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"A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood..." A Beautiful Message Indeed

PHOTO BY LACEY TERRELL - © SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT

Tom Hanks is starring in the new film “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” inspired by a real-life friendship between public television icon Fred Rogers and journalist Tom Junod.  Some thoughts from our own Fred Martino.

First a disclosure:  I watched Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood as a kid.  And while he had a tremendous influence on me…I had never heard about his long friendship with Tom Junod. 

Junod wrote an Esquire article about Rogers and in an interview for the film company, Sony, he admitted his surprise that the experience had inspired a major motion picture.

“I hate to use the word miraculous, because it’s so loaded. But it seems like a small miracle that a story that was 21 years old becomes a movie whose message seems essential today. How that came to be, I don’t know.  But the fact that I’m part of it is a great gift to me,” said Junod.

The film helps you understand that gift.  Junod met Rogers for an interview, not a friendship.  But it became a friendship, one that lasted long after the interview, until Rogers’ death. In the film, Matthew Rhys plays Lloyd Vogel, the reporter inspired by Junod’s interview.  In this clip, he’s trying to do that interview with Rogers, played by Tom Hanks.  Rogers ignores what some might consider an insult and asks Vogel about a wound on his face:

Lloyd Vogel:

This piece will for an issue about heroes.  Do you consider yourself a hero?

Fred Rogers:

I don’t think of myself as a hero.  No, not at all.

Lloyd Vogel:

What about Mr. Rogers, is he a hero?

Fred Rogers:

I don’t understand the question.

Lloyd Vogel:

Well, there’s you, Fred.  And then there’s the character you play, Mr. Rogers.

Fred Rogers:

(long pause)  You said it was a play at the plate (referencing wound on Vogel’s face)  

Is that what happened to you?

Lloyd Vogel:

I’m here to interview you, Mr. Rogers. 

Fred Rogers:

Well, that is what we’re doing, isn’t it?

While moments in the film are fiction, the clip shows something very real about Fred Rogers.  In his work and his life, he cared about others.

Tom Junod’s Esquire article “Can you say…Hero?” captures that.

Junod wrote, “Once upon a time, a man named Fred Rogers decided that he wanted to live in heaven. Heaven is the place where good people go when they die, but this man, Fred Rogers, didn't want to go to heaven; he wanted to live in heaven, here, now, in this world, and so one day, when he was talking about all the people he had loved in this life, he looked at me and said, ‘The connections we make in the course of a life—maybe that's what heaven is, Tom. We make so many connections here on earth. Look at us—I've just met you, but I'm investing in who you are and who you will be, and I can't help it.’”

When I read that quote, I thought about Fred Rogers’ Emmy acceptance speech honoring his lifetime of work in public television. More a lesson than a speech, he had some in the Emmy audience tearing up:

“Oh, it’s a beautiful night in this neighborhood.  So many people have helped me to come to this night.  Some of you are here. Some are far away. Some are even in heaven.  All of us have special ones who have loved us in to being.  Would you just take along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are.  Those who have cared about you and wanted what was best for you in life.  Ten seconds of silence.  I’ll watch the time.  Whomever you’ve been thinking about, how pleased they must be to know the difference you feel they’ve made.  You know, they’re the kind of people television does well to offer our world,” Rogers said.

Hearing the real Fred Rogers and his advice may make you think about the last few years. How the media and the nation have been consumed with bad behavior.  With unkind words. 

Tom Junod hopes the film “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” will help us think about Rogers’ lesson.

“Do we really want to be looking at Fred Rogers in the rearview mirror?  Do we really want to leave this kind of example behind?  Do we really want to keep on moving forward the way we’re going?  Because it’s unsustainable, ultimately.  And I think that the fact that this movie not just shows Fred’s message, but shows how Fred arrived at that message, that he worked hard at that message. That we can all work harder at this gift of kindness.  I think it just seems necessary right now,” Junod said.

Necessary now, more than ever.