In thinking about the Tiger Woods scandal, his career is done. I’m not justifying what he did, but others have committed similar mistakes except they are not fossilized forevermore by thousands of internet articles and tv reports. Anyone can look up his screw ups and access them at any time.
Is that ethical? Not what Tiger (or anyone in the public eye) did, but how their mistakes are made permanently accessible for anyone.
I know I would be mortified if all my crap were on display for everyone. I know people think celebrities deserve it when it does happen, but as a human, is it ethical and why or why not?
While celebrity gossip and attention shines a harsh spotlight, most of these people who follow this stuff have the attention span of a gnat. Woods’ indiscretions will be pushed to the background when some other scandal comes along.
Also, while he has lost some sponsors, it’s not like he’s been booted out of golf. The scandal hasn’t changed his golfing ability. I very much doubt that “his career is done.”
I don’t think it’s really ethical or unethical. I don’t think he “deserves it,” but i also don’t feel especially sorry for him.
On the one hand, i think the paparazzi and the so-called news organizations that spend hours and days on stories like this are pretty scummy and unprofessional. On the other hand, though, anyone who makes a determined effort to pursue a career like this knows that they will be in the public spotlight. It’s not like they can say that the fame and attention caught them by surprise. Not only that, but most such people actively pursue the fame itself, and seek to capitalize on it by taking multi-million-dollar advertising deals. I’m not going to cry for them when they do something that causes them to receive negative rather than positive publicity.
I saw a woman at a supermarket a while ago reading about Woods in one of those trashy magazines (People, Us, whatever), and saying, “Why can’t they just leave Tiger alone?” Then she put the magazine on the belt along with the rest of her purchases. I felt like saying, “They can’t leave him alone because stupid fucking cows like you keep buying magazines like that.”
After the revolution all celebrities will be send to the guillotines. Don’t know if it is ethical though. Don’t care either. As far as the golfer is concerned, then he made most of his money on being a celebrity. If he doesn’t like it, then that is something he should have thought of beforehand. And I’m not really going to feel sorry for a guy with a billion dollars and 20 hot chicks to bang every night.
I don’t know. If Woods has only made his pile of cash by playing golf very well, and endorsing golf gear or whatever then his private life should be his and his families own business.
If he’s been banging on about “I love my wife Elin, and our family recommend this brand of smooth mashie niblicks! I’m devoted to the passage of the ball, under my mightiest stroke, over ill-trimmed hedge and onto the roughest green, sometimes ending up in the deepest bunker, in the face of the prevailing wind”, then that’s a bit different, and hypocritical, but like I said I don’t know.
I’ve never bought into the b.s. that celebrities don’t deserve a private life. One argument I’ve heard is that we pay to see their movies or buy their CD’s or whatever, therefore we have a right to know. That would be like saying that if I buy a burger at McDonald’s then I have a right know the private life of cashiers and burger flippers.
And a lot of people who feel they have the right to know the private lives of celebrities, in my opinion, are either busy-bodies with nothing better to do, or have a sour grapes attitude and want to know down celebrities a peg or two with the attitude of, “Well he/she may make millions and be famous worldwide, but at least I get to have my privacy.”
Some people think that since a celebrity chooses to be in the spotlight for a film, show, or concert then it means that they don’t get to step out of the spotlight and have a private life. I think it’s bull and that celebrities should have the right to step in and out of the spotlight as they see fit. And we only have the right to know about their private lives what they want us to know, imo.
Although I don’t know what “ethical” would look like, I feel it’s unethical because of the extent to which it’s drawn out. If something happens in public, I think the public will know. But if it is in private, is it ethical to make it public?
Well, I think you’re being too general there. I mean, lots of scandals and crimes are “private” when they happen, but we’re all (the public, that is) better off knowing about them.
Re: Tiger… well, he’s been in the public eye since he was, what, 4 years old? Is there any way that he could reasonably believe that people don’t want to know about him and his life, such that he could ever expect to keep multiple affairs private once anyone except him and his femme-du-jour found out? I say no, so it’s his own fault he’s in the mess he’s in.
Again, if he didn’t want the spotlight shining on him, he shouldn’t have got in it’s way.
As to whether the newspapers are being ethical, that’s not really their role in society is it? It’s to report information that people want and/or need to know, not to treat some things with kid gloves because some rich guy is gonna get weepy if people know what a jerk he is in real life (or because an elected official will look bad, or because a captain of industry will be revealed as a tyrant, etc.). A newspaper that had that attitude would fold in short time, IMO.
None of these celebrities were ignorant of the intensity of the spotlight before they decided to become famous. Anyone can tell you the advantages of being a celebrity: fame and fortune. And the disadvantage is having very little privacy. They knew the deal before-hand.
After Tiger Woods, the two top earners in golf are Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh. Have you ever heard of either one of them outside of a sportscast?
Tiger Woods (the brand, not the human being) has been carefully designed and marketed to be not just a brilliant golfer, but a handsome, happily married Buick/Gatorade/Accenture/etc. sales tool. As such, it made something like $100 million in endorsements. If Tiger Woods (the human being) can’t keep up with the demands of Tiger the brand, he can go back to being just the best damn golfer in the world and live of his tournament winnings.
Personally, I’d like for all celebs to have very private lives - including not appearing on every podium and before every camera trying to tell the rest of us how we should be living our lives. If their opinion is needed (rarely), we’ll ask.
This is pretty close to my view. While I find reporting on celebrities private lives distasteful and classless, I don’t think I could consider it unethical. In the case of Tiger Woods his sponsorship career is dependent on a successful and clean image. In order to rake in the big sponsorship bucks he needs to consider impeccable behavior, personal and otherwise, as a line item in his job description, as well as having a very public life. If his sponsorship career is over due to scandal then that is a legitimate reason why he is no longer suitable as a corporate role model. I don’t see why this should affect his golfing career - that is a separate issue.
For many people it’s not a conscious decision to “become famous.” You or I cannot wake up tomorrow, decide to “become famous,” and suddenly we’re surrounded and hounded by tabloid journalists and paparazzi. The tabloid journalists and paparazzi are the ones who put people on the supermarket magazine rack, not the subjects. Yes, of course they’ve done something that those people and/or the general public has deemed attention-worthy, but in many cases, scandal especially, the reporters and photographers show up all own their own.
OTOH there are people who are already famous for whatever and get hounded by those people just because, and that’s a little messed up sometimes. However, in other cases, it’s quite clear they have the means to escape it if they really want to. Seriously, if Lindsay Lohan or whoever wanted to disappear, they certainly have the means, but it’s often a symbiotic relationship, especially for celebrities who are currently out of work or need to stay “relevant” in order to procure future work. It’s definitely a slippery slope sometimes…
How about right after he signed his first endorsement contract with a “bad behavior” clause or right before he took the first of his girlfriends to the back room of whatever club he was in?
Every multi-million dollar endorsement contract that he has signed as an adult has involved a conscious decision to trade on his fame. He could have, if he wanted, refused all of them and chosen to live only on his golf earnings. Had he done that, he’d probably be worth “only” about $100 million, instead of closer to $1 billion.
Signing an endorsement contract means you’re already famous, it’s not the moment it occurs.
Someone shows up on your door and offers you $20 million to be in a few commercials and you would turn it down? You can’t blame him for that! Yes, Tiger f’d up all on his own, but he’s a human being. How clean is your closet? Any motivated person, let alone an army of reporters and cameramen can dig up dirt on anyone. Wasn’t there a very long and involved thread on here debunking the virtues of Mother Theresa?!
I have no problem expecting a higher standard of behavior from our celebrities, particularly if their appeal is to youth. They’ll be the only role models some kids have.
I wouldn’t consider this a drag on their “fun” but rather an opportunity for them to repay their public.
Edit: Reword that to “expecting high standards of behavior.”
Never said otherwise. But every time he signs that contract, he acknowledges that fame and expresses a willingness to trade on it for profit.
You’re a master at rebutting arguments that no-one has made.
I never said i’d turn it down, and nor have i suggested that Woods should have turned it down. All i am saying is that he had a choice, and when you make the choice to trade on your fame, to sell yourself to companies and hawk their products in exchange for millions of dollars, then you shouldn’t be surprised when stupid people and bad journalists become obsessed with your personal life.
Sure they could, although offhand i can’t think of anything that could be dug up on me that i would be especially embarrassed to make public.
“They” can dig up information on anyone, but the fact is that the people they are interested in are, for the most part, people who have chosen careers that everyone knows attract the spotlight. The morons buying People and Us Weekly and watching TMZ aren’t interested in my peccadilloes; they’re interested in fame for its own sake, in the peccadilloes of people who are on TV and earn shitloads of money.