*sigh*

[nancylebov]

NPR (Radio Times) is doing an hour-long call in show about whether Tiger Woods has a right to privacy.

This reminds me of the OJ Simpson trial-- NPR was too dignified to just do celebrity gossip, so they did lots of shows about how the rest of the media was reporting on the trial.

The interviewee is blaming Woods for having the sort of persona which wouldn't fuck up.

Is there any conceivable social change which would lead to kinder treatment of famous people?

Addendum: The interviewer just said that yesterday's show about Afghanistan got very few callers, but the lines are filled up today.

Comments

[arashinomoui.livejournal.com]

Not particularly, IMO. We, as a whole, like our heroes to have feet of clay, we, as a whole, like to see them trip and fall. So as it was, so will it be, IMO.

[fengi.livejournal.com]

I thought about this when I saw a story labeling Tiger's wife "mysterious" as if there were something suspicious or wrong - or even a conscious choice - when a person who isn't athlete has the visiblity of a normal person.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

Not as long as envy leads us to punish them for their success. In England this is generally immediate, continuous and low-level: successful people or products trigger backlashes from different market sectors at different moments, which they either survive, ignore or outsmart. In the US it seems celebrities get a "grace period" during which resentment accumulates, until such time as they stumble. At that point, it's like a capacitor discharging, and many celebrities never recover, or are forced into gambits like advertising diet products to claw their way back to some lesser station.

I think the most viable strateg is probably to get some group of people that hates you early on, so that the group that likes you know that they have to defend you against the haters. Seems to work for Bono, Lady Gaga, Gore Vidal. Harder to do in sports.

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

I started reading the Wall Street Journal during the OJ Simpson case, as it was the only paper which wasn't covering the trial very much, and when it did it was usually some aspect that interested me such as the reliability of police lab reports nationwide or the like.

In the internet era, I've been able to almost completely ignore this scandal. I gather that Woods had an extra marital affair or something? Whatever, no concern of mine.

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

The interviewer just said that yesterday's show about Afghanistan got very few callers, but the lines are filled up today.

Probably because most people, if pressed, would have the grace to admit that they don't actually know enough about Afghanistan to have a worthwhile opinion on it . . . but everybody feels qualified to have an opinion about somebody else's extramarital affairs.

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

Re-instituting duels, while allowing the challenging party to hire a representative would do it. But I think the unintended consequences would be excessive. Famous people's privacy was protected in the 20th century - JFK's affairs and FDR's illness come to mind as examples. But the problem today is even if you could convince the mass media to return to the status quo ante there are enough other routes for information to travel these days it wouldn't be sufficient.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

No, because if we didn't pick on famous people, we might start picking on rich people.