Brooke Obie Reviews ‘Green Book’: ‘A Poorly Titled White Savior Film’
For Shadow and Act, managing editor Brooke Obie reviewed Hollywood’s latest white savior movie, Green Book. It isn’t good.
When will Hollywood stop centering white people in Black stories? If the much-lauded Peter Farrelly film ‘Green Book’ is any indication, no time soon.
The film supposedly gets its title from The Negro Motorist Green Book, an iconic Black travel guide published from 1936-1966 by Victor Hugo Green and his wife Alma Green. Green was a well-connected Black mailman whose Green Book documented restaurants, hotels, gas stations and more that Black travelers and vacationers could safely use while traveling throughout the country — from the segregated Jim Crow South to his hometown in New York City. The north was no safe space for Black people and Green and his book show that.
“Carry your Green Book with you—You may need it,” the cover of the book urged its readers. And carry it they did.
Just not in this ahistorical film.
Read the full review on Shadow and Act.