To a famous man

I don’t suppose you much care what I think.

Which is odd, because I am one of the people whose enjoyment of you as an entertainer brought you the fame that you so assiduously pursued for as long as I can remember. As a kid I memorized your Noah routine, as did all my best buddies. My friend Mark and I used to do our version of you asking “Who is this really?” and then crack up at our own comedic brilliance, much to the annoyance of Sister Basil.

I watched you in I Spy and on variety shows and when you got your own prime time show, I watched it every chance I got. You were the icon for a generation of Dads. And I followed along. I hope I’m a dad like him, I told myself. If only I could grow up to be as brilliant and funny and wise and caring as him.

Flavored gelatin seemed more desirable just because you took such delight in recommending it to us. Of course, gelatin is a kid thing and you were at your comedic / friendly / trustworthy best when making your cute, pucker-mouthed grin at a giggling child.

You were well-reasoned and caring and wise and playful and you did not interfere with your television wife having her own power. You respected yourself and your children and your elders and – ironically - women.

Respect was a big thematic thread for you. You famously slammed Richard Pryor for his blue humor. Some of us were proud of you for that stand. Wow, were we on the wrong side of that one!

And all that time, people were hurting. People you used and flung aside. People you drugged and raped. People who could not make their voices heard through the cacophony of our worship of you. People we should collectively have been protecting from you found nowhere to turn.

“I didn’t know” rang as hollow on my lips as on the lips of the residents of Oswiecim and Treblinka. It’s not enough to say you were famous. Or rich. Or that you made us laugh. You made us not listen to the ones you silenced and that’s on all of us.

I resent you for making me a bystander.

I resent you for making me regret my own laughter at your jokes while others were being crushed under your thumb.

I will resent you every time one of my daughters talks about her own encounters with perverts. I resent that they can’t be entirely comfortable walking alone or meeting a new man or wearing a bathing suit in public or, or, or …

You are the monster under the bed, the snake in the basket, the moving shadow in the night and the dread fear of every father of daughters.

You are the reason my daughters are afraid. But you will not win. Because my daughters are strong women who will not be defeated by you.

You are a horrific part of so many women’s pasts. And when you wonder, THAT is why from now, you have no future among civilized people.