Why would The Collaborative feature an article about Mr. Rogers on our blog? There are a couple of reasons that motivated me to select this article. First, it is one of the conversations in culture right now because of the movie, and second, Mr. Rogers was quite counter-cultural (in good ways.) However, more importantly was the big idea that jumps off the silver screen and Tom Junod’s recent article in The Atlantic: Fred Rogers was broken, and he knew it at a depth that is foreign to most of us. This allowed him to see brokenness in others and instead of being repelled by it he was strangely attracted to it in hopes that something might be redeemed. This often manifested itself in a kind of extreme but confident type of kindness. It was a kindness that shaped a beautiful life.
A little background/context for the article might be helpful. In recent years Fred Rogers, an American icon, has been the subject of two major film projects. In 2018 HBO aired the documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? It is an intimate look at the life of Fred Rogers where you begin to understand the significance of his brilliance artistically and theologically, but also as a human being. The other project is a full-length featured movie that came out in the Fall of 2019 called A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. I would highly commend both to you and if you have a choice, I would recommend watching the documentary first because it will allow you to understand some of the nuances of the movie.
The movie was based on a 1998 article in Esquire magazine about the relationship that was developed between Rogers and the author, Tom Junod. He recently wrote an article about the movie, explaining what was fictional and what had been left out, but more than this he has given us another opportunity to consider the life of Fred Rogers. Enjoy Tom’s article (from The Atlantic), and reflect on a life well lived.
A long time ago, a man of resourceful and relentless kindness saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. He trusted me when I thought I was untrustworthy, and took an interest in me that went beyond my initial interest in him. He was the first person I ever wrote about who became my friend, and our friendship endured until he died. Now a movie has been made from the story I wrote about him, which is to say “inspired by” the story I wrote about him, which is to say that in the movie my name is Lloyd Vogel and I get into a fistfight with my father at my sister’s wedding.
I did not get into a fistfight with my father at my sister’s wedding. My sister didn’t have a wedding. And yet the movie, called A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, seems like a culmination of the gifts that Fred Rogers gave me and all of us, gifts that fit the definition of grace because they feel, at least in my case, undeserved. I still don’t know what he saw in me, why he decided to trust me, or what, to this day, he wanted from me, if anything at all. He puzzles me now as much as he did when I first met him at the door of the apartment he kept in New York City, dressed, as he’d warned me when we spoke on the phone and he invited me over, in a shabby blue bathrobe and a pair of slippers. Fred was, let’s not forget, a rather peculiar man, and it is not just his goodness but rather the peculiarity of his goodness that has made him, 16 years after his death, triumphant as a symbol of human possibility, although just about everything he stood for has been lost.
