Friday, September 4, 2015

Mister F**king Rogers

Before reading this profile, I was expecting to learn about the man behind the Mister Rogers persona; most television personalities are not who they exactly act like they are on TV. However, through the entire profile-which read more like a story-Mister Rogers turned out to be exactly the persona he is on television.  

My favorite part of the profile is when Mister Rogers is walking through the crowd, and he's receiving so many positive comments from his fans, but one person says "If Mister Fucking Rogers can tell me how to read that fucking clock, I'll watch his show every day for a fucking year."  There is such a juxtaposition of the comment with Mister Rogers' attitude, and it shows how unaffected he is because he lives in such a "state of astonishment." 
 
The author also makes it seem like Mr. Rogers is unaffected by his fame, but affected grately(greatly??) by the lives he has touched.  The author includes his own story about Old Rabbit as a gateway to telling other stories about lives Mister Rogers has touched through his show.  The voice in the profile shows Mister Rogers to be calm and kind, even when faced with so many different experiences in his life.  Perhaps he stays this way due to his old habits and repetitive schedule, his unchanging New York apartment and the pictures he takes for his wife of his new friends, and the fact that he gets up at 5:30am every morning to read and pray--more important details the author includes to show the personality of Mister Rogers is really just Mister Rogers. 

1 comment:

  1. The juxtaposition between the way people talk about Mr. Rogers and the way that his character comes off is compelling in that paragraph. I also agree that the profile was surprisingly unrevealing of Mr. Roger's personality. Instead of feeling enlightened I came out feeling confirmed in my old beliefs.

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