Saturday, December 19, 2009

In Defense of Tiger Woods

I've always believed that those who pursue Fame should expect to have their private lives exposed and scrutinized, and that they should just shut up and take it. It's a zero-sum proposition. It's the Spotlight Deal.

If you desire Fame, then you summon the Spotlight at your own peril, because the Spotlight has no care for proper time or place. If you want that Spotlight to shine on you while you're strolling down the red carpet, or when you're pushing a new movie or record, or while you're discussing your latest charitable cause on the morning talk show circuit, then you must accept that the Spotlight can also shine on you when you stagger out of a club that you don't remember entering in the first place, or when the previous nanny becomes the current mommy, or when you flash the world your pink parts because your skirt is the size of a cocktail napkin and you don't know how to get out of a car like a normal human being.

It wasn't always like that, but it is like that now. Gone are the days of only needing to manage daily Page Six coverage, weekly scandal sheets, and the (star-friendly) cameras of Entertainment Tonight ... all cave drawings by the standards of today's pervasive technology, demanding audience, and 24-second internet news cycles. Today, if you want the Spotlight, you get all of the Spotlight all of the time.

So, as you can gather by now, in most cases of celebrity coverage, I side with the media - from the pillars of journalism to the bowels of TMZ. There are, however, exceptions to which I think the media should adhere:

Don't break the law. Freedom of the press does not trump breaking and entering.

Don't invade funerals. That's just tacky.

Don't exploit celebrities' children, unless the celebrities exploit their own children, in which case this exception becomes a little fuzzy.

Don't do anything that endangers anyone's safety. Is getting the 17th picture of the starlet worth a high-speed chase? If you are any good at your job, one of the first 16 pictures will turn out just fine.

Don't involve yourself in the life of Tiger Woods.

(This is where I defend him.)

Roll call! Lanny Wadkins. Larry Mize. Tom Kite. Hal Sutton. Sandy Lyle. Do any of these names ring a bell? How about these: Bernhard Langer. Ian Woosnam. Hale Irwin. Still nothing? How about Ben Crenshaw? No?

The first set of names are some of the golfers who missed the cut in the 1995 Masters. The second set of names are some of the golfers who finished ahead of then-amateur Tiger Woods in the 1995 Masters. Crenshaw won the 1995 Masters.

I'm willing to bet that most of you don't recognize most of the names I mentioned because in the pre-Tiger era, televised golf was the Sunday folly of old white men. In the pre-Tiger era, televised golf was an unwatchable sport with unbearable fashions. In the pre-Tiger era, televised golf was a punch line. I know those names because I watched golf as a kid, and I watched golf as a kid because my grandfather watched golf as on old white man. Baby? She admits that before Tiger came along, she had no clue they played professional golf on days other than Sundays.

Sure, in the pre-Tiger era, you probably had heard of Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer, and maybe one or two others. But these men were answers to trivia questions, not multi-media titans or global spokesman. There were no Michael Jordan-like contracts for golfers in 1995. Any golfers in 1995 who were lucky enough to get endorsement deals beyond having PING emblazoned on a visor - even living legends like Nicklaus and Palmer - were relegated to endorsing golf-specific merchandise, lawn care products, or insurance.

The point of this is to say that Tiger Woods did not pursue Fame, because Fame did not come with golf in 1995. Did he pursue excellence? Of course, as all competitors do (or should). Did he pursue glory? Yes, but glory that was supposed to have come from a small group of people - namely, other golfers and the old white men (and their grandsons) who watched them. Even at the pinnacle of his success - which some might point to as the day before Thanksgiving 2009 - Tiger never said, "Look at me," the way most other celebrities have said, "Look at me." Tiger came out, played well, and around 6:00 PM on Sundays, he disappeared.

And it has always been this way. He's never clamored for the Spotlight and then shunned it once it glared too harshly. He's never made it rain in a strip club. He's never been the subject of an investigation. He's never been linked to weapons. He's never had a posse.

Hello, he's a golfer! To suggest that Tiger Woods pursued Fame through golf - GOLF! - is to suggest that I'm pursuing Fame through this blog.

So what happened? A perfect storm, really. Tiger was a young, good looking, mixed-race player, with talent that seemed to defy all sense of physics, who chose a sport that had been mostly ignored by major advertisers because of its blandness. His look, his sport, and his game were different at a time when spending was high and advertisers would spend highly on anything different. And once the new crowd - the younger, more diverse crowd - took an interest in the old white man's sport, Madison Avenue followed with checkbook in hand.

As for that checkbook, you ask, what about the one billion career endorsements dollars Tiger has taken from the likes of Nike and Buick and Gatorade and others?

Tiger has earned it, and without the sense of entitlement displayed by many young celebrities. Most Fame-chasers approach the Spotlight with a "show me the money" mentality. Tiger, who succeeded not under the bright lights of Hollywood, but rather the oversized umbrella of golf - GOLF! - was approached by companies who shared a different mentality: "Show HIM the money." And why did they approach him that way? Not because Tiger said "Look at me," but because we, the consumers who buy the shoes and the cars and the drinks, said, "Look at him."

Oh, and he spreads the wealth. His presence in the sport of golf has attracted so much advertising revenue, sponsorship commitments, and prize money, the last-place finisher at any Tiger-era tournament makes gobs more money for being the worst on Sunday than he did in the pre-Tiger era. It is the textbook example of how a rising tide lifts all ships. No other single person in any other entertainment outlet does for his or her business what Tiger Woods does for his. Not Derek Jeter, not Tom Cruise, not Eminem, not even Oprah. And yet all Tiger wants today is what he wanted in 1995: Greatness, not Fame.

And for those of you who believe that Tiger thinks his own celebrity status affords him the right to say nothing to the police, that his financial success puts him above the law, you either don't know the law very well or you are easily swayed by the media's near-unanimous demand that he speak. Between his Miranda and Fifth Amendment rights, Tiger owes no one - not even law enforcement - an explanation.

It's easy to understand our mistake in demanding that the media shine the Spotlight just inches away from Tiger's life, and do so twenty-four hours a day. We are a society madly obsessed with Fame, and we have become so accustomed to watching people mistake shamelessness for talent, mistake willingness for skill, or mistake exploitation for love, all for the chance of grabbing that Spotlight and making it shine a little longer than it takes the public stop pointing and laughing, we automatically presume that anyone who has achieved Fame actually pursued Fame in the first place.

Tiger Woods should be left alone to sort out his personal issues. Just because Fame was thrust into his life doesn't mean that we get to be thrust into his life, too.

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