An Open Letter to Mel Brooks

Dear Mr. Brooks, 

Congratulations on your ninety-sixth birthday, or if you will, the seventieth anniversary of your twenty-sixth birthday. 

I know it’s awkward to mention this now, when congratulations are in order, but you owe me $11.95. 

You see, when I was a teenager in the late 1990s, I watched your magnificent “Young Frankenstein” for the first time on our home VHS player, and upon seeing Marty Feldman’s Igor abruptly sing “I Ain’t Got Nobody,” I laughed so hard that my feet knocked over my mother’s prized crystal fruit bowl, chipping its top. I offered to glue it back, but my mother refused. I even attempted to strategically hang a cluster of grapes over the side of the bowl to hide where it had chipped, but it was of no use; my father was pathologically fond of grapes and the chipped edge of shame was left continuously exposed. For some reason, my father always resorted to stress-eating hundreds of grapes whenever my mother entered the room. 

Forgive my digression. But you do owe me $11.95 for that crystal bowl. At least, it was supposed to be crystal. After it chipped, I checked its box and beneath the words, “T.J. Maxx” and “Made in Slovakia” was the price tag. As you’ll recall, $11.95 went a long way in 1999; with that amount, my mother could have purchased a pound of kosher ground beef and a few gallons of gasoline, and still have enough left over to buy a matinee ticket to watch part of “Saving Private Ryan,” before demanding a refund because Tom Hanks didn’t take the mermaid with him to the battlefront.

Yes, my mother loved that bowl; she said it was the best re-gifted present my aunt had ever given her. I believe you’ve enjoyed a moderate level of box office, theatrical, television and literary success and can afford to compensate me. I will kindly waive the interest fee, which, as you can imagine, is no small amount given that the incident occurred 23 years ago. 

Mr. Brooks, I made another mistake that concerned you when I was a teenager: I watched your brilliant “Spaceballs” without having first seen any actual “Star Wars” films (not to mention “Alien,” “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Planet of the Apes”). That meant that once I did watch Mr. Lucas’s original “Star Wars,” I was bitterly disappointed to find that it lacked your humor. I was also mortified that the only “Jews in Space” were Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher; I guess when brought together, they constituted a whole Jew.

Speaking of “Jews in Space,” I want to offer my deep gratitude to you for all of your delicious representations of Jews. I badly needed to see these representations when I came to this country as a Jewish asylum-seeking, child refugee from post-revolutionary Iran. Surely, you know that Jewish life after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran has offered a flourishing garden of tolerance, growth, vitality and more tolerance. Yes, the heads of state spout Holocaust denial and Zionism is a capital offense there, but they have some of the best pistachios you’ve ever tasted. 

I didn’t know what role Jews played in American Jewish life; worse, my trauma from Iran left me with an immediate distrust of any country and its treatment of Jews. Was America like Iran? Were we scourges here? Was our culture disdained? Imagine my relief and delight when I watched your films and slowly began to understand that not only were Jews safe in America, but that Jewish culture was actually beloved. 

After watching “The Producers” for the first time when I was in college, I immediately understood: If the musical had originated anywhere other than in America, it would have been cruel to Jews, because antisemitism is such an ingrained relic of so many other countries on earth. Truly, the only country where “The Producers” could have been created was America, and the only Jew who could have created it was you. 

I knew I would be safe in this country because you helped me realize that in America, Jews can laugh — really laugh — at themselves. Making fun of your own so publicly, as you’ve done on film, must be predicated on a certain safety system that’s already in place. That probably explains why “The Inquisition” number from “History of the World, Part I” is downright revolutionary.

I knew I would be safe in this country because you helped me realize that in America, Jews can laugh — really laugh — at themselves. 

Yes, in this country, moderate policy makers don’t make fun of Jews; neither does the mainstream press. I really mean that. Our general safety and prosperity in America are the biggest reasons why we can make fun of ourselves. I don’t even want to imagine if Iran or Venezuela or even most European countries created their own remakes of “The Producers”; “Springtime for Hitler” might be sung with suspiciously sympathetic zeal.

Only in America, and only you. 

There’s a great story, as told by Roger Ebert in 2000, about the time he stood in an elevator with you and your late wife, Anne Bancroft, in an elevator shortly after “The Producers” was released. When a woman entered the elevator and proceeded to say, “I have to tell you, Mr. Brooks, that your movie is vulgar,” you smiled and responded, “Lady, it rose below vulgarity.” 

You’re a treasure to Jews and non-Jews, Mr. Brooks.

I’m willing to make you the following offer: In lieu of a reimbursement for $11.95, grant me an interview with you for this paper.

And I’m willing to make you the following offer: In lieu of a reimbursement for $11.95, grant me an interview with you for this paper. I’ve already given careful thought and conceived a refreshingly unique and powerful headline: “Mel Brooks: The Interview.” 

I hope you had a wonderful birthday and look forward to hearing back from you. I’ll even tell my mother that we’re meeting. You won’t regret being in the company of a beautiful, irreverent Persian woman. And I’ll be there too.

Tabby Refael is an award-winning weekly columnist and an LA-based writer, speaker and civic action activist. Follow her on Twitter @TabbyRefael