What I Learned from "Won't You Be My Neighbor?"

I'm not a movie re-watcher, but I watched the Fred Rogers documentary "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" twice this weekend.  

I'm one of the people who completely missed the importance of the show and cynically disregarded Fred Rogers as a wholesome and uninteresting Sunday School square.  I had no idea that it was a revolutionary show designed for children.  In the film, Rogers says that he came to media when he reailzed during a vacation from the seminary that there was great power in TV.  He felt there was great responsibility in being in the media, especially for children.

From the beginning the show had some of it's key characteristics in place, for instance, there was always a respect for the deep feelings and inner lives of children.  The message of "You’re ok just the way you are" was the key theme throughout.  In a commencement speech towards the end of his career, Rogers strikes the same tone:  "you don’t need to do anything special for someone to love you."  In one interview, Rogers reflects on what "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" means.  He says it's an invitation for kids.  It means that they are loved and capable of loving.

Rogers developed his ideas about children's emotional needs -- which were new at the time -- while he studied at the University of Pittsburgh alongside Dr. Benjamin Spock, Erik Erikson, and his advisor.  Suddenly, this seemed to me less Sunday school amateur hour.

Inside and outside the show, Rogers was guided by his constant striving to understand the emotions of children. Practically speaking, this involved taking the interior lives of kids seriously (not as 'unformed' or 'precursors').  How do you take the lives of kids seriously?  Primarily, it involved listening.  The film is filled with shots of Rogers having deep -- unironic, serious conversations with kids.  There was never the sing-songy, high pitched voice that is the cultural norm for teachers and parents talking to young people.  The puppets had a big role in this.  At the beginning, the puppets were a necessity because of fragile film clips.  But throughout the film we see Rogers interacting with kids, especially those who are going through some troubled times, with puppets.  It's far easier, he says at one point, to say I feel lonely and I love you to a puppet.  

The show very quickly took up social issues because Rogers knew that kids were hearing about these issues on TV and feared that they weren't dealt with at home.  These issues included the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, and the war in Vietnam.  After a story about a racist hotel owner chasing a black family out of a swimming pool with cleaning chemical, Rogers shared a baby swimming pool with a black character on the show  Later in the series, there were week themes on issues like death divorce.

The documentary helps the viewer recast what can seem to be the cheesiest parts -- the 50s set, the low production value, the unhip songs, the puppetry.  Instead of the fast cuts and speedy and bombast of "normal" kids' shows, Rogers used time and silence differently.  There was silence and space.  The songs, written by Rogers, summed up the message of the show.  They're often about helping young people, honoring young people, as they work through doubts.  I remember the song "everything grows together" that dealt with the worries of their bodies changing.  "It's such a good feeling to know you're alive" is the daily finale of the show, reminding kids that being alive is pretty cool.  

As a whole, the show seems to be an incredibly long-running high-wire creative act. Rogers write the scripts, gives voice to the puppets, writes the songs.  He works through his own doubts of his abilities and mission, fighting back artistic demons, and keeps on his mission through it all.  

His advocacy of young people extends outside the show.  One key scene in the documentary has Rogers giving an earnest and passionate speech to save public television funding when President Nixon was threatening to slash it.  Silence, and reflection, play an important role in the Rogers philosophy, as can be seen in this short video where he asks  President Clinton, Al Gore (and a roomful of people) to think of influential people in their lives, anybody who has peopled you become who you are, "anybody who wanted you to know that you have value."

The very best part of the whole documentary is this duet between Lady Aberlin and Daniel Tiger talking and singing about mistakes.  Daniel feels that he's a mistake because he's so different than any other tiger.  Lady Aberlin takes a verse, saying that he likes him as he is.  Then they sing a duet, repeating the previous verses - doubts and reasurances of love now making chords in the duet.  The doubts don't go away, but they are altered.  The reassurances don't make the doubts go away, but they transform them.  It's not easy to shut off the internal voice.

See also this CSPAN clip from 1999... I think he says "What is essential in life is invisible