The road to sainthood is heavily mined and often in the modern era completely manufactured though not necessarily by the potential saint in question. The mold was temporarily broken in the sixties and seventies when rebellious and radical identities were sought and projected. Outlaws became a heroes again as they had in the Great Depression.
But then came the Reagan era and the Boomers who had been raised in much greater privilege than their parents now embraced the machinery of that privilege. Money was preferred to ideology, tie-dyes were exchanged for pin stripes. Obsessions became more temporal as television assured us that the body needed its comforts. Again we built saints.
In England there is a certain level of conduct and virtue expected from the captain of its national team and this apparent paradigm of virtue is born when appointed. Thus did John Terry enter this coveted position in English football. In America we manufacture these role models where we can find them and in the last decade that figure has been Tiger Woods. Both these men have lucrative sponsorships and both have, curiously, often appeared on the cover of the EA Sports titles for their respective sports. And both men recently fell from their assumed heights.
In England bad deeds seem to stick more readily to those who are caught in the public spotlight but in America something very different happens, the media often drives an aggressive campaign of downfall and redemption. Tiger Woods is set up as the boy saint with the proud father. When a celebrity fall comes the media does not appear to leap to outright condemnation but holds their collective breath to see how the public will react and if there is the least bit of hesitation they rush into the lacuna of judgment with a redemption song, eyes glistening with the thought of rating spikes. In the accelerated story arcs of television forgiveness comes swiftly.
Would these reporters forgive their own spouses so quickly for such transgressions? Probably not. But this is a different type of absolution. It is forgiveness as power play. They can humble the fallen star to come on their TV programs and deliver their higher ratings. This is akin to a triumphant Roman general parading through the street while a slave whispers in his ear, “All fame is fleeting.”
A recent commentary by Howard Bryant on ESPN starts with the byline, “Four rounds of high-quality golf at the Masters isn’t enough to earn back our trust.” Who is this collective he is referring to? Who among us has a need to trust Tiger Woods, John Terry or any other celebrity? And to do what? Watch our kids? Pick up the laundry? He goes on in the article to describe how the camera would zoom into “the once-inspiring-but-now-unsettling image of his face.” And what made that face so unsettling? Is it really that different? This just seems like the flip side of the media projecting the saintly image onto Tiger Woods for that past fifteen years. Bryant also points out that during the Masters’ news conference that Woods avoided the words “women” and “sex.” I don’t watch a lot of golf or more truthfully, any, but is it normal for sportsman to go on about women and sex at a news conference that is attached to a major sports competition? A little further in the article and Bryant mentions that the announcers at the Masters would only refer to Tiger’s ” ‘difficulties’, but on air never said the words. You’d never know, just by listening, exactly what those difficulties were.” Except for the fact that the media has inundated us with this story at the expense of anything that might be going on in, say, Afghanistan and if they ever actually veered away from the Tiger Woods’ story it was only to venerate that latest Apple product.
The fact is people don’t care exactly who has infidelities outside their monkey sphere as long as it is someone. They’re just here for the entertainment and titillation. Paris Hilton was an unknown before she made a sex tape and now she makes millions a year because she made a sex tape. Marion Barry, the former mayor of Washington, D.C. in the eighties and nineties was eventually reelected after an extremely unflattering video of him being busted doing crack cocaine in a hotel room. At the time, even though this man was responsible for running the city I was living in, I thought this was hilarious. Most of my friends shared this opinion. The Greeks gave us drama but the Romans gave us spectacle. And people are simply not as deeply invested in spectacle. They cheer, they scream, they shout, the argue vociferously but there is no deep schism created in their souls. There is no dark cloud that covers them when a celebrity falls.
All surprise at these spectacles is mock surprise. Putting young people with access to immense wealth and fame and all its trappings up on a pedestal of rectitude creates a ridiculous expectation that is merely used to generate the drama and the hollow outrage that follows it. These people don’t need your forgiveness. They don’t care. We don’t care.
Tiger will be redeemed because that is how the systems works in the States. How these celebrities find forgiveness with their own family and friends is almost irrelevant in this Circus Maximus. John Terry has a more difficult road for several reasons. He has been caught doing more scummy things over a period of time whereas Tiger got caught once for his multiple infidelities. England’s sports fans are a great deal more partisan and divisive so Terry will always have vocal detractors from the fan base, and lets face it – from partisan reporters, of all the other Premier League teams.
I suppose an argument could be made that this is all part of the story of football and sports in general. And I am not immune to it all. When Michael Vick was indicted on dog fighting charges I was incandescently angry. But I would have been just as angry had it been any other citizen of the planet. But as far as who screwed who it serves only to turn a sports competition into an episode of Big Brother.
