THE GREEN BOOK MOVIE REVIEW

I saw The Green Book after watching documentaries on Bill Russell and Quincy Jones.

The sequence matters because real people in the docs had already explained in pretty stark terms how it was to be black.

The harsh reality they told showed up in scene after scene in a different context.

How different?

An ass-kicking man working as muscle in 1962 New York nightclubs goes to work as muscle for a delicate piano player embarking on a two month tour.

The muscle was a white man, the piano man was black, and the tour went through the Deep South.

What could go wrong?

As the two men learned more about each other, I learned more about the South.

Did I learn about people who felt it their duty to beat the crap out of people who didn’t look like them?

Nooooo.

I’ve been schooled in race relations in the Army and my Brooklyn neighborhood in New York.

I learned people could get along when they wanted to.

In The Green Book, the two guys had to get along, and how they found their way was inspiring.

 

How To Get Along With Others

We had a big black guy in the Army who brought his act with him.

He was Melvin Bluester from St. Louis and he wanted to be the boss in boot camp.

I’d already been chosen as the leader of my platoon, the boss, but that didn’t last.

Melvin was the leader after me, and he didn’t last either.

I took my demotion in stride, he felt offended by his.

When you’re an Army trainee you offend everything good and decent because, as the Drill Sergeants’ reminded everyone, you’re less than nothing.

That was fine with me because I knew the secret: Know who you are and some stranger can’t redefine you.

I was a high school and college wrestler who was going back to school after the Army.

Melvin’s dream was going back to St. Louis and being the pimp he dreamed of being.

Everyone in the Army had a dream. We all shared the vision.

When Melvin got demoted he decided to punish the entire platoon by commandeering the bathroom cleaning closet.

If that bathroom isn’t clean we all got worked, so some of the guys took it upon themselves to get the job done.

But Melvin said no.

Some guys grabbed for the mops and bucket, Melvin grabbed them, and got punched in the face.

Instead of fighting it out, he said he was going to bring up the brothers from other platoons to stomp all of us.

What he learned was the brothers didn’t think much of him, and ran him off, told him to go back or they’d kick his ass right there.

He came back dejected, told the story of the other platoons, and we welcomed him back with no hard feelings.

We were his guys, he was our guy. It was a good lesson for everyone.

Life Lessons In The Green Book

The two men on the road down south learned to trust one another in different situations.

Both of them had had enough at several turning points until they realized their power was standing up for each other.

One of them was gay and apologized for the trouble it brought them.

The other one said, “I’ve worked in New York nightclubs all my life and know people are complicated.”

And that was that, just like you might hope for, instead of some canned revulsion pouring out.

The movie isn’t a soft sell on racial strife from my pale point of view.

I didn’t get beat on when I was a minority living in a black Brooklyn neighborhood, but I knew my place.

Did I go out on nights when the locals burned cars on my street that dead-ended on an expressway?

Nooooo.

I’m not a car-burner.

I didn’t hide in my apartment, either, getting out and around enough to know who was who, you know, being a regular.

The attention I got came from some hobo-looking character who followed me a few blocks until I ducked into the corner store by my place.

Turned out he was a white guy my age working the neighborhood and thought I might be a new rival.

We got straightened out before any more misunderstandings, just like the Green Book.

He was an Italian guy demoted to my neighborhood after doing something that embarrassed his dad in his neighborhood.

We hit it off and he took me on neighborhood tours.

 

PS:

When you make friends with people different than you, they’re deserving of friendship, so respect the notion of friendship and treat them right.

 

PSS:

The Green Book holds up a mirror for the audience to look in, or look away.

I loved what I saw time and time again. You will too.