Voted the biggest Oscar snub, the story of America’s favorite neighbor deserved more love from Tinseltown. “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” won best documentary at the Film Independent Spirit Awards on Saturday, but it didn’t even get a mention at Sunday’s Oscars.
The academy awarded the honor to “Free Solo,” a gripping National Geographic documentary about the man who climbed El Capitan’s rock face without a rope. Alex Honnold’s 3,000-foot solo climb is no small feat, but “Won’t You Be My Neighbor,” if not as glamorous, was no less powerful.
Fred Rogers’ “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” ran on TV for more than 30 years, and for chubby-cheeked children tuning in to PBS after school each day, Mr. Rogers taught them how to deal with difficult topics such as grief, bullying, and divorce.
“Won’t You Be My Neighbor” explores the stereotype of Rogers as a soft, cardigan-wearing puppy dog. Rogers wasn’t just a “nice” guy. An ordained minister, Rogers entered television in order to elevate it, and when Congress threatened to curtail funding for PBS, he testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications.
“We deal with such things as the inner drama of childhood. We don’t have to bop somebody over the head to … make drama on the screen,” Rogers said. “We deal with such things as getting a haircut, or the feelings about brothers and sisters, and the kind of anger that arises in simple family situations, and we speak to it constructively.”
Rogers argued that without the funding, shows that dealt with real issues that children faced, rather than cartoon shenanigans splashed on the screen, would flounder.
Washington agreed, and public broadcasting kept $20 million.
Rogers believed in the power of “entertainment” to do more than entertain. In his testimony, he spoke slowly, as if he was arranging each sentence into a letter to a friend. There was nothing flashy about the television host and puppeteer, yet he gripped the hearts of a generation of children all the same.
The academy should’ve recognized that not all great cinema makes noise, but it has another chance to do so. Tom Hanks is set to star in a film about Mr. Rogers this fall. Let’s hope this one gets a little more love.
