![]() ![]() Drawing from a concept in music, Rogers explained that he aimed to help children through the difficult modulations of life, some of which are much harder than others to achieve on their own. Rogers understood it as his job to help children process all of the tragedy and upheaval they were certainly aware of-war, assassinations, racial discrimination-but were often left to their own devices to figure out. It was a time of unprecedented political and social turmoil, violence, and dissension in the United States, and Mr. Despite its Leave It to Beaver feel, the show began in the late 1960s-1968 in fact, perhaps the most heartrending and harrowing year of that most tumultuous of decades. And he took on that challenge with all the resources at his disposal-his faith, his musical training, his artistic creativity, his education in early childhood development, his listening skills, his talented and dedicated staff, and his obvious love for children-inviting his young viewers into the safety and security of being his neighbor, to become part of a family who would love, guide, and protect them.īut this neighborhood was no Pollyannaish utopia in fact, conflict was essential to the stories Fred told-conflict that would be honestly presented and dealt with, not papered over, trivialized, or ignored. In the 1950s, as television was emerging as a cultural force, Rogers saw the potential for it to be used to connect us, to build real community out of the entire country. An ordained Presbyterian minister, Fred Rogers believed children deserved more from TV than the silliness and violence on offer, the pies in the face, the slapstick comedy reliant on gags and props, vacuous frivolity at best, abject dehumanization at worst. Disrupting the system, turning programming for children on its head, was precisely his intention, as he aimed to use the television medium to work against its most destructive tendencies. Rogers was for just this reason deeply countercultural, even radical. To him love demanded more than lip service it informed his approach to all he did. If you want to know what moral apologetics for children looks like, watch a rerun of his show. Rogers took to heart and fully lived out. Presented as an homage to Fred Rogers, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? poses a stiff challenge to viewers: is the world we are making hospitable to the most vulnerable among us? If not, what are we doing to make it so? It’s a challenge that Mr. And yet, given the contentiousness of our day, we might wonder how genuine such a belief is, how fully committed we are to it. It’s a commonplace belief, one that most would readily assent to. ![]() Behind the simple sets and low production values of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, underneath the quaint songs and the unhurried storylines lay a profound conviction-children are inherently valuable and deserve the love and respect of those charged with their care. What has changed, however, is the framing of these familiar features, and therein lies the surprise of the film. Over the course of its time on the air, the show remained remarkably consistent its host, thoughtful and kind, and Neville’s film nicely captures these dynamics so permanently etched into our memories and vividly returns them to us unchanged. It’s a feel good, emotionally evocative movie if ever there was one, and that good feeling matches the mood of Rogers’ show itself, which intentionally offered children familiar feelings of warmth and reassurance. Rogers’ signature cardigans and his regular, recurring visitors. It’s all there: the trolley and memorable music, King Friday the 13th and Daniel the Striped Tiger, Lady Aberlin and Mr. Most Americans who came of age at the end of the twentieth century are familiar with Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, given that the show was on for over thirty years, and the documentary is loaded with iconic images and scenes from the set that are perfect nostalgia fodder. There’s a lot that viewers will find unsurprising in Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Morgan Neville’s new documentary about longtime children’s show host Fred Rogers.
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