美国国家公共电台 NPR Mister Rogers Talked Frankly With Kids About 'Grown-Up' Issues That Weren't
时间:2019-01-17 作者:英语课 分类:2018年NPR美国国家公共电台6月
Mister Rogers Talked Frankly 1 With Kids About 'Grown-Up' Issues That Weren't
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
When I was a kid in the '70s and my mom needed a few moments of peace, she would plunk me down in front of the TV, adjust the rabbit ears and turn on Mr. Rogers.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MISTER ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD")
FRED ROGERS: (As Mr. Rogers) Hi, neighbor. I'm glad we're together again.
KELLY: "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" made its nationwide debut 2 in 1968. It was aimed at toddlers and preschoolers, although Mom often watched, too.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MISTER ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD")
ROGERS: (As Mr. Rogers, singing) It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor. Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
KELLY: Fred Rogers with his trademark 3 cardigan, his blue sneakers, his trolley 4 to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe is now the subject of a documentary. It is called "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" And it is directed by Morgan Neville, who joins me now. Welcome.
MORGAN NEVILLE: Thanks for having me.
KELLY: So one of the many, many things I did not know about Fred Rogers when I was a 4-year-old watching his show is that he was an ordained 5 Presbyterian minister. One of the people you interviewed in the film talked about how they saw his show as him preaching, in a way, trying to connect right to his audience, which in this case was kids.
NEVILLE: Yeah, absolutely. He was an ordained Presbyterian minister. And when he was ordained in 1963, he had already been doing local children's television in Pittsburgh. And his ordination 6 assigned his ministry 7 as television. So I would wager 8 a bet that he was the first official televangelist in America.
KELLY: That's a funny way - I'd never thought of him way.
NEVILLE: I know.
KELLY: But you're right.
NEVILLE: But what he was really doing was not trying to, you know, speak purely 9 as a Presbyterian. In fact, he pretty much never mentioned God in the entire run of the show. He was looking for the kind of common humanist elements that exist in all religions and trying to impart those. And in fact, he studied all the world's religions throughout his entire life and I think looked for what the messages were that united religions. And that undergirds really his message of the show.
KELLY: It's striking that Fred Rogers saw such opportunity for joy in a children's television show, for educating children through a TV show because it's so different from how we think about kids and TV today. I mean, the parenting advice today is get your kid away from the screen. Don't just plunk them down in front of the TV. He saw it as this real opportunity to reach them.
NEVILLE: Absolutely. And he also had done a lot of work in graduate studies in childhood development. And he was really cutting-edge in his thinking about the emotional maturity 10 of children. And really what he was doing is not just providing joy for children but really trying to allay 11 fear. And when he looked at children, what he realized is that most adults condescend 12 to children. And when bad things happen, they say, don't worry about it or it wasn't anything. And kids are way too smart and intuitive to not know when those things are happening.
So what he decided 13 to do is to level with kids, to really speak to them honestly and say, yes, something bad happened, but let me tell you why and let me explain it in age-appropriate terms because he really felt that fear was the most destructive force in our society. And so he was really more about trying to, you know, allay fear and promote love.
KELLY: There was - I mentioned there was a lot about him that I didn't realize when I was watching this show as a kid, such as a scene you include where Mr. Rogers invites police Officer Clemmons, who is black, to join him and wash their feet together in a baby wading 14 pool on a hot day. Let's hear some of that.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MISTER ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD")
ROGERS: (As Mr. Rogers) Well, there's Officer Clemmons. Hi, Officer Clemmons, come in.
FRANCOIS CLEMMONS: (As Officer Clemmons) Hello, Mr. Rogers. How are you?
ROGERS: (As Mr. Rogers) Fine. Won't you sit down?
CLEMMONS: (As Officer Clemmons) Oh, sure, just for a moment.
ROGERS: (As Mr. Rogers) It's so warm. I was just putting some water on my feet.
CLEMMONS: (As Officer Clemmons) Oh, it sure is.
ROGERS: (As Mr. Rogers) Would you like to join me?
CLEMMONS: (As Officer Clemmons) That looks awfully 15 enjoyable, but I don't have a towel or anything.
ROGERS: (As Mr. Rogers) Oh, you share mine.
CLEMMONS: (As Officer Clemmons) OK, sure.
KELLY: Morgan Neville, this was, you know, in a moment in American history where that was radical 16, where the idea of blacks and whites sharing a pool, swimming together was radical. What was he trying to do?
NEVILLE: He was in his own quiet, subtle way trying to model how we should treat each other. I mean, it's really the thing he's doing over and over with won't you be my neighbor? You Know, what he's asking is, how do we treat each other? What kind of neighborhood are we going to have? And that's his subtle way of saying there's nothing wrong with sharing a pool with a person of a different race. In fact, at the end of that scene, Fred takes his towel and dries Francois' feet, you know, as Jesus did with the disciples 17. I mean, it's...
KELLY: I was going to say there's something almost biblical about it.
NEVILLE: Absolutely. And none of that was by accident. Fred knew exactly what he was doing. And those were the messages he wanted to promote.
KELLY: He didn't shy away from tackling a lot of truly difficult, truly sad things.
NEVILLE: No. I mean, he dealt with divorce and death. I mean, as I said, he knew that children experience these things. And he felt like his mission was not to tell kids that everything's all right but to tell kids that bad things do happen, and this is how you can process them.
KELLY: Let me play a little bit of a scene that you'll recognize.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MISTER ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As Daniel) What does assassination 18 mean?
BETTY ABERLIN: (As Lady Aberlin) It means somebody getting killed in a sort of surprise way.
KELLY: That was right after Robert F. Kennedy's assassination in 1968. That was one of the other actors on the show we heard. And this was a show that was trying to talk to kids about something that they were surely hearing about. Every time they walked into the kitchen, their parents are discussing it and then probably hushed up at the moment that a child walked into the room.
NEVILLE: Yeah, exactly. And that episode in particular was really a touchstone for me. You know, the story behind it is that Bobby Kennedy was killed on a Wednesday night, and on Saturday his funeral was to be televised nationally. And Fred knew that children would be home, and they would know that this bad thing had happened. And so he quickly put together an episode that aired that Friday night, the night before, where he could explain to people how to speak to their children about something as horrific as an assassination. And that was really Fred in a nutshell.
KELLY: The last episode of the show taped on December 1, 2000, if I'm not mistaken. But his advice was much sought out after 9/11 as people tried to figure out how on earth to explain that to any of us but certainly to children.
NEVILLE: Yeah, and struggled with it. Something as horrific as 9/11 was something that he - even he doubted the efficacy of a message about kindness and grace. And you see him in our film struggling with it but then really kind of coming to terms with understanding what he wanted to say and then saying it. And I think one important thing to realize about Fred Rogers is he wasn't a saint.
He was a human who had insecurities and doubts and made mistakes and really throughout his entire life, from his earliest days to his deathbed, was wondering if he had done enough. And for somebody like Mr. Rogers, it's kind of remarkable 19 to think somebody like that would have those kinds of doubts.
But I think it's important to understand that he was human and not a saint because is you sanctify somebody like Fred Rogers, it means that we don't have to try and live up to him. So I think that's what Fred wanted us all to take away, was all of us to understand that we have a responsibility to each other and to ourselves.
KELLY: That is Morgan Neville. He's the director of "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" Thank you much for talking to us.
NEVILLE: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE TV THEME PLAYERS SONG, "MR. ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD (WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?)")
- To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说,我一点也不赞成这个主意。
- Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说,我不反对改革。
- That same year he made his Broadway debut, playing a suave radio journalist.在那同一年里,他初次在百老汇登台,扮演一个温文而雅的电台记者。
- The actress made her debut in the new comedy.这位演员在那出新喜剧中首次登台演出。
- The trademark is registered on the book of the Patent Office.该商标已在专利局登记注册。
- The trademark of the pen was changed.这钢笔的商标改了。
- The waiter had brought the sweet trolley.侍者已经推来了甜食推车。
- In a library,books are moved on a trolley.在图书馆,书籍是放在台车上搬动的。
- He was ordained in 1984. 他在一九八四年被任命为牧师。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- He was ordained priest. 他被任命为牧师。 来自辞典例句
- His ordination gives him the right to conduct a marriage or a funeral.他的晋升圣职使他有权主持婚礼或葬礼。
- The vatican said the ordination places the city's catholics in a "very delicate and difficult decision."教廷说,这个任命使得这个城市的天主教徒不得不做出“非常棘手和困难的决定”。
- They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
- We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。
- They laid a wager on the result of the race.他们以竞赛的结果打赌。
- I made a wager that our team would win.我打赌我们的队会赢。
- I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
- This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。
- These plants ought to reach maturity after five years.这些植物五年后就该长成了。
- This is the period at which the body attains maturity.这是身体发育成熟的时期。
- The police tried to allay her fears but failed.警察力图减轻她的恐惧,但是没有收到什么效果。
- They are trying to allay public fears about the spread of the disease.他们正竭力减轻公众对这种疾病传播的恐惧。
- Would you condescend to accompany me?你肯屈尊陪我吗?
- He did not condescend to answer.He turned his back on me.他不愿屈尊回答我的问题。他不理睬我。
- This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
- There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
- The man tucked up his trousers for wading. 那人卷起裤子,准备涉水。
- The children were wading in the sea. 孩子们在海水中走着。
- Agriculture was awfully neglected in the past.过去农业遭到严重忽视。
- I've been feeling awfully bad about it.对这我一直感到很难受。
- The patient got a radical cure in the hospital.病人在医院得到了根治。
- She is radical in her demands.她的要求十分偏激。
- Judas was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. 犹大是耶稣十二门徒之一。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- "The names of the first two disciples were --" “最初的两个门徒的名字是——” 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险
- The assassination of the president brought matters to a head.总统遭暗杀使事态到了严重关头。
- Lincoln's assassination in 1865 shocked the whole nation.1865年,林肯遇刺事件震惊全美国。
- She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
- These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。