Peter Travers started his review out by saying, “With cynicism running like a toxic streak through mainstream media, a documentary on sweet, soothing TV host Fred Rogers may strike you as hopelessly naïve – or just the pep talk we need. We’re with the latter camp.” “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” talks about how this determined minister, who wanted to help children feel special in the world, managed to create a show on television with over 1,765 episodes from 1968 to 2001. Mr. Fred Rogers died of cancer at the age of 74 in 2003, a child supporter who left the church to become a helper for television.
Travers noted, “This portrait, from Oscar-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville (20 Feet From Stardom), isn’t out to canonize the TV icon or to bury him. A political conservative, Rogers didn’t like rocking the boat.” His first task of making a children’s show was always being honest with everyone. Whether he would talk about the death of a pet or the murder of Bobby Kennedy, Mr. Rogers felt patience and understanding could take you anywhere toward helping his child viewers understand difficult problems. Travers said, “His show, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, was pokey enough to draw derisive laughter from skeptics who couldn’t endure the slowpoke way he opened every show: smiling, changing into comfy shoes and a cardigan and addressing his audience with a song.” “So, let’s make the most of this beautiful day/Since we’re together we might as well say/Would you be mine/Could you be mine/Won’t you be my neighbor?” (To put it bluntly, nothing our president would be heard singing today.)
Travers said, “Generations of kids proved the naysayers wrong by forging a close connection to this gentle man whose sympathetic manner stood in marked contrast to the manic cartoon mayhem that proliferated on childrens’ programming. To help guide his young audience threw life’s thornier patches, Rogers created puppet characters, most memorably a glum-faced Daniel Striped Tiger with whom he strongly identified. Neville sketches in his subject’s own childhood as a sickly, overweight kid bullied as “Fat Freddy” and who suffered bouts of loneliness and anger.”
We don’t hear much from Mr. Rogers himself, infamously private until the end, in the archival clips. One of his two sons says it wasn’t easy being raised by “the second Christ.” During the years of school segregation, when black families were banned from public swimming pools, Mr. Rogers invited his show’s neighborhood cop, played by gay African-American Francois Clemmons, to soak their feet together on camera. Clemmons later said that Mr. Rogers told him not to openly come out because of the thought that viewership would decrease.
Even after he’s passed, Rogers still gets crushed from homophobes who say he was gay, and experts who insist he taught incompetent millennial to think they were “special.” Travers noted, “Hollywood is planning a feature on Rogers starring Tom Hanks, which will no doubt offer its own clues into the enduring mystery of a public figure who raised several generations of kids by proxy.” In the end, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” gives the timeless message to allow us to see the man work with those who meant closest to him: children. In these depressing moments, it’s a good feeling to see a funny, touching and crucial documentary that is both appropriate and endless.
If this is still playing in a theaters near you, definitely don’t miss the opportunity to see this documentary. This is especially to those who, like myself, grew up watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Mr. Rogers touched so many children around the world and this is the documentary for them. I can understand if people will cry watching this, but I didn’t. I will admit that I cried when he passed because my childhood icon was gone. See this when you can. I didn't want to miss the opportunity to see this in theaters, seeing how I was a huge fan of Mr. Rogers as a kid.
Thank you for joining in, stay tuned this Friday for the continuation in “Clint Eastwood Western Month.”
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