Green Book and the White Perspective
I’ve been gone for a while. Gone in a vortex of school work, gone in a funk of flu symptoms, gone in the time loss that comes with domestic air travel. Having just finished up two classes, Sci Fi: Genre & Culture and Star Wars Universe, I finally feel like I have to space to blog a bit (that, and there is a mini blizzard raging outside this morning). I know what you are thinking, the Star Wars class sounds like a bit of a gut course. It was actually incredible dense and informative and one of my favorites, filled with a ha! moments. By studying Star Wars you are essentially learning about powerful industrial and cultural shifts of the last 40 years, and of course how that is reflected back onto society. There should be a whole course taught on #wheresrey.
I find it nearly impossible to devote any time and grey matter to write about films recreationally when I’m banging out paper after paper for school — examining the minutia, searching for meaning in a 2 minute clip, reading scholarly articles about film theory until I am driven quite mad. So… I’ve been gone for a while.
Here’s a quick quiz:
True or false: The Negro’s Motorist Green-Book was a guide to help black motorists identify African-American friendly businesses in the southern US in the Jim Crow era.
True of False: Dr. Don Shirley was estranged from his children
True of False: Tony Lip and Dr. Shirley became friends as a result of the driving tour depicted in the movie.
True or False: Having never eaten friend chicken and not knowing the music of Aretha Franklin, Don Shirley was alienated by his own ‘blackness’.
These are all false statements. The guide was published more for travel in the North and West, where the racism was present but not overt. Tony Vallelonga Sr. and Dr. Shirley shared a professional relationship, not personal. He was not estranged from his family and he keenly aware of and heavily influenced by black musicians. Inaccuracies aside, here’s why Green Book (Farrelly 2018) is really dangerous. If it had won best picture in 1985, well — good for us, we’re starting to face our endemic racism at long last. But this is 2019, this film was made after Trayvon Martin, after Charlottesville and ‘Shit Hole’ countries. After a dozen fraternities have been shut down for lynching parties and Nazi-themed keggers hosted by the new batch of little racists we have made.
Tony Lip was a bigoted, vicious racist at the film’s start, and yet he is the protagonist. Ask yourself why?
This film is the Ebony & Ivory of movies. Simple, pat, predictable. And full of falsehoods that exoticize the black ‘other’ and make white people feel good about themselves. What I find the most galling is that the crude, flawed Tony Lip, for all his faults is still the shining white savior in scene, after repetitive scene. The coded message here — even an uneducated, racist thug is still hero material. From the Pop Culture Happy Hour Podcast: “This is a comforting movie, if your view of racism has not evolved at all in the last 40 years. And you’re a white person.” I wholeheartedly agree.
Documentarian, Yoruba Richen
If the truth matters, check out Filmmaker Yoruba Richen's documentary, The Green Book: Guide to Freedom on the Smithsonian Channel or listen to her interview in Fresh Air.
