and ‘evil’ are fluid. People can be a combination of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ qualities.”

Taylor’s definitions of “good” versus “evil” also seem pertinent and seem to take into account, though, that some people not only do evil things but are evil:

‘Good’ means a lack of self-centredness. It means the ability to empathise with other people, to feel compassion for them, and to put their needs before your own. It means, if necessary, sacrificing your own well-being for the sake of others’. It means benevolence, altruism and selflessness, and self-sacrifice towards a greater cause – all qualities which stem from a sense of empathy. It means being able to see beyond the superficial difference of race, gender or nationality and relate to a common human essence beneath them…

‘Evil’ people are those who are unable to empathise with others. As a result, their own needs and desires are of paramount importance. They are selfish, self-absorbed and narcissistic. In fact, other people only have value for them to the extent that they can help them satisfy their own desires, or to which they can exploit them…

On the other hand, as empathy can be a learned trait, good actions sometimes come from unexpected sources.

Lara Zarum, Village Voice, on the particular relevance today of Won’t You Be My Neighbor?:

In the face of unnerving political turmoil like we’ve seen in the past few years, it’s tempting to throw up our hands and declare that there’s just nothing we can do. But Rogers might insist that there is something we can do (besides vote, which I’m certain he would’ve advocated): We can treat the people around us with dignity and respect. We can be good neighbors.