Won't You Be My Neighbour?

The significance of the feet washing is explained in the documentary....

Interview to Article to Documentary to Movie

It’s hard to spell neighbour without a letter u but as this post is about an American documentary and movie, I will do so (apart from in the post’s title!) Daughter Emily introduced me first to the documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor?. The documentary was partly prompted by a November 1998 article in Esquire magazine entitled Can You Say...'Hero'? by Tom Junod. Two screenwriters (Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster) then fictionalised the encounters between Tom Junod and his subject and recruited Tom Hanks to play the interviewee and Matthew Rhys to play the interviewer (renamed Lloyd Vogel for the movie.) It’s a bit complicated to explain but both the documentary and the movie are bigger than the sum of their parts, in my opinion, and have profound things to say about both society and education. The subject in question is Mr Rogers. I’d not heard of him or his seminal children’s TV programmes before watching the documentary.

UK equivalents - including some I didn't mention in the text - can you identify them?

UK equivalents?

I think the nearest in the UK we have to Mr Rogers might be people like Floella Benjamin, Carol Chell, Chloe Ashcroft, Johnny Ball or Brian Cant on Play School or Play Away and maybe, for Mr Rodgers’ Neigborhood, The Magic Roundabout for a weird alternative world – or Hector’s House or Mr Benn or…. If you are of a certain age, you’ll get the references…. But if you don’t know the world of Mr Rogers and his Neighborhood, or Daniel Tiger, Lady Aberlin, Mr McFeely, Officer Clemmons, King Friday the Thirteenth and more, then I can recommend you watch the documentary (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?) or the movie directed by Marielle Heller (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.)

Characters from Mr Rogers' Neighborhood

I like you just the way you are

I can imagine spoofs of Mr Rogers (indeed some feature in the documentary), but somehow the genuine article seems to mean every word when he addresses a vulnerable child with the words:

I hope you know that you made today a very special day by just your being you. There's no one in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are.

And when he speaks to a graduation class and

From the time you were very little,

You’ve had people who have smiled you into smiling,

People who have talked you into talking,

Sung you into singing,

Loved you into loving.

So, on this extra special day,

Let’s take some time to

Think of those extra special people.

Some of them might be right here,

Some may be far away,

Some may even be in Heaven.

No matter where they are,

Deep down you know they’ve

Always wanted what was best for you.

They’ve always cared about you beyond measure

And have encouraged you

To be true to the best within you.

Let’s just take a minute of silence to

Think about those people now.

I'm glad I’ve learned about Mr Rogers.