I don’t know—maybe I know but don’t quite get it—why Tiger Woods has to apologize to everyone and anyone. What possible crimes could he have committed? His public apology would have been fitting in magnitude had he mortgaged the world’s oil fields to Martians for a romp with nubile, supple aliens.
International sportsmen seem to have made Faustian bargains with their sponsors, their media managers, and the general public. The “with great power comes great responsibility” dictum has been twisted beyond context. How can it be that people are stupid enough to look up to public figures as perfectly moral archetypes?
What a pity Tiger Woods is such a wimp! If his only “problem” is that he likes sex with multiple women, he should just never have married and spared himself the effort of doing it on the sly—given his list, it must’ve been like hiding an elephant in a cupboard.
How wonderful it would’ve been had Tiger Woods just carried on with his business, unapologetic and unperturbed. He would’ve lost the sponsors, half his wealth in divorce settlements, his media-created public image—basically everything extraneous to his actual talent. With a media wave of derision behind him, he would have returned and won a major just like old times. But that was not to be. This world is warped. Here we have to issue apologies and publicly atone to be deemed cured.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
i’m so sorry!
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6 comments:
i dont think a lot of them would be looking upto a lot beyond his professional life..save that he may be a black icon next to obama and will smith...now that someone sleuthed and got a pic than they jot points of awareness to a mass hysteria as must have been expected. The mere fact that he expects his apology to convince these people is just the punishment that befits the crime...both petty...the real victim, if she must have indded been truely affected, is hardly mentioned. These are big people with a lot of sham things building substance in their lives...and even their so called talent comes with a lot of strings attached...namely social security, a spotless public image and so on...he will win just the same....had he not apologised, i doubt if the world would have let him win...and people like us would have felt THAT to have been the befitting punishment...or may be it would have been
You like a sportsman for his abilities. He brings joy with what he does best. But he doesn't owe you an explanation. The thing with Tiger Woods was he was 'sold' as this 'ideal' model. A similar string of events with a Critiano Ronaldo might not have been in the media so long.
Think we all grow up with ideas of the 'ideal' world. We tend to largely judge people being either 'good' or 'bad'. We have grown up with ideas of heroic kings, national leaders etc. Perspective is lost in building up of something beyond the reality. For example 'Jodha Akbar', the movie has no reference to Akbar's harem. What sells is a hero who is a Moral Science textbook. The truth is glossed over for the person to be put on a pedestal. A pedestal that shouldn't be there in the first place. Similar is case with our 'national leaders'. Their mistakes in decision making are never accommodated for when we speak of them. If only they could be, they would have been more human for us relate to.
@sucharita: The whole thing is a circus, with the media and celebrities feeding off each other. Maintaining a certain public image is being in prison. A model celebrity life is lived by totally unrealistic public rules. I've always believed that people are not necessarily moral or immoral. While their natural disposition (if you can call it that) certainly plays a part, given enough opportunities they can act diferent to what one would expect them to. People are malleable, somewhat enslaved to circumstances. They don't necessarily not cheat because they think it is wrong; their actions can be governed by what chances they get in life and the accompanying practical risks. It would've been great had Woods held a press conference and announced instead that his marriage never worked anyway and that he was willing to pay his wife whatever and be free to do what he likes--play golf and have sex with whoever.
@shishir: Totally. Its clear now that Woods was sold as a brand. He endorsed not just products but values. What a ridiculous concept! I think Woods is more addicted to money of course and to maintaining this clean image. Life in the spotlight has totally castrated international sportsmen. When Agassi came out in the open, Federer remarked that it was a pity. It was because Agassi made it more difficult for him to excel in competitive by taking performance-deminishing drugs. But I dont think Federer meant that.
And yes, it is an unhealthy fascination to clean historical figures of all muck. History books double as moral science texts.
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I think it would help if we limit obsession to sportsmen or movie heroes...the point is not judging what Woods is doing at his level because when someone has his spot, everything he will do or not do will hog the limelight. He is doing at his level what ordinary people do at theirs. It merely comes in the papers because its got a name attached to it....and by the time one goes to those levels of an international celebrityhood delineation of fact from fiction becomes flimsy. I disagree with the people who make it such an issue, who wreck up a story just to have something to talk about because they do not find anything better to do with their lives. People are just people. Idolize them, they are bound to fall...Unless someone is getting hurt in the process, or injustice being meted out to someone, it is unfair to go about disbursing character certificates to people. and especially in cases like these, or Bill Clinton for instance...frankly, our opinion doesn't matter because they will exactly do what they are trained to do...excel, in their definition of the term..which mostly equivalents to numerical figures on paper.
I agree with you. People are forced to live some life that does not represent them or at least they are marketed that way.
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