Green Book is a 2018 movie that my 13-year-old self kind of underestimated.
Back then, I was a huge Queen/Mercury fan, so at the height of my stupidity, I genuinely thought Bohemian Rhapsody should have won Best Picture.
Funny how time gives us enough knowledge and wisdom to rethink things.
So, let's quit the bullshit!
I really liked the movie. The technical aspects, the acting, pretty much all of it. Although, honestly, I think those are some of the least important things being discussed here.
The relationship between Tony and Doc is a real joy to watch. At first, you think Tony is just a jackass, but as the movie goes on, you realize that he's not that bad of a person, and that he's capable of overcoming his racism and becoming a better man.
The rain scene, where Doc finally speaks his heart out, is one of the best moments in the movie. Absolutely shattering.
You see this raw speech about being a fish out of water. Not white enough, not black enough, not man enough.
So... who is he, after all?
And the outcome of that moment is that their bond grows even stronger.
People can tend to see Tony's character as the "white savior" stereotype, but I can't really see him that way. To me, it's more about showing a guy who is clearly a piece of shit at the beginning of the movie, and watching him slowly become a better person.
It's similar to what happens to Edward Norton's character in American History X.
And that's real life, you know? The world isn't black and white. There is no pure evil or pure good. We can all change, even if we're the biggest scumbags in the world.
The movie doesn't sugarcoat Tony and pretend he's some perfect guy. His flaws are very clear, and I think that's exactly what they were trying to show.
But the biggest thing for me was seeing what the United States was like back then.
I mean, it's the 1960s. That's not that long ago when you think about it historically.
And seeing people being SEGREGATED is wild to my Brazilian mind.
Of course, we have racism in Brazil, just like every other country. But segregation wasn't really a thing here in the same way. Brazil was, from the beginning, a country built around miscegenation — Black, white, Indigenous people, and later Japanese, Italian, German, and many others.
The way race is viewed in the United States feels almost alien to us Brazilians.
From what I get through American movies, music, news, and culture, racial divisions in the U.S. can sometimes seem almost like different groups are enemies of each other. Generations of hatred and division, reinforced by governments, institutions, media, and society, have made these divisions incredibly deep.
And that's something that feels absurd from a Brazilian perspective.
Here, the big struggle is much more obviously tied to social inequality. Being Black or white can make a difference, of course, and being Black can make many things harder, but the way race is socially understood isn't exactly comparable to what existed — and still exists — in the United States.
And that's sad.
You can see American news channels showing how Black Americans view these issues, how white Americans view them, how Latino Americans view them... there is a division between people that sometimes feels INSANE from the outside.
In Brazil, there is also a strong idea of being proud of our mixture — of being the product of different peoples and cultures coming together.
I know that's not the whole story, and Brazil has an enormous history of racism and inequality. But the cultural idea of being a mixed country is something I don't think Americans always understand in the same way.
There are even discussions about this within Black communities themselves, especially among activists and people fighting for racial equality. Some Black Americans distinguish their experiences and identities quite strongly from those of Black people elsewhere in the world.
So...
I think I'm getting a little long-winded here.
So here I go with my final thought:
It's a shame to see people from the same nation, fighting for many of the same things, following the same rules and going through the same hardships, still divided by something as stupid and destructive as race.
Maybe someday the whole world will come to Brazil... and learn how to live a happy, chaotic, mixed-up life.