Li'l Red Riding Hood Revisited

by Kate Coleman

So Michael Jackson is in handcuffs, arrested again after ten years for molesting a child. Is this a familiar scenario? Why does it strike the same note as another woman "dating" Mike Tyson and finding herself beaten? Or, for that matter, even if not a repeat performance, just the news that a young woman went to a basketball star's room late at night, and afterward, charged rape — strikes us as déjà vu?

And, while we're at it, why would anyone go home with Phil Spector? He may be no Mike Tyson, but Specter had a wacko reputation for bizarre behavior and for liking guns.

It's not that all movie stars and celebrities are brutes and sociopaths, but, we know that along with the spotlight and gobs of money, there is too often an oversized sense of entitlement that goes with it, whether it's in the shop-lifting vein of a Winona Ryder or guys just wanting to have fun with groupies seeking entrance to their pricey hotel rooms.

Can all these victims claim ignorance? Obviously most people in this country watch television — or less so, read newspapers — that eat up each new celebrity outrage. Do we need grammar school classes to teach self preservation when in the company of the rich and the famous?

We live in an age when priests, teachers and coaches have been scorched with abuse allegations. Some have been jailed; money has been handed over from the Catholic church and even school districts. These are transgressions against innocent victims and their families that bespeak a true horror, because the perpetrators are mantled justifiably with the altruism of teaching children, one of the nobler professions or callings. Parents who send their kids to church, school or a hockey team do so with the expectation of professionalism and safety.

But what can we say of the parents of the current accuser of Michael Jackson? Was their any sentient being on the planet with a television who wasn't aware of the unsavory charges swirling around Jackson for the last ten years? The current sensational tee-vee reporting alleges that the parents of the boy received gifts from Jackson, including a new car to chauffeur the sacrificial lamb up to Neverland for nefarious play. Shouldn't these parents be charged with something as well as Jackson?

The implicit greed for gifts, for sweets, for goodies of every kind among the poor folk Jackson apparently has preyed upon for years is one of the more disgusting aspects to the story. Perhaps the biggest treat of all is the lure of celebrity itself.

How else explain the woman going home in the early hours with Phil Spector; or the young woman alleging rape by Kobe Bryant? Simply to be in their company, these women put themselves at risk, almost hypnotized by the dazzling promise of face time with a star. And why do women go out with Tyson? Are they planning on being beaten, just so they may take up legal cudgels to extract a settlement? Or, is dating Tyson or O.J. Simpson a celebrity brass ring, sufficient unto itself?

We need to go back to fairy tales to raise our kids to be wary again. Beware the wolf in grandma's clothing. There's a lesson there. Beware the kid-friendly hovel of the witch, covered in candy and cookies, which entices Hansel and Gretal into the clutches of the witch who wants to eat them. Wasn't that house of candy a mini-version of Neverland?

Such archetypes of danger disguised in pleasing form are truer than all the overlays of feminism correctness where sexual harassment in the office place is a no-no placed almost on the same scale as violent sexual assault.

Perhaps right up there with Little Red Riding Hood's wolf should go some archetype of celebrity and movie star or sports beauty — Adonis as unbridled appetite, pure seduction and evil.

The child in the Michael Jackson case is still a child. But his parents must be cringing with guilt and regret for having taken Jackson's lavish gifts while sacrificing their son.

Celebrity, money and beauty are dangers lurking in the media saturated woods. Get over them, America!