Ignorant Slut of the Day – Arthur Miller

Why is celebrated playwright Arthur Miller an Ignorant Slut? You’ll have to read the entire Vanity Fair article to really get the gist of it; however, here’s the lowdown:

For all the public drama of Arthur Miller’s career—his celebrated plays (including Death of a Salesman and The Crucible), his marriage to Marilyn Monroe, his social activism—one character was absent: the Down-syndrome child he deleted from his life.

At his death, the only major American newspaper to mention Daniel in its obituary was the Los Angeles Times, which said, “Miller had another son, Daniel, who was diagnosed with Down syndrome shortly after his birth in 1962. It is not known whether he survives his father.” Citing the Gottfried biography, the paper reported that Daniel had been put in an institution, where Miller “apparently never visited him.”

Miller had not only erased his son from the public record; he had also cut him out of his private life, institutionalizing him at birth, refusing to see him or speak about him, virtually abandoning him.

It’s a pretty sad story – and I don’t understand how a father could cut off his son like that. Especially one with Down’s Syndrome, who so obviously needed the love of his parents.