Tevye is an A-Hole

Look, I realize that this, like many of my opinions, places me in the firm minority, but someone's gotta be the one to come out and say it. And I'm not really out to convince anyone; this is mostly because I'm a lazy bastard who never posts anything, so my friends made me get back on track, and this is the first thing that came out.

Anyway. Tevye's an asshole.

I am speaking of the main character in the musical Fiddler on the Roof. I'm not actually that big into musical theatre, but I had this, uh... discussion... with my wife Sarah recently and I figured it was random enough to warrant a blog post. It's a show I've seen maybe two or three times in my life, so, hell, that makes me an expert.

For those who don't know or remember the show, I will summarize. Tevye is a Jewish dairy farmer in rural Russia in 1905. It's a traditional town and he's a traditional guy. He is BFFs with tradition. He has three five daughters, named A, B, C, D and E. A, B and C are of marriageable age; D and E are in fact extraneous characters who are only causally connected to the plot by virtue of being the device that introduces one of the Suitors (see below) to the family.

In short, each daughter chooses a husband more audacious than the last, stretching poor Tevye's ability to cope with cultural change. It's 1905 in Russia, after all, and many new things are afoot. Tsarist pogroms, urban Marxist youths and so on. Soon after the show begins, Tevye arranges for daughter A to be married to the wealthy Suitor 1, who is in fact named Lazar Wolf, and I mention him by name only because his name is so badass. Dr. Wolf-Laser is even older than Tevye, however, so A naturally falls in love with Suitor 2 who is much closer to her own age. A explains this to Tevye and although he is initially shocked, he agrees that Love Is Actually Kinda Okay and gives her his blessing. The engagement to Captain Wolfenhammer is called off.

During this time, daughter B has been busy falling in love with Suitor 3, who is a new-fangled Marxist. Stuff happens, and he soon has to head to Kiev to join the revolution. B and 3 inform Tevye that they are engaged, and -- you may want to grab the smelling salts for this -- they have decided this themselves, without asking for his consent. Tevye pisses and moans some more, and I think there may be some sort of song, but eventually he counters by giving them his consent anyway. Ha! Anyway, Suitor 3 is shortly captured and sent to Siberia, so B follows him there to hang out and whatnot.

Now, daughter C. She has been secretly dating Suitor 4 for a while now, who was introduced by being the tutor for daughters D and E, and the problem with him is he's not Jewish. Remember, Tevye totally loves tradition. C petitions him for permission to marry 4. So now, finally, Tevye has found a line he can't cross; he thinks on this for a while but simply can't bring himself to consent to a marriage outside of the faith. He orders C to stop talking to 4, which as all parents know is certain to work. Shockingly, C elopes with 4 anyway. Tevye wails and gnashes his teeth, wondering how it all came to this, but -- get this -- when C comes back to try to reason with him, he still rejects her. Apparently all the soul-searching didn't help him much. And actually, "reject" is not a strong enough word; he shuns her. Says she's dead to him, and to the rest of the family.

The rest of the play is mostly wrapping up the loose ends. They have to leave their village because of the pogroms so some of the kids are heading to Krakow while Tevye and the missus are making plans to head to America. There is some scene near the end where Tevye finally brings himself to mumble a prayer -- through his wife -- to the daughter, which we are to take as evidence that he's an Okay Guy After All, but... wait, what? Jews are being ethnically cleansed in his homeland, and he has to leave everyone and everything he knows, and this is the thing he's hung up about? What the hell, man?

That's Tevye's line, and frankly, this is mine. I felt this way before I had kids, but now my opinion on this matter is only stronger: your kids are the people in the world who need you the most. They trust you more than anyone. If you, as a parent, have just one goddamn job, it's to be good to your kids. You are there for them when they need you, even if it gets in the way of one of your hissy fits. You don't go against the family. Ever.

Look, my kid could kill a guy. He could kill a dozen people and wander into my house with the murder weapon still dripping blood in his hand, and my reaction would go something like the following:

1. Holy shit.
2. Are you okay?
3. What the hell happened?
4. Holy shit.
5. Okay, okay. Come on in, get cleaned up and sit down. I'll put some tea on. Tell me what happened.
6. You should probably turn yourself in. I'll go with you and I'll be with you the whole time.
7. No? Okay. Go hide in the basement while I talk to the cops. Then we're driving to Mexico.
8. Oh, and text Mom.

"But Mark," you may be saying (as Sarah was), "remember? Tevye was a staunch traditionalist. This was foreshadowed the whole time. Everyone has a breaking point and this was his." And you know what? I agree. None of this is in dispute. In fact, this is exactly what makes him an asshole. Some people are assholes because they lack empathy, some because of an unfortunate upbringing or whatever, and Tevye is an asshole because he values his religion more than his kids.

I also don't buy the argument that I should evaluate this in its historical context. Or rather, I already am. First, the whole thing about tradition is that it doesn't change, right? What makes tradition tradition is that it's largely the same across centuries. Someone who shuns his kids today is an asshole, just like Tevye is in 1905, just like some other theoretical asshole in 1505. And I doubt very much his daughter was the only kid marrying outside the faith at that time, and while it's reasonable to assume that while some parents reacted as Tevye did, others were a little more chill about the whole thing. Like maybe, "Hey, I'm not super-in-favor of this, but I guess you're not ethnically cleansing anyone, so let's just say we're cool." Or even a simple, "I strongly disapprove but at least I won't pretend you're dead" would have been okay.

That's really what gets me. I don't expect the guy to approve, but don't get all pouty and just pretend your daughter isn't there. Way to be the big man, Tevye.

So that's where I'm coming from. If your ideology, whether it's religion or politics or whatever, requires you to betray the trust of the people who need you most, you should get a new ideology. And stop being an asshole.

Anyway, I apologize for the rant, but frankly it's what I do best, so there you go. It's not even something I feel all that strongly about -- I'm sure I'll forget I even wrote this in a week or two -- but I had to write something, and this was it. And honestly, the fact that I wrote about such a random and spurious topic might actually prompt me to post more often here, now that I've effectively lowered the bar for admissible material. Like a hero.