There’s been a lot of undue attention given to celebrity antics of late. Although I’m sick of hearing about [Kanye West](https://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1621389/20090913/west_kanye.jhtml), I think there are bigger issues relevant to this upswing in distasteful behavior that no one is talking about. I realize the situation is suffering from inflation because it’s so current, but I can’t keep from offering my two cents.
First of all, I’m impressed with the breadth of the spectrum of Americans involved. Athletes, congressmen, whites, blacks, men, women – even President Obama – have augured in. It seems more and more that, despite how polarized we may be, nothing unites this country like a good old-fashioned embarrassing gaffe.
What’s sad is how we debase ourselves in the way we respond to such shenanigans. How pathetic can our national media be when they act like giddy schoolchildren because the president called someone a [“jackass”](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/14/obama-kanye-is-a-jackass_n_286623.html) off the air and off the record? What’s wrong with his use of that word? Maybe it’s not presidential, but neither, apparently, is wearing [jeans](https://popwatch.ew.com/2009/07/15/president-barack-obama-all-star-game-pitch/) to throw out the first pitch at a ballgame. And there wasn’t (nor should there have been) a big fuss over that mistake.
Speaking of Obama, during a recent speech he was [interrupted](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/us/politics/10wilson.html) by now-infamous Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.). Putting notions of decorum aside, Wilson’s worst mistake was the timing of his outburst, not the outburst itself. (As it happens, he was correct in his assertion, but that is beside the point.) What does it say about the legitimacy of a country’s political process when we are encouraged and expected to interrupt the president to voice our approval, but we may not voice our concerns over an issue representing 16 percent of the economy? If words casually thrown around like “jackass” matter so much, why don’t we care what our elected leaders tell us?
As an aside, anybody looking to Congress for moral uprightness is probably looking in the wrong place. How many sex scandals does it take for that point to sink in? These people used to beat each other with canes, for crying out loud. They’re supposed to vote on issues, hopefully with their constituents’ best interests in mind; everything else is icing on the cake.
Speaking of which, why all the hullabaloo over athlete tantrums? There must be something in the water. When upstanding athletes like Tiger Woods and Roger Federer are getting called out for unsportsmanlike conduct, you know things are out of whack. And while we’re at it, Serena Williams is also being treated unfairly by the media. I’m not defending her course of action, but cut her some slack. In the heat of a moment on a controversial call, she lost her [temper](https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/09/14/sports/AP-TEN-US-Open-SWilliams.html). Wouldn’t you? Are her actions any different than those of, say, John McEnroe, one of the most consistently belligerent public sports personalities of our time? And he gets paid big bucks to open his mouth, as though his accomplishments as a player mask any shortcomings he may have as a person.
aybe there’s nothing wrong with that, but why doesn’t Serena get the benefit of the doubt? Again, it’s a case of bad timing – there’s a time and a place to shove tennis balls down someone’s throat, but it’s usually not during a nationally televised tennis match.
The media, channeling Chicken Little, have taken their usual “the sky is falling” approach. Their tired angle with these incidents has been: Why can’t celebrities set a good example anymore? The implication here is that, not too long ago, celebrities were good role models. I disagree. I’ll be the first to admit that pop culture left me for dead a long time ago, but it’s hard for me to think of a single celebrity whose work I admire that I would be comfortable taking home to my family for Thanksgiving. They’re all brilliant artists, musicians, athletes and writers, but some are also draft-dodging, self-indulgent, drug-abusing, womanizing alcoholics.
The tendency is to look to the past as some bygone era of respectability and grandeur, when in reality it had just as much going against it as the modern day. The problem is that we keep reinforcing the notion that when you cause a scene, people will pay attention.
What I’m trying to say, in other words, is that we’ve forgotten the different meanings of “professional,” equating – unreasonably, I might add – uprightness with what we do for a living. I expect Tiger Woods to make shots nobody else can make. I don’t expect him to be able to perform brain surgery, and I don’t expect him to raise my children for me.
aybe you do. That’s OK. But nobody is forcing your hand. Maybe you’re disappointed in Serena Williams or Kanye West. You have a right to be; their actions were deplorable. But they’re people, too. There are professionals whom we admire for what they do, and then there are those professional people whom we admire for how they live. What a pity they don’t overlap more often.
Colin Nagle is a junior in the College. He can be reached at naglethehoya.com. Getting in Tune appears every other Friday.
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