From a diversity perspective, the film highlights the need to recognize and respect racial differences. Upon deeper inspection, the film seems to fulfill the desire for political self-validation amongst middle-upper class ‘white’ audiences.
In one particular dialogue while on the road, Don and Tony explore their social identity. Don discovered that Tony ‘borrowed’ a rock from a roadside stall. Tony attempts to justify what he needn’t pay but is rebuffed. Don then shows his ‘refinement’ by offering to pay for it if Tony still wants to ‘borrow’ it. In another separate incident, Tony buys a bucket of fried chicken and offers Don some. Don claims he has never had fried chicken in his life to the bewilderment of Tony who replies “you people love that stuff”. It is unclear whether Don never actually tasted fried chicken in his life or merely said so to avoid identifying with Tony’s tastes and stereotypes. Both instances show that mutual understanding cannot genuinely occur without first experiencing conflict with other identities. But Green Book never delves any further into these issues. Throughout the entirety of the movie the director seems to withdraw as soon as a sensitive topic is brought up, seemingly afraid to critically explore more challenging albeit more interesting themes as if preoccupied with maintaining an aura of ‘political correctness’.
It needs to be understood that the medium of film provides the perfect tools to challenge knowledge and go beyond limitations of ‘political correctness’, which itself can be oppressive. Unfortunately, Green Book follows a predictable and safe route of showcasing the injustices faced by Don from his personal perspective while portraying a static textbook treatment of racial discrimination (Bozdech & Sense, 2019).
The director misses the opportunity to explore challenging concepts such as class discrimination and segregation within Negro communities, or even challenging the concepts of ‘race’ or ‘racism’. The closest Don comes to conflict with his own people happens when he visits a motel for Negroes and turns down an invitation to play a game with some of the residents (Morris, 2019). Don is then briefly accused of thinking himself “too high & mighty” to mingle with them; the scene then abruptly ends. By only viewing issues of race and prejudice through surface level interactions between the characters, the Director misses opportunities to deeply explore the deeper complexities of relationships between identity and society (Wilkinson, 2019).
Green book seems more preoccupied with delivering what is ‘politically correct’ to the masses which is reflected by the mellowness of the plot and ‘dignity’ given to the characters. White (2019) notes in his article ‘The Oscars’ white savior problem‘, that this can be contrasted with the unsettling and visceral depictions of race hate in films such as American History X (1998), Malcolm X (1992), Loving (2016) and Straight Outta Compton (2015). Particularly in American History X, which explores how race hate originates and is perpetuated by extremists that feed the vicious circle of hate, that violence just spawns more violence. “Blacks” trapped in poor ghettos feel oppressed by the Man, and they take it out on white kids. Then these kids who constantly get beat up begin hating “Blacks”, gang member or not (Kevin, 2002)
Nicole Sperling’s review in Vanity Fair, highlights the criticism the film received from Don Shirley’s own family, who accused the director of misrepresenting events and whitewashing facts through Mahershala Ali’s “Messanic Negro” portrayal of Don Shirley. According to the Vanity Fair article (2019), Don and his family members were only consulted after the development of the film had been completed, and found that it grossly misrepresented the relationship between Tony & Don. Shirley did not consider Tony a close friend and he was always close to his family, despite a line of dialogue in Green Book suggesting he lost touch with them. Don never claimed to be embarrassed about his “blackness” or felt estranged from his race. His brother Maurice Shirley called the portrayal of his brother “a symphony of lies” (Harris, 2018). Mahershala Ali, the actor that played Don Shirley, allegedly called the family to apologize for any offense caused, and added: “I did the best I could with the material I had. I was not aware that there were close relatives with whom I could have consulted to add some nuance to the character“.
Green Book ultimately panders to modern sobered audiences who assume that such discriminatory practices and racial stratification are largely of a bygone era, culminating in a self-congratulatory feel-good ending (White, 2019). The research and evidence compiled in previous sections of this blog have shown that nothing has really changed; these sentiments have instead evolved and manifested in forms that more closely adhere to contemporary “political correctness”. Furthermore, by utilizing Tony as the uncouth “white savior”, the film actually reinforces certain stereotypes rather than challenging them (Ware, 2019). Thus Green Book as a whole provides a retroactive glance at something that “white” audiences feel they have conquered and give validation to the concept of “multiculturalism” that contemporary society feels it has achieved.
Several proponents of Green Book like Hollywood reporter Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (2019) states that “filmmakers are history’s interpreters, not its chroniclers” in his article that argues the film’s inaccuracies does not detract from its point. However, skeptics note that when the facts are skewed or misrepresented to such an extent, the motives and credibility of the director and writers are called into question which can compromise their agenda (Lynn, 2018; McFarland, 2019).
Green Book 