A Guide That Wish It Was Not Published One Day: Green Book
The Green Book is a 2018 Oscar-winning road movie. I love movies that take place on the road. It gives me the feeling that I am getting up from my place and traveling to another place. In every road movie, the companions have a process of getting to know each other. In our society, it is said that you know a person either on the road or in shopping. So true! Also, I am happy to see that the people who set out in road movies are not the same people at the end of the journey, and to witness their change.
Although the movie may seem like a stereotypical road movie, it becomes unique with its real life story and painful experiences.
This is the road story of a black musician and a white driver. It takes us back to the America of the 1960s. And at that time we learn that racism towards black people is at its highest.
The real story starts here…
A black music prodigy, Dr. Shirley, is going on tour to give a series of concerts in the south of America. For this, he looks for someone who will both be his chauffeur and ensure his safety. This person is Tony Lip. Tony Lip is a white man of Italian descent. Frankly, he is someone who does not like black people very much. He immediately accepts Dr. Shirley’s offer to be a driver because he is unemployed at the time. He has a family to take care of.
The character of Tony Lip felt warm to me. He is someone who protects his interests when appropriate, is frank when appropriate and can burn ships. We understand this from the fact that he accepted the job even though he did not like black people, and that he was not ashamed to serve a black person as a chauffeur, considering the conditions of those times. He’s smart and witty, if not overly knowledgeable and kind. He does his job professionally. In her first meeting with Dr Shirley, when Dr Shirley tells her that she needs to do her laundry and do some chores, she immediately reacts and says she can just be a chauffeur and puts the mail in. This behavior does not make him lose his job, on the contrary, he gains.
As for Dr. Shirley, unlike Tony Lip, he’s an epitome of kindness. He is a gentleman with his diction, manners and actions. He was interested in classical music from an early age and became a world-renowned virtuoso. But there is something important that stops him. Having colored skin… Shirley has isolated herself because of this situation. He lives alone in his apartment in New York and doesn’t see anyone outside of work. The presence of a thin, long and gilded throne in his flat, which we will call the ivory tower, gave the message “I am sitting on this throne as a black man”. Among the numerous and valuable antiques, the expensive teeth of wild animals were also very interesting. Again, an emphasis was placed on wildlife in Africa.
Come see that Dr. Shirley just happens to be on the same terms as other white people at her home and concerts. Although he is a musical genius, he is exposed to discrimination when he gets up from his piano. These real-life events are unbelievable. If even a music genius with a good career is experiencing this, think about what black people in the middle and lower class go through…
Dr. When Shirley and Tony Lip embark on a journey, they have a guide. This ‘Green Guide’, which also gives its name to the movie, shows which roads, hotels, restaurants and bars black people could stop on in those years. If you’re black, you weren’t safe anywhere in those years. Although they are still not completely safe, at least not as before. So this Green Guide was showing the most reliable routes and places and ensuring that they did not have any problems during the journey. Here is what Tony Lip needs to act according to this guide during the journey. In fact, his most important mission is to make Dr Shirley a safe journey. It does this.
The Green Book was published in the United States from the 1930s to 1967. In one of its prefaces, it was even hoped that a day would come when this guide would not be published. Consider a guide who wants his own end. The publishers of the Green Book weren’t meant to be published more, but rather that one day this guide wouldn’t need to be published. But at the time it was published, it was functional and life-saving.
Dr. The discrimination that Shirley was subjected to during this tour was very striking. The host, who took care of him before a concert, can’t fit him in the sky. There is a magnificent hall and food. Dr. When Shirley wants to go to the toilet, she can’t go to the ‘great’ toilet where white people go. Because black people are not allowed to go to the same toilet as white people. The landlord, who can’t fit in the sky, shows the old shack outside. Dr. Shirley refuses and has to commute to the hotel where she is staying to go to the bathroom.
The dressing room they have allocated to her in yet another magnificent hall is a desolate place. Just because he’s black. He is not allowed in the lounge when he wants to eat with other people. However, he will be giving a concert to the same people soon and they are crazy about Dr. They’re going to applaud Shirley. Whatever they say, they don’t break taboos. Dr. Shirley is also giving up performing there. They look at the Green Book and go to a bar. They give free concerts to black customers there and have a great night.
There are other notable cases. Others look weird when Tony Lip has a black boss in the driver’s seat and back. Tony Lip also does not hesitate to gesture to those who look like this.
When the engine breaks down in the fields, Tony Lip stops by to fix it. Black workers in the fields give a Tony Lip a Dr. They stare at Shirley. Tony Lip, Dr. They are thoroughly surprised when she opens Shirley’s door. It was a quiet but very telling moment of the movie.
One of the things I liked about Tony Lip was his openness to change and improvement. Someone who has a pragmatist view of life, but is always open. Dr. He never makes chauffeuring Shirley a complex. Although he has had racist movements before, Dr. During her journey, Shirley confronts this situation and listens to the voice of her conscience. It really changes the perspective of black people. When he spends time with her and sees the discrimination he experiences, he begins to understand black people and change his attitude. In fact, what we all need to do the most is to try to understand our differences.
One of my favorite scenes of the movie is when Tony Lip writes a letter to his wife while writing a superficial not quite literary letter to Dr. Shirley was helping him with that. He writes emotional and longing sentences. His wife, Dolores, gets emotional reading these letters. Other friends listen to these letters with admiration and scold their husbands for not making such sentences. After a while, Tony Lip writes a letter on his own and Dr. Shirley asks her to read it. This time he likes what he wrote. Now Tony Lip can write emotional letters too.
Dr. Shirley also learns a lot from Tony Lib. The pleasure of eating with your hands, the songs that the people listen to, living in the moment, laughing and having fun, finding practical solutions to problems…
At the end of this road story, neither Tony Lip nor Dr. Shirley is no longer the same person. They both learn a lot from each other. Tony Lip doesn’t look at black people the same way. He is also developing himself intellectually. Dr. Shirley emerges from her ivory tower and enters life. The fact that Tony Lip is in life makes him question his own life. While he used to take shelter in his loneliness, he now realizes that he has to give up on it. On the Christmas day when their journey ends, they change their minds, join the fun of Tony Lip’s crowded and cheerful family, and celebrate Christmas together.
Do you know what this movie made me think at the end of the article? In fact, there are many Green Books in our lives, written or unwritten. These guides guide us according to our gender, money, career, faith and many other things. It actually has to show. I think these guides will exist as long as humanity lives.
Even if one ends, the other will be printed in our minds. I still wish all Green Books, written and unwritten, to disappear from the world.
