RE: Hollywood is finally making a movie about one of America's greatest heroes.
There is exactly zero chance of this being done correctly. Mr. Rogers’s story is essentially a religious story and Hollywood has no idea how to pull off a religious movie. They’ll either gloss over his religion or pound it over our heads. My guess in this case is the former.
By the way, for the people saying Mr. Rogers was some sort of die-hard conservative. He wasn’t. He advocated for public funding of children’s television and he was a member of Sixth Presbyterian in Pittsburgh which was and is very explicit More Light congregation (More Light Presbyterians are the pro-homosexual marriage and ordination wing of the Presbyterian Church.) He was also a vegetarian because he didn’t want to hurt animals. This isn’t to say that he was some hyper-liberal hippy either. He espoused family values and traditional behaviour, but I think that his political leanings could best be described as ‘Be nice to everyone and everything all the time.’ Sometimes that made him a liberal and sometimes a conservative.
I don't know much about Rogers, but I guess my question is: how relevant was his religion to his activism, TV career, and all that? If his religion played little part in all that, it wouldn't need much screen time.
I share your cynicism, though. I don't expect Hollywood to do anything right, these days.
you may be right, but I'm going to give them a shot and hope for the best.
As far as the second part of your comment, "‘Be nice to everyone and everything all the time.’ Sometimes that made him a liberal and sometimes a conservative." And 100% of the time it made him awesome. I wish we could bring back common sense and common decency.
I hope they don't politicize it at all and just concentrate on him loving everyone. Since Tom Hanks is signed on, I think they are going to do the right thing. We realy need to drop the whole left and right thing and just listen to the immortal words of Bill S. Preston Esquire and Ted Theodore Logan, "Be excellent to each other, dudes."
Two of the greatest philosophers ever. Even more excellent than so-crates.
I suspect they'll not really focus on religion either way. Hollywood tends to dramatize conflicts, challenges, setbacks in these kinds of stories...human aspects, not really trying to send religious or moral messages.
I suspect the story will focus on the journalist -- how Mr. Rogers challenged the journalist's world view, how the journalist responded, and ultimately became a better, more hopeful person. I doubt it'll be a religious transformation because the Hollywood studios generally like to focus on universal, relatable themes like hope and kindness. Religions may offer hope and kindness, but there are no universal religions.
The lack of religious focus may disappoint you. Sorry. Maybe I'll be wrong!
I choose to hope. After all, everybody knew the fix was in, but "We came, we saw, he died" was NOT elected president. There are still pockets of goodness left, even in Hollywood (I hope).
I'm not sure I agree with your comment on More Light, either.
I remember him also being caught with cocaine. :) His show had an amazing impact on my childhood, much respect. :D