Before I saw Driving Miss Daisy (1989), which I watched for the first time recently, I knew certain things about it by reputation.  One of the sources for my knowledge came from Be Kind Rewind (2008), a film about a struggling movie rental store that has to remake all their antiquated VHS movies before the owner returns.  One of the films they pick is Driving Miss Daisy because one can look at the visual of Mike Coolwell (Yasiin Bey) as Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman) chauffeuring Jerry McLean (Jack Black) as Daisy Werthan (Jessica Tandy) and immediately get the reference.  In doing so, especially with Mike’s discomfort reprising a role that, it has been argued that it does not put African Americans in the most flattering light.  It would seem that Be Kind Rewind believes Driving Miss Daisy to be racist.  There is some truth to this position on Driving Miss Daisy, but it needs to be viewed in order to be fully understood.  Luckily, you have The Legionnaire to expedite that process.

There is a reason for Driving Miss Daisy, and that is because the title aging, well-off Jewish widow is no longer to be trusted behind the wheel.  In the first scene, she bids goodbye to her cook, Idella (Esther Rolle), gets into her car, and nearly backs it over an embankment.  Stunned, she gets out and gravity takes care of the rest.  Her son, Boolie Werthan (Dan Aykroyd), a successful Atlanta cotton mill owner, comes over to help.  He confers with the police and insurance agents, and they decide that Daisy is no longer fit to drive.  This is not welcome news for the independently minded woman, who vows to walk, order a taxi, or take public transportation whenever she needs to go somewhere.  Boolie knows this is not a viable solution, but is also sure that getting her to agree to having someone drive her car for her will be a nearly impossible task.  All the same, he hires Hoke.  Prior to sending him to Daisy, Boolie tells the middle-aged African American that the person employing Hoke will be Boolie, meaning Daisy cannot fire Hoke.  This is important because Daisy takes a disliking to Hoke before she meets him, despite the fact that he is kind and selfless.  She does everything he can to not need his services, and is rude.  Not having the opportunity to perform the duty for which he has been hired, Hoke takes to doing little chores around the house.  Each time, she snaps at him for his perceived impertinence.  It is not until she absolutely must go to the grocery store that you see him driving for the first time, chasing her down the street with the car.  She only gets in when it appears that people in the neighborhood are staring, but she is the classic “back seat driver” the entire trip.  She also reacts negatively to his politeness, such as when he is waiting directly in front of the entrance to the temple after services, believing others will judge her in a manner she does not desire.  What changes her mind is when she accuses him of stealing a can of salmon.  Aside from being a petty reason to dismiss somebody, as Boolie points out, it happens that when he comes in to work that morning, he arrives with a replacement and apologies for taking it in the first place.  With this, the relationship softens somewhat, and she gets more used to his company.  Another breakthrough comes when, while visiting the burial site of Daisy’s husband, she learns that Hoke cannot read.  As a former English teacher, she takes it upon herself to teach him to do so.  Later, for Christmas, though reminding him that she is not a Christian and it is therefore not a present, she gives him a book to help him to begin to write.  To this point, while racism is certainly present in a sort of unspoken way, it is not something that they have encountered in their travels.  It comes when Daisy and Hoke go to Mobile, Alabama, for Daisy’s brother’s birthday.  As they wrap up their roadside lunch, they are approached by two Alabama state troopers who are suspicious of a man like Hoke driving an expensive car.  Daisy explains that it belongs to her, but interestingly does not mention her Jewish heritage when they ask about her name.  Another moment comes when she receives an invitation to a dinner in Atlanta at which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will be speaking.  In a rather cowardly move, Boolie begs off his seat at her table, claiming it will make him look bad in the eyes of other Atlanta businessmen.  I am not sure why they did this considering the good relationship he maintains with Hoke throughout, but I digress.  It is at this gathering, hearing Dr. King speak, that she realizes how much she has come to rely on Hoke, especially when the civil rights leader speaks to the “appalling silence and indifference” of good people.  She had become even more attached to Hoke after the death of Idella.  Their relationship spans the course of a few decades, with him adopting a polite but firm way of dealing with her antics.  Still, even his seemingly infinite store of patience has come to an end when he reports for work one day and finds her wandering around her house in a panic.  She is rifling through drawers ranting about her papers and worrying that she will not have them to give to her students.  In other words, she has lost her grip on reality, and Boolie makes the decision to put her into a nursing home.  He and Hoke meet one last time in Daisy’s house on Thanksgiving, it having been sold, before going to visit Daisy at the facility.  Boolie then drives Hoke there, and the final scene is of these two friends together, Hoke gently feeding Daisy a slice of pie.

People say that Driving Miss Daisy is racist because it is set during a time when such attitudes were much more commonplace than they are today.  While Daisy is not overtly prejudice, there are a couple of times she refers to African Americans as “them.”  This blanket pronoun is meant as a pejorative to describe “their” behavior, particularly when she is trying to justify her wish to fire Hoke over the salmon can incident.  In general, there is a sense of noblesse oblige on Daisy’s part that can come off as offensive.  Yet, I also believe that there is more to Hoke than a bowing and scraping servant.  He has agency, though it is exercised in a manner that might annoy the fierier wings of the civil rights movement.  There is a Catholic way of expressing how Hoke behaves, and that is by speaking to how he is like Jesus.  The Bible describes the Lord in such a way that is more befitting of him than any other character.  It talks about how the meek are used to humble the mighty.  This is how God sent His only son into the world, taking on a lowly station.  Finally, what could be more subservient than allowing Himself to die on the Cross.  Now, none of this is meant to excuse how Hoke or any other African American at this time were treated.  It should be noted that too often whites observed how people like Hoke behaved and used such behavior to prop up the worst aspects of Jim Crow segregation.  At the same time, we should also acknowledge that just because somebody says “Yassum” does not mean they necessarily see themselves as inferior.

On the whole, Driving Miss Daisy is a more complicated movie than I anticipated.  The fact that Daisy is white and Hoke is black is a factor.  What I would rather people take from this movie is the blossoming of a genuine friendship.  We are called to serve our friends, and that is what Hoke does.  If you can see through the racism, then it is a fine viewing experience.