Let's Unpack All This Green Book Drama

In any other timeline, Green Book would have been a perfectly mediocre awards-baiting movie that came and went. The film is based on the “true” account of the “friendship” (we’ll address these quotation marks in a moment) between Tony “Lip” Vallelonga, an Italian-American bouncer and chauffeur, and Dr. Don Shirley, a black pianist on tour of the American South in 1962. It’s a well-trod story—written by Vallelonga’s son, Nick—of how people of different backgrounds can learn from one another, how friendship can overpower prejudice, etc. etc. And its release has been an absolute shitshow.

Today, with the latest round of Green Book drama (more on that in a moment too), let’s take a look at everything that's gone wrong with this movie since it was released, because it’s been a wild ride.

November 10, 2018: Viggo Drops the N-Word
During the movie's press tour, a week before its release, things started to fall apart quickly after star Viggo Mortensen used the N-word during a Q&A. “For instance, no one says n— anymore,” he said, supposedly illustrating how far we’ve come with racism in America while saying the thing we’ve come so far from saying. He apologized, but uh, yikes.

November 16, 2018: Critics Are Split
When the movie was released, it was sold as the “real story” of what conspired between Vallelonga and Shirley, and critics ate it up. Well, some (white) critics did. “Green Book may well move you, possibly to tears, at the thought of real social change and kindness (at a time when we need it badly),” wrote Time Out’s Joshua Rothkopf. New York’s David Edelstein said “The movie taps into a kind of nostalgia for when everything—even racism—seemed simpler, and ready to be legislated out of existence.” Sure, it could get corny at times, but what a nice message.

Black reviewers and others not falling for the film’s feel-good message, however, pointed out that Green Book is just the latest film about race to basically flatten the experience of racism for the comfort of white people. “With its insistence on the pretense of loving our way into racial harmony, the movie exists almost exclusively to allow white moviegoers to nod sagely about ‘how far we’ve come’ before calling the cops on their black neighbors for not waving hello,” wrote Cate Young for Jezebel. Like Crash and The Blind Side and The Help, it paints the white people who stick out their necks for black people as otherworldly saviors, braver and stronger than the black people who have to walk through a racist world every day.

November 21, 2018: Dr. Shirley's Family Boycotts Green Book
The “true” account of what happens in Green Book is based largely on what Tony Vallelonga recounted to his son. It should seem obvious to anyone thinking about it that that might provide a one-sided view of the situation, but the limits of the narrative became more explicit when Shirley’s family spoke up about how much the film got wrong. “The inaccuracies that have been placed front and center are hurtful because they draw a completely inaccurate caricature of a family member that we loved and a misrepresentation of the relationships with other family members,” wrote Maurice Shirley, Dr. Shirley’s brother, in a statement saying the family was boycotting the film.

Among the inaccuracies Shirley’s family cites are that Shirley and Vallelonga were never friends, and that the reticence Shirley showed Vallelonga in talking about his personal life wasn’t because Shirley was reserved, but because Vallelonga was his employee and he felt it would be unprofessional. That Vallelonga couldn’t conceive that a black man would treat him as a subordinate speaks worlds about what is going on with this movie.

Furthermore, Maurice Shirley says they weren’t even consulted about their side of the story. “That no one in our family was contacted until AFTER the film was made, could never be misconstrued as an oversight.” This account was confirmed by Edwin Shirley, who said he got a phone call from star Mahershala Ali after the film was released, who admitted he didn’t know there was family to call. “What he said was, ‘If I have offended you, I am so, so terribly sorry. 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.’”

Meanwhile, Mortensen dismissed the Shirley family’s concerns, saying “[Writer] Nick Vallelonga has shown admirable restraint in the face of some accusations and some claims—including from a couple of family members—that have been unjustified, uncorroborated and basically unfair, that have been countered by other people who knew Doc Shirley well.”

January 6, 2019: Doubling Down at the Golden Globes
We are now in full shitshow territory, and at a crossroads where the filmmakers could either acknowledge their mistakes and try to amend them, or double down on the story they’ve already told. So of course they decided to double down. At the Golden Globes, Ali won for Best Performance By an Actor in a Supporting Role, and the film won for Best Screenplay, during which Nick Vallelonga barely mentioned the Shirley family before saying “My father blessed us with this story.” Not a great look with all this happening in the background.

January 9, 2019: Turns Out, the Director Used to Pull His Dick Out
Green Book was directed by Peter Farrelly, who is far more known for the gross-out comedies like There’s Something About Mary and Dumb and Dumber he made with his brother, Bobby. However, The Cut rediscovered in a Newsweek story from 1998, that the pair liked to “prank” their colleagues by getting them to look at Peter’s dick. In an Observer article, they admit they did it to Cameron Diaz before casting her in Mary:

Farrelly has now apologized for his behavior, saying” “True. I was an idiot. I did this decades ago and I thought I was being funny and the truth is I’m embarrassed and it makes me cringe now. I’m deeply sorry.”

Somehow also January 9, 2019: Vallelonga's Racist Tweet
It’s truly astounding that yet another thing is happening in the drama surrounding this movie, but last night, Buzzfeed News confirmed the validity of one of Nick Vallelonga’s old tweets, in which he tweeted at Donald Trump in 2015 to say that Muslims celebrated the falling of the Twin Towers in Jersey City on 9/11. It’s a story that Trump has told before, and also a lie. So now we have the screenwriter of a movie about racism tweeting racist things to our racist president.

So: can the Green Book narrative be salvaged? Should it be? It’s not like we should care deeply about the fate of a movie that wasn’t even that great to begin with, but the sad fact is that, with Mahershala Ali on a PR blitz for True Detective, the actor will probably be tasked with answering more questions about all this than anyone who was actually responsible. GQ reached out to a PR expert to see if saving face was even possible. The source suggests that it would be immensely difficult to pull off this late in the game. Regarding the allegations from the family: “If they knew, and just hoped no one would find out, that was a huge error in this day and age.” And regarding Farrelly’s and Vallelonga’s behavior: “It's unfair to put that burden on everyone else, but their award season is pretty damned. It's impossible to support the film without putting money in the pockets of two assholes.”

Does that mean the people who worked hard on the film are doomed? Maybe not. “I think in general people are going to see it or they aren't," the source says. "It was never going to be a blockbuster film. So that cinematic audience might still watch just because.” Which is depressing in its own way. Still, there’s a lesson in this for everyone. Consult black people when making a movie about racism. And, in the words of the PR expert, “It's so easy to keep your genitals to yourself, and racist thoughts in your head. [It] makes literally everyone's life easier.”