A tentatively confirmed list in progress
Remember the days when you’d wake up to a horrifying story about a famous man you liked or respected being credibly accused of or admitting to coffee-curdling awfulness? But just one. Singular. Those were the days. Oh, to worry over whether or how to engage with the work of, say, a skeevy actor or a musician one at a time.
Now the landscape of popular culture is a veritable Whack-a-Mole field across which icons and has-beens alike are constantly popping up as creeps, criminals and outright monsters, but our current legal system has left us bereft of mallets. It’s almost like American culture is built on some sort of system that places men in power over women and encourages their abuse and subjugation, largely without consequences. Crazy, right?
How does one keep track? A centralized list would be great but overwhelming in terms of practical use and the psychological vertigo of witnessing the sheer volume. It’s easier and less hope-killing to list the male public figures we can confirm are not sexual predators. The vetting process has been arduous and disheartening, but we are confident in our list given the information at our disposal. Mostly (*knocks wood). But obviously it’s subject to change (*deep, shaky breath). Don’t let us down, fellas.
Garfield. Is he free of vice? He is not. Gluttony, sloth, wrath and whatever deadly sin bullying his owner falls under are all well documented in this icon’s comic strip, which began in 1976 and has expanded to books, television, film and plastic phones. But Garfield lusts only for lasagna and even if he were of a lascivious disposition, one imagines he would not strain himself to lift a nonconsensual paw. At least in the area of sexual harassment and abuse, Garfield leaves his legacy as clean as he leaves a baking dish. The same can hardly be said of handsy peers like Pepé Le Pew.
Elias the Hermit, aka Elias of Egypt. An ascetic monk, Elias is recorded to have spent some 80 years during the 4th century A.D. alone in a cave in the mountains of Egypt. While his life was one dedicated to religious contemplation, it’s really the fact that there was simply nobody to harass, harangue, pressure into sex or traffic. You can chalk it up to his never entering the swirling internet cesspool of the manosphere, but it’s a win in any case. (Note: Apocryphal reports of his living to 110 do leave some 30 years unaccounted for so please contact us if you have any relevant information.)
The Swedish Chef. Unlike Noma, his kitchen has always been an abuse-free zone. Sure, he’s committed some egregious food waste but amid the flying cabbage and clouds of flour, he’s kept his fleshy hands to himself, placing himself apart from infamous chefs like Mario Batali. The Swedish Chef is, despite his mustache, a safe man to be around. Without knives or hot soup.
Sisyphus. Makes sense, given he was doomed to push a boulder to the top of a hill only to watch it roll back to the bottom over and over for all eternity. The man’s hands were busy. But not only did he refrain from catcalling others toiling in Hades during his endless punishment, his only crime was being a real one. Sisyphus called out Zeus — the original sexual predator — for abducting the nymph Aegina. That’s allyship and we see you.
Ebenezer Scrooge. A real sonofabitch, to be sure, and enabled by the same unfettered capitalistic greed that has allowed today’s billionaire elite to perpetrate and get away with the worst kinds of sexual exploitation. But you won’t see Ebenezer Scrooge in the Epstein files or in a photo with Diddy. Even before the greedy geezer found the Christmas spirit, he treated everyone horribly without regard to gender and never wielded his power to do creepy shit. Jacob Marley didn’t rattle his chains at his old partner over being a sex pest, just a miserly and joyless husk of a man. Cheers, buddy.
Godzilla. Would we say he’s safe? Maybe not. But his wanton destruction of cities and their denizens has always been driven by nuclear-powered animal fury and rage at tiny airplanes. Biting a train car or engulfing a seaport in flames is not being your best self and it’s not how we handle big feelings. But it’s not being a sexual predator, either. At the end of the day, is he a monster? Yes, but he’s no Harvey Weinstein. And you don’t see him picking up and abducting random blondes — looking at you, Kong.
Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the managing editor at the Journal. Reach her at (707) 442-1400 ext. 106 or jennifer@northcoastjournal.com. Follow her on Bluesky and Instagram @JFumikoCahill.
This article appears in On the Matter of Censure.
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