Eccentric Flower:200912/Celebrity Again
From Eccentric Flower
«December 2009 «Eccentric Flower
Celebrity, Again
Because we're not out of the Woods yet.
In yesterday's comment on Tiger Woods, which was supposed to be brief, I had originally added this paragraph:
"(My take on public character referenda is that they are mandatory comeuppance for clergy, just barely justified in the case of politicians, and unjustified for anyone else. Woods' issues are his business and his wife's - period. Now, if you would like to insist that our professional athletes are held to high standards of conduct, fine - I can get behind that - but in that case, call up Matt Taibbi, who has been keeping the "Sports Blotter" for years, and he'll give you some pointers on where the clock-cleaning should start in the NBA and the NFL. But until there are no career criminals, rapists, serial-woman-beaters, et al playing for the Bengals or the Trail Blazers and half the other teams in those leagues, don't say squat to me about a golfer who's fooling around.)"
That paragraph, as often happens when I'm in a hurry, tries to conflate several different things, and I'd like to focus on the key bit here instead.
But first, related testimony.
Years ago - and although the actual quote is somewhere in my clippings file, I don't want to dredge it out right now, so this is a paraphrase - the inimitable Judith Martin said about a major political scandal: "I would like nothing more than to declare that the private lives of political figures are off-limits and therefore their scandals are none of the public's business. However, then you have to stop showing off the wife and the kids. It has always been false to show only the part the candidate wants shown."
We will accept that Judith Martin is right, because if you ever find yourself betting against a pronouncement from Judith Martin, check your sanity.
Today, in the Globe, Joanna Weiss made, or attempted to make, a similar argument:
I suspect Weiss has some unresolved grudges against Woods here, because I cannot otherwise imagine what would lead her to this assessment with this much hostility.
As far as I can tell about Woods, he has never been comfortable with being in the spotlight, never been happy with celebrity. He just wants to play golf and be left alone. It's one of the things I admire about him (which, I admit, may lead me to overcompensate in his favor). I have never gotten the impression Woods wants us to be enthralled, when he's a winner or any other time. The vibe I've gotten from him is more "I'm just playing golf here, I'm glad you like watching, but don't make too much of it."
Sure, there have been the endorsements galore (my favorite is the set of Accenture ads that appear in The Economist - Woods has absolutely nothing to do with the service being sold, but he's one of the only sports figures that the kind of execs who read that magazine know or care about). But I'm not going to fault the guy for wanting to make money. That's still not the same as saying, "Oh, please, I hunger for the spotlight, come look at me."
If Woods had shown attention-seeking behavior in the past, then the Judith Martin argument would apply; but I'm not sure it does. And, again, there is the matter of whether someone deserves to be on public trial for morality at all.
Despite decades of its being proven to be a futile exercise in no way tied to effectiveness, Americans (except those who grew up in Louisiana, Chicago, or New York) seem to want to hold politicians to some sort of standard of moral impeccability, as if one's record on adultery is somehow pertinent to the way one votes on taxes, or some such. I'm not arguing against the practice, you understand, I'm just a little bewildered by it. I'm okay with silly moral tests for politicians because 1) they are, after all, representing the public and 2) we do apply the tests reasonably consistently. The moral standard for politicians in this country is, and has been for a very long time: Don't do it, and if you do, don't get caught.
But celebrities and athletes don't represent the public. It is arguable whether they should be public figures at all. (Note to lawyers: Not arguable whether they are. I think it's pretty indisputable, especially in terms of American libel law, that they are. I'm talking about whether they should be - I'm talking about the collective insanity of the popular standards, not the law.)
I don't approve of Woods' adultery, but I see no reason why it's any of my business, and I see even less evidence that his adultery affects the thing he's famous for - hitting a ball across a field with a stick - than adultery affects a politician's ability to think clearly on taxes.
That's not important, the counterargument goes. He's a celebrity. The standards of scrutiny are automatically raised. Weiss again:
Again, we must make the distinction: Weiss is surely correct in that she is describing the world the way it actually is, god help us. But as Adam Savage said, "I reject your reality and substitute my own." And in this case it is perfectly okay for me to do so.
I don't understand celebrities, I don't believe in celebrity as a status, I don't get the whole thing at all. If I like someone as a golfer, I want to watch them play golf. If I like them as an actor, I want to watch them act. I don't care about their marriages or their adoptions or their affairs or their drinking problems (except insomuch as it keeps them from golfing or acting). And while I really don't expect to change the peculiar psychology of Americans single-handedly, I see no reason why I can't keep saying how wrong the entire cult-of-celebrity in this country is, over and over, until I die or run out of breath. I don't even care if nobody is listening. If you follow the lives of celebrities to any degree, I think you need a better hobby. The end. Sorry. I still love you.
I believe Weiss' analysis of the celebrity-cult drive is correct, but I read it a little differently than she does. While I think that in America celebrity probably is an art form, I also see something much nastier below it.
I think Americans have lost the ability to have unironic heroes, heroes without feet of clay. (I think it is accurate to expect your heroes to have feet of clay, but this accuracy may not be a good thing. Keep reading.) I think we began losing this around the time of Charles Lindbergh, and World War II really put paid to it - although I don't think it was until we lost June Cleaver as an ideal that it was really allowed to sink in that Everything Had Changed.
There's a story which James Thurber wrote called "The Greatest Man In The World," about a guy who makes a record-breaking flight in a cobbled-together plane, and then turns out to be a jerk, a low-brow, poorly behaved, craven, white-trash boor. It ends with him being disreetly pushed out a window at a press conference. A state funeral is held for the hero, with much pomp and circumstance.
To understand why this satire worked at the time the story was written (around the time of Lindbergh's flight), you have to realize that all our national heroes before then had been well-behaved in public, or at least acted that way reasonably well. I don't think Lindbergh's odious personal politics had come to light yet when Thurber wrote it, but Thurber had a very good sense of when the other shoe was about to drop.
And drop it did. These days when we make a hero, we do so at least fifty percent because we are waiting to see him trip and fall. We follow celebrity marriages, but also hunger to read about the inevitable divorce. We talk up child stars, but also enjoy watching their ruination. Sure, we celebrate their successes, but - and this is the part that changed - we also revel in their failures, where once we would have mourned them. And the fact that in almost all the cases, these celebrities are ego-driven, spotlight-seeking, superficial Hollywood types does not in any way change the basic nastiness of our expectations. "They were asking for it" is almost never a sufficient defense.
I am okay with following celebrities because of escapism. I'm okay with wanting to see the pretty dresses and imagine yourself in the mansion and on the red carpet and with the aesthetically pleasing boy/girlfriend and in general dreaming of a lifestyle which, on the surface, seems better and/or more glamorous than your own drab, wretched life. I understand the appeal of that. But oh, how quickly that turns to ashes and jealousy and hatred! The flipside of that escapism is resentment - things you can't have, things you will be happy to see destroyed.
Better to avoid the whole thing, is my philosophy. But maybe I can only say that because my own escapist dreams have never involved being a movie star, a rock star, or a professional athlete. Ever. Not even when I was little.
Anyway, I don't think Woods deserves this. I don't think the man's a saint but I don't think he merits public crucifixion either, and it's astonishing to see the vultures who were waiting to pounce on a misstep, and how many there were, and how fast they leave nothing but the bones.
Hmm. I see your point about segmentation, but I think there are limits to that.
To go with the politics example, many countries divide the roles of Chief Executive and Head of State. I would agree that whatever the former does with her private life is plausibly nobody else's concern. The same emphatically does not go for the latter. The entire point of the latter is to be a personal symbol of the nation; he doesn't really get to be a private citizen. (This is why the British royal family gets a different level of scrutiny than British prime ministers. It's also one reason why, for example, the Lewinsky affair was read very differently in different quarters: if you saw the president as Chief Executive, it was nobody's business; if you saw him as Head of State, it was everybody's business. We'd be better off not making the same person wear both hats, but it's a bit late for that now.)
The question at hand is, is the job of an athlete confined to the playing field? Or is the career specifically about being a public figure, with the rules of the sport simply being an arbitary way of producing such people? I think you'd argue the former, Weiss would argue the latter, and I'm wavering but leaning toward her side.
-- 18:13, 5 December 2009 (GMT)
I have a different take on the Woods situation. It's newsworthy because the police were involved. There may have been lying to the police. There may have been a domestic-violence crime committed. Those are issues that are worthy of being reported.
I don't know about whether Woods covets his celebrity or despises it. I do know he exploits it by selling him image, as you point out. The essence of that advertising is that if you buy the product, you'll be a bit like Woods. Now, I don't screw around on my wife, and I don't believe you do, either. If Woods is a guy who screws around on his wife, what am I buying into, morally and philosophically, if I buy the products he hawking?
I agree that the private lives of famous people ought to be private in principle, until you get to hypocritical behavior (and I think you agreee with this, too). Who Anderson Cooper goes to bed with is no one's business, and mostly his private life gets left alone. But that homophobic minister (I forget the name) with the methhead boyfriend -- he needed desperately to be outed, along with all the other "family values" hypocrites out there.
-- 18:39, 5 December 2009 (GMT)
The thing is, people talk about infidelity and judge everybody about affairs, whether it's Tiger Woods or your hairdresser's sister. People gossip. Most people love some sort of gossip, whether they admit it or not, and the only difference between your second cousin's affair and Tiger Woods' affair is that more people know Tiger Woods.
People who make their living being in the public spotlight (and I don't agree with you that Woods wants privacy. If he did, he'd play golf and not put his mug up on every billboard he possibly can...that's not someone who values privacy) in this day and age can't be under any illusion as to what fame entails, and if they insist on acting in a way that would get someone shunned at the neighborhood supermarket, they'd either better be more discreet or just keep their noses clean.
-- 19:38, 5 December 2009 (GMT)
Iain:
You know ... in a way, the ability to allow public figures to have feet of clay does serve a useful function these days. It allows them to keep their careers after their indiscretions come to light. Leaving aside the fact that Tiger Woods couldn't have been this type of celebrity a few decades ago, for many reasons, the fact is that if he'd been revealed to be a serial adulterer in, say, the 1950s, his career would have been effectively over. Not only would all the sponsors have dropped him flat, he'd have been summarily disinvited from upcoming tournaments and events. Nobody would have let him play. So, on the one hand, the lowering of that barrier has some usefulness. On the other hand, it comes with a type of invasivenss that couldn't have been comprehended back then, as well as a far lower threshold on what gets to make the news.
-- 22:07, 5 December 2009 (GMT)
I think the thing about golf is, ultimately, you are playing a game against yourself, striving to be the best you can be. Tiger wants to be the best golfer in the world, and, for the moment, he probably is. Like Michael Jordan is or was the best basketball player. That doesn't mean that Tiger wants all the pub. But he can't prove to himself that he's the best if he doesn't play in public. Comes with the territory. He doesn't have to like it, but he has to do it.
I'm really disappointed that Tiger didn't have the values I prize in any individual, celebrity or not. Nobody HAS to stray. And if they have values, they won't, even though tempted. But I also don't think it's anybody's business but his and his wife's. As for Bill and Hillary, I'd really rather my President had a gram or two of morality, because I think it spills over into all of his decisions. True, the affairs were nobody's business but theirs, but the amorality I found troubling, since he was, in fact, the head of state. That's not a double standard. Whether Tiger wins or loses doesn't matter a whit, but whatever Bill Clinton was using for values mattered a great deal.
I'm not sure where to draw the line on politicians, though. I can't imagine anyone voluntarily subjecting themselves to the kind of scrutiny it takes to get elected to office. You have to be squeaky clean in every aspect of your life, and very few people are, it would appear. We probably lose the services of some extremely qualified people, just because they refuse to subject themselves and their families to that kind of a public circus.
-- 02:50, 6 December 2009 (GMT)
Should I take it as read that moral tests for politicians gain relevance in the cases of politicians who try to enshrine those same moral tests into law?
-- 18:19, 7 December 2009 (GMT)
Joy:
So do you or don't you do the strict segementation thing with your real life friends? Are you really okay with someone as long as their "public" face to you is alright, doing despicable things behind closed doors? Is there a range of stuff you feel like you have to put up with in people's personalities and behavior because of the human nature, but a line that even non-public behavior can cross?
-- 18:45, 7 December 2009 (GMT)
Danima, I didn't mention folks like Newt Gingrich and Bill Richardson, who didn't practice what they preach. I do find that hypocritical and unacceptable. But I don't remember ever hearing Bill Clinton wax moral about his or anybody else's sex life. In his case, I just hated that he couldn't keep it zipped, that he had no respect for his marriage vows. Why should I think he'd have any more respect for other vows, such as his oath of office? Made me uncomfortable, is all. I guess it's too much to ask that I be able to respect the office holder as well as the office.
-- 20:07, 7 December 2009 (GMT)
@Bunny42: Sorry, I should have been more explicit about what I was responding to, which was this paragraph from the original post:
I'm not sure that I generally disagree with your [Bunny42's] remarks about Clinton. Duplicity about marriage vows isn't the biggest or most unusual red flag that can be raised by an American head of state, but it is an element worth taking into account.
-- 20:43, 7 December 2009 (GMT)
Joy: Being friends with someone is an entirely different set of standards from the sort of assessment I was talking about here. A friend, to me, does not fit either the public-figure or private-figure rules. There's a separate box of rules for friends, which is simultaneously more analytical and deeper in many ways and more forgiving in others. It's complicated.
I'd give a longer answer but I'm out of brain cells for it right now. Let's put it this way: Knowledge changes many things. It softens some edges and sharpens others. If you're my friend, I presumably have more knowledge of your drives and intentions and backstories than I would of someone in the newspaper. That affects all my reactions to what you do and say.
-- 23:19, 7 December 2009 (GMT)
Columbina:
Shmuel asks elsewhere, "Would there be any point to a NON-public athlete?" and the answer was too long for 140-char bursts:
I'm not saying non-public athlete. Clearly the athletic part is done in public or there is no point. I don't have a problem watching Woods play golf, nor with admiring his golf game, wanting to play golf like him, etc etc etc. But that's where the boundary is, for me. I not only think his personal life isn't germane to the thing he's famous for, I don't really understand why anyone would want to know about his personal life.
Essentially - and this is where the politics come back in - I am arguing for strict segmentation here. I think you can be a hell of a good politician and be an absolute asshole in all other walks of life, for example, and I don't understand when other people have a problem with that, as if their boundaries all were left out in the rain and run together.
Of course, I'll be the first to admit that this is at least partially because my view of human nature these days is so negative that strict compartmentalization is the only way I can handle people at all. Or, put another way, if I waited for people to be complete saints, or role models, in every aspect of their existences, I'd have a very long wait.
-- 17:35, 5 December 2009 (GMT)