SIFF Documentary Review: “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” Come for the nostalgia, stay for the uplifting truth about Mister Rogers

“Love is at the root of every­thing… love or the lack of it.” Fred Rogers stares direct­ly into the cam­era, look­ing slight­ly melan­choly as he fin­ish­es his thought.

Rogers, bet­ter known to gen­er­a­tions of Amer­i­can chil­dren as Mr. Rogers from his pub­lic tele­vi­sion show “Mis­ter Rogers’ Neigh­bor­hood”, seemed to do every­thing with great love. This was clear from all the footage of Rogers and inter­views with friends and fam­i­ly in the new doc­u­men­tary “Won’t You Be My Neigh­bor?” which I viewed as part of the Seat­tle Inter­na­tion­al Film Festival.

The film opens in the­aters this week.

It was his par­tic­u­lar love and care for chil­dren that fueled him to write and star in 895 episodes of the show over the course of 32 years, from 1968 to 2001.

Rogers ini­tial­ly retired from the show in Decem­ber 2000, but after the ter­ror­ist attacks of Sep­tem­ber 11th, 2001, he was asked to come back and do some more episodes to help chil­dren and par­ents cope with the tragedy.

In “Won’t You Be My Neigh­bor” we also learn that Rogers actu­al­ly had a tele­vi­sion show before “Mis­ter Rogers’ Neigh­bor­hood”. In 1954, he was fas­ci­nat­ed by the poten­tial pow­er of the new medi­um of tele­vi­sion and delayed his plans of going to Pres­by­ter­ian sem­i­nary to instead start a pro­gram called “The Chil­dren’s Corner.”

After a while he became unsat­is­fied with that show and went to sem­i­nary. He also spent a lot of time in the 1950’s learn­ing from many peo­ple at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh that were doing a lot of ground­break­ing research on ear­ly child­hood edu­ca­tion and child psychology.

“Mis­ter Rogers’ Neigh­bor­hood” was what Rogers cre­at­ed based on every­thing he had learned about child devel­op­ment and from his pre­vi­ous TV work, and was impas­sioned to do it all with a sense of min­istry. “Tele­vi­sion has a chance of build­ing a real com­mu­ni­ty of the whole coun­try,” he said.

One thing that real­ly made his show unique was that they would address real issues on the show, it was­n’t just all fun and fast-paced like many chil­dren’s shows were and are. Things that were hap­pen­ing in the Neigh­bor­hood of Make Believe often mir­rored things that were hap­pen­ing in real life.

In one episode, Rogers invites the char­ac­ter of Offi­cer Clem­mons, played by Fran­cois Clem­mons, who is African Amer­i­can, to take a break and join Rogers, who is sit­ting in his yard with his feet in a chil­dren’s pool.

Rogers was incred­i­bly bold to make a state­ment like this in 1969, when pub­lic pools were one of many locales cur­rent­ly embroiled in the seg­re­ga­tion debate.

The show also often focused on emo­tions and feel­ings. Rogers firm­ly believed that “chil­dren have deep feel­ings, just the way every­body does” and that adults need to share with chil­dren that “feel­ings are man­age­able and mentionable.”

In one episode, Daniel Striped Tiger sings a song called “Some­times I Won­der if I’m a Mis­take,” in which he essen­tial­ly talks about being insecure.

He feels weak, scared, and like he is a fake. Lady Aber­lin tried to reas­sure him that he is fine as he is, that he is her best friend and she likes him.

Now most shows, if they even had a song or dia­logue as deep as the words to “Some­times I Won­der if I’m a Mis­take,” would at this point have Daniel accept Lady Aber­lin’s com­fort and feel bet­ter, and every­thing moves along all Hap­pi­ly Ever After.

But not Mis­ter Rogers.

Daniel and Lady Aber­lin each simul­ta­ne­ous­ly sing their vers­es again, then Daniel press­es her fur­ther, ask­ing if she real­ly likes him as he is.

Daniel con­tin­u­ing to doubt him­self and to strug­gling to believe that Lady Aber­lin real­ly cares for him the way he is shows how nor­mal it is for peo­ple to feel that way, and how hard it is to over­come doubt.

It was at this point in the press screen­ing of the film that I heard some gasp­ing nois­es from the man next to me. I ten­ta­tive­ly turned and looked past the emp­ty seat in between us, and real­ized that he was crying.

This is why Mis­ter Rogers was so important.

He helped young chil­dren (and adults!) under­stand and deal with their emo­tions, and let them know that hav­ing strong feel­ings is not just ok, but normal.

Talk­ing about what he does, Rogers said: “I give an expres­sion of care each day to each child.”

He want­ed every child to know that they are spe­cial, that each per­son is valu­able, “that you don’t ever have to do any­thing sen­sa­tion­al for peo­ple to love you.”

Rogers was sen­sa­tion­al, and he was loved by gen­er­a­tions of Amer­i­can children.

I high­ly rec­om­mend see­ing “Won’t You Be My Neigh­bor?” to gain a deep­er under­stand­ing and appre­ci­a­tion for Rogers and his work, and per­haps be uplift­ed and inspired to live a more mis­sion-dri­ven life yourself.