Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Happy New Year everyone. Here we are at the outset of 2019 with lots of things coming in the year ahead, both in the theaters and in the world in general. As we head back to work, school, and regular life after a holiday break, I want to suggest a film to consider as a possible theme for the coming year.

Morgan Neville’s 2018 documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor focuses, of course, on Fred Rogers, the Presbyterian minister-turned children’s performer-turned cultural giant, the creator and driving force behind Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. Using archival footage, talking head interviews with family members, friends, and co-workers, and animation featuring a young Daniel Tiger meant to represent the man himself, the film tracks Rogers from the moment he saw television for the first time and thought to himself, “This would be a great tool for preaching.” 

We meet Rogers’ widow as well as his two adult sons along with the actors who played Mr. and Mrs. McFeely, Handyman Negri, and Officer Clemons. Each one of them describe Fred Rogers as the real deal, someone who was exactly who he was both on screen and off. They detail Rogers progression from a Pittsburg minister doing puppets on a local show called the Children’s Corner to a man beloved by millions, testifying before congress, and consulted by world news organizations.

While not exactly a hard-hitting Frontline expose, it is also not just a cloying hagiography. It’s a fascinating document of an important figure and program in American cultural history. It’s disarming but wonderful to see behind the scenes footage of the Land of Make Believe, to see burly Pittsburg teamsters moving X the Owl’s tree into place while Mr. Rogers mugs for the camera. For anyone who grew up watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, the familiarity and the newness of what you see is striking.

While at times, it seems like he was close to being a saint, the film also shows that Rogers wasn’t perfect. We find out, among other things, that at the family dinner table, when Rogers wanted to say something less kind, he would use the voice of Lady Elaine Fairchild, the selfish, impulsive ID of the Land of Make Believe. We also learn Rogers told François Clemmons that if he came out as openly gay, he would be off the show because it would lose important sponsors. 

Rogers’ imperfection is an important component of the film and part of why I like Won’t You Be My Neighbor as a film for the new year. Here was an imperfect guy using his skills and insight to reach out to the weakest and most vulnerable among us, a man of a very specific religious faith who, nevertheless, did his best to accept and be kind to literally everyone he met, regardless of how they differed from him. He wanted each person to understand their own individual value, to feel heard and understood.

The film discusses Rogers’ use of silence and slowness, how they allow viewers to let an idea really sink in. The documentary illustrates this in its last moments as it plays one of Fred Rogers’ final commencement addresses in which he encouraged his audience to pause and think about everyone who had enabled them to get to the point in life where they were. The various participants in the documentary are encouraged to do the same and the final minute or so of the film is them quietly thinking of those important people as Rogers words are heard. It is a remarkable and unabashedly moving moment that is fueled by Rogers’ insight. There are people who love you completely.  

See Won’t You Be My Neighbor and as you go to work or school or home or wherever, think about each person’s inherent value and how Mr. Rogers taught us that we can be different but still love one another. Here’s to a happy, peaceful year in our neighborhood.