Did you see it? Does it even matter to you? Why should you even care?
Personally I didn’t care; to be precise I didn’t watch the thing live. The only reason I’m talking about it is because YouTube, the great time traveling device, took me back in time to Feb. 19 at the T.P.C. Sawgrass Clubhouse in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., where Tiger Woods delivered a speech that would make any public relations practitioner swell up with pride. The speech was a well-orchestrated mea culpa of sorts.
Woods is as iconic as iconic gets in today’s celebrity-driven world. I don’t know much about golf, and he is pretty much the only golfer in my lifetime I cared to know about. He has always been in control of his image; he has never been big on candid interviews and celebrity noise. Yet this scandal thrust him right to the forefront but also thrust the nature of celebrity to the forefront.
It is sad when an athlete, whose real claim to fame is his performance, has to make an apology to the public. His fame isn’t built on a popularity contest, it’s built on this man’s ability to dominate a sport through hard work and discipline. This is what got him endorsements and fame.
The fact he had to apologize to the public is silly. He is not a public official with an obligation to uphold the highest moral and ethical standards. He hasn’t transgressed the sport of golf by taking performance enhancement drugs like A-Rod or Mark McGwire. The danger of celebrity has become that all people who are famous suddenly have to answer to the public and celebrity apologies become a necessity.
Woods didn’t wrong anybody other than his close circle of family and friends, and he didn’t have to humiliate himself by apologizing to everyone for nothing. This is probably some overzealous PR firm’s attempt to bank one of the most bankable athletes of our time.
Celebrity is big business. Being an athlete or a talent who receives any sizable amount of publicity increases your celebrity. An increase in celebrity means an increase in equity and monetary value. This increase can quickly overshadow the actual talents that put people like Woods in their position.
Fame and big business are strange bedfellows and Woods’ apologies were done to appease possible endorsers and appear as though he still has control of his brand image. Most of the people who know who Woods is probably don’t watch or even care for golf, me included. We have come to associate the man with the sport and with that came the fame; once the fame came, we forgot the sport.
His apology had the hallmarks of every great apology, from Jimmy Swaggart to Bill Clinton to, more recently, Kanye West. Woods’ apology should be directed to people that actually love him and know him intimately. Celebrities worshipping and searching for approval in the masses is dangerous because people will celebrate the good times for a celebrity, but celebrate even more when one falls from grace. It’s a strange and twisted relationship.
A headline about Woods winning another PGA event will be big, but not as big as his transgressions. People love to be told about how other people are just as bad as they are. It’s almost as though watching celebrities crash and burn makes us feel comfort in knowing these humans we put on a pedestal are just as flawed as everybody else.
People love to live vicariously through celebrities and, in a sense, also want celebrities to acknowledge the power of the audience. The only people who have an obligation to make public apologies are public officials, because they actually work for the people.
We need to keep a closer eye on political representatives, not Tiger Woods and his extramarital affairs.
Respond to Hama at [email protected]
