How I Got Schooled on “Green Book” by Norwegian T.V.

I admit it. I really enjoyed Green Book. I almost didn’t go see it, way back last fall, because the word was out that it was a new Driving Miss Daisy. However, when I asked my FB crowd if it was worth seeing, one friend said she loved it and that it was just a great story about a particular relationship between two men. I would have seen it anyway, because I’ll see anything with Mahershala Ali in it.

I liked it. The acting was solid, it was well made, and for me it felt like it avoided tropes. For example, we know what it means for a black person to be on a country road in the South in the early 1960s. So when the Don Shirley character is so fed up with his driver he gets out of the car, we understand that danger. I thought the film might go over the tried and true of the black/white South story, but I found interesting things — especially about class — in this film. The Don Shirley character may not be accurate, but I had never seen a character like this on screen before. The other Oscar Mahershala Ali won was for a drug dealer with a heart of gold. We can continue the conversation about roles available to black men, an important topic, but I can see why he took this role and he certainly shouldn’t be embarrassed about it because the movie was a whitewash. It would be better if the role had not been attached to an actual person, but nonetheless it was a mesmerizing performance and character.

In the week since the Oscars, I have, against my better judgment, engaged in defending this film on Facebook. I started with a group of white friends who had not seen the film but were trashing it for its political incorrectness.

My primary response was that it is important to have multiple stories in the world. When a friend whose opinion I greatly respect claimed the film should have been accurate about Don Shirley, should have engaged his family and gotten their approval, was a fake story, I bristled. It is a memoir written by Tony Villelonga (the driver) and adapted into a screenplay in part by his son, Nick Villelonga. Was there a competing Don Shirley project out there that didn’t get made so this one could? The person who writes the story gets to tell the story. We can talk about how Hollywood should choose better stories, or produce more accurate films about African American life made by African Americans, but that’s not the story the Villelongas have told. Also, a Hollywood film that follows a tried and true arc of white racist changed by interaction with an individual — one who challenges him not just on race but on sexuality and class? In Green Book, the Don Shirley character was superior to Villelonga in every way. The driver character ends the movie a little less racist than he started. Win. I thought this movie threw in all the challenges of our contemporary age. I think white people are not done needing to hear that story.

It was brought to my attention that a documentary has been made about the Green Book, The Negro Motorist Green Book, directed by Yoruba Richen. I heard Richen interviewed by Terry Gross, and can’t wait to see her film. Her criticism of the film’s portrayal of the Green Book was twofold: 1) the actual Green Book was more about the North than the South, because in the South it was crystal clear where Blacks were not welcome whereas in the northern, midwestern and western US you could face the humiliation of being turned away (even if you had a reservation) from a hotel or restaurant, so the idea of picking up the Green Book just because you were going to tour the South is inaccurate; and 2) there were lots of very nice hotels in the Green Book, so it was not a matter of the driver going to a nice place and dropping Shirley off at the only dive in town that would accommodate him. Far from it, there were established places for black musical royalty traveling through the South in the 1960s. It is an important documentary — one which many more people will see now that Green Book has had such success. That might not be fair, but it’s where we are.

I don’t want to be a defender of Green Book. I can see it has serious issues. But I want to be able to celebrate the fact that we have gotten to a time where Black Panther, WhiteKkKlansman, If Beale Street Could Talk and Green Book can not just exist but be honored in the same year.

Then, my husband and I got deep into the Norwegian procedural drama, Modus. This is not a great piece of work by any measure. The plot is full of holes. (Don’t watch it.) However, it shines an interesting light (as does Wallander, a much better series) on Norwegian perspective on Americans and Christianity. The uber-villain in this series is a former American marine who is motivated by his participation in an American Christian cult, which consists of a bunch of women right out of Kimmy Schmidt’s bunker, living in Houston under a tyrannical old homophobic man’s control. This marine has been sent to kill homosexuals, punishing Norway for its enlightened views — Scandinavia is the New Sodom for this cult. It is hilarious.

To have committed so much time to watching this series was so disappointing. It unravels as a bunch of Norwegian actors with the worst Southern accents I have ever heard (the American FBI agent in Houston is the worst, but when the killer finally starts speaking, I was howling) lead the charge against the cult. It is provincial. It is a provincial view. Just like Green Book is provincial. Should these provincial views be rewarded with big budget films and Best Picture awards? No. But can we just understand them and enjoy the movie?

Basically, I think I got just a small glimpse of African American experience in a theater as Tony the Lip taught Don Shirley about fried chicken. WTF? What can you do, laugh out loud or bang your head on the row of seats in front of you? And to watch the film get a Best Picture award and a bunch of white guys go up and receive it? Yeah, I get it. The movie got it wrong, and it is a shame to have to put up with this crap for so long.

I still think my friends should go watch this film. And laugh at the places they get it wrong, but enjoy the extraordinary performance of Mahershala Ali and hope for better from Hollywood in the future.