Peaceful Neighbor
Discovering the Countercultural Mister Rogers
Discovering the Countercultural Mister Rogers
Fred Rogers was one of the most radical pacifists of contemporary history. We do not usually think of him as radical, partly because he wore colorful, soft sweaters made by his mother. Nor do we usually imagine him as a pacifist; that adjective seems way too political to describe the host of a children's program known for its focus on feelings. We have restricted Fred Rogers to the realm of entertainment, children, and feelings, and we've ripped him out of his political and religious context. Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister, and although he rarely shared his religious convictions on his program, he fervently believed in a God who accepts us as we are and who desires a world marked by peace and wholeness. With this progressive spirituality as his inspiration, Rogers used his children's program as a platform for sharing countercultural beliefs about caring nonviolently for one another, animals, and the earth. To critics who dared call him “namby-pamby,†Rogers said, “Only people who take the time to see our work can begin to understand the depth of it.†This is the invitation of Peaceful Neighbor, to see and understand Rogers's convictions and their expression through his program. Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, it turns out, is far from sappy, sentimental, and shallow; it's a sharp political response to a civil and political society poised to kill.
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Short review: I love Mr Rogers. And I found this book mostly worth reading. But it was probably longer than necessary and would have been fine as a long article. There were interesting insights that as a child I would not have understood when watching the TV show. But I think the book relied too heavily on TV episode explication and not enough on biography or direct writing of Rogers. This was probably made difficult by the fact that Rogers seemed to want to make his statements in the TV shows instead of publicly, but some of the examples seemed like they could have been understood other ways.
Overall I got a bit bored with the book but pushed through because of my interest in Mr Rogers. What I did do is go back and watch some of those old episodes. I would like to read a good full biography, but there do not appear to be any that are both full bios and well reviewed.
my full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/peaceful-neighbor-discovering-the-countercultural-mister-rogers-by-michael-long/
