celebrity gossip, academic style

P.R. Mess, that is.

As anyone reading this blog is aware, Tiger Woods was involved in what was termed “a serious accident” on Thanksgiving night. He had driven his SUV into a tree at some point in the early morning and sustained injuries to the face — and that was all that was known, or at least all that was released.

When I first read the news bit, I knew something was fishy. First of all, there was no denial of intoxication. Perhaps even more importantly, there was no discussion of intoxication whatsoever — they didn’t even say “it is not known whether or not Mr. Woods was intoxicated.”

The timing was poor. Some would argue that the release of scandal on the eve of a holiday is a way to cushion the landing — see, for example, Sarah Palin’s announcement of resignation as Alaska governor…on the eve of the Fourth of July. You miss the newscycle — or at least miss a critical mass of people watching the newscycle.

But Thanksgiving is far different from Fourth of July. On Fourth of July, people aren’t watching the news because they’re out stuffing themselves on hamburgers, getting suburnt, and blowing off appendages. On Thanksgiving, the vast majority of America has been pushed off into TV rooms and dens to watch television while they wait for dinner, digest dinner, or lazy through the day after. And this wasn’t just any scandal — this was a sports-related scandal. On one of the biggest single sports-watching four-day weekends of the year. It wasn’t a blessing that the incident occurred on a national holiday; it was a P.R. curse.

Which is part of the reason the situation wouldn’t go away, as Tiger Woods no doubt wished it would. Woods is notoriously private — about his training regimes and golf-related activities especially, but also about his family and personal matters. His approach to the incident, then, was to say very little at all. No spin — and relative silence — was the best spin. Or so he apparently thought.

So let’s break it down. How did Tiger end up with this big mess?

1.) HE SUCCESSFULLY KEPT HIS PRIVATE LIFE UNDER WRAPS.

When you release so little information about yourself — outside of your very controlled statements concerning your sports skill — you become an enigma. Woods is ridiculously wealthy, but we don’t get to see him spend it. He’s married to a gorgeous Swede and they have a gorgeous child, but we rarely get to see them — and he rarely talks about them. So the built up curiosity was there — even if subconsciously — and waiting to explode. In theoretical terms, he was attempting to assert that the ‘real Tiger Woods’ (his ‘authentic’ self) was what you saw on the fairway, in highly controlled interviews, and in his dozens of advertising deals.

2.) THUS, WHEN AN ADDITIONAL LAYER OF ‘SELF’ WAS REVEALED, THE MEDIA WENT CRAZY.

As if blood into a shark tank. Richard DeCordova has convincingly argued that the emergence of stars in early Hollywood was a multi-tiered process — as each new ‘layer’ of the people on the screen were revealed, each became the new site of truth. At first, a star’s extratextual activities provided that source of truth. But with the eruption of the Fatty Arbuckle and Wallace Reid scandals in the 1920s, scandal (or the disclosure of scandal) became the only true means of arriving at the ‘authentic’ identity of the self. DeCordova is following the work of Foucault, who has long asserted that knowledge of sex (illicit or transgressive sex in particular) has come to be regarded as the most true and authentic avenue to the self. Put differently, knowing a person in bed (or knowing about how a person is in bed) is tantamount to knowing the ‘real him’ or ‘real her.’ Of course, this has everything to do with the construction of sexual activity through discourse — and the particularly American practice of shadowing sex with shame. Woods not only revealed that there was a deeper level to excavate — he wasn’t always cool and under control! — but, as the day went on, that that deeper level was somehow ‘off,’ potentially in a sexual way.

(To approach the issue somewhat differently, I’d argue that Woods’ image was too ‘univocal’ to absorb the shock of a scandal. Adrienne McLean has argued that the reason that Ingrid Bergman’s star image was unable to absorb the hit of her scandal with Rossellini was that her star image was so wholly (and unflexibly) that of the virginal, righteous, pure girl from the North. (She contrasts the ramifications of Bergman’s scandal with a similar ‘transgression’ associated with Rita Hayworth — because Hayworth had created a complex, nuanced star image that included a ‘desire to be loved,’ her marriage to Aly Kahn was naturalized and accepted, even celebrated. In contrast, Bergman was denounced *on the senate floor.* Crucially, like Woods, Bergman had refused to cooperate with Selznick and others who hoped to craft her image into something more nuanced; as a result, it was near-wholly based on her film roles, just as Woods’ was near-wholly based on his appearances on the golf course.

3.) NOT SAYING ANYTHING = SAYING EVERYTHING

By late Friday night, everyone knew something was up. The stories began to shift. Things didn’t add up. Some people made the connection between The National Enquirer story revealing a Woods affair, published Wednesday, and the Thursday blow-up. Over the course of the weekend, speculation exploded: his wife was attacking him with a golf club. (Which, as someone pointed out to me, is rather hilarious: like Kobe Bryant being pummeled with sneakers). She scratched up his face. She chased his car. He was passing in and out of consciousness. He had cheated. The situation was likened to that of Chris Brown and Rihanna.

By not shutting down or guiding discourse though his own P.R., statements, or any other type of damage control, Woods allowed the discourse to go in all directions.

4.) DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE (INVESTIGATIVE) GOSSIP PRESS

As I’ve asserted several times on this blog, some of the best investigative journalism comes from the gossip press. This was true during the time of Confidential; this was especially true for The National Enquirer, especially following the tightening of libel laws in the 1980s; it’s even more true today, when TMZ routinely scoops traditional news outlets. And they do it with more accuracy, detail, and speed. It’s difficult for us to think of ‘tabloids’ as journalistic, simply because what they cover is oftentimes not regarded as ‘newsworthy.’ But to get to the truth of what happens in an event — using interviews, surveillance tapes, 911 calls, cell phone messages, even bribes — that’s certainly investigative journalism, even if you might not call it entirely ethical.

TNE had the first story of the mistress — one that might have been easily forgotten, if not for the explosive aftermath. TMZ has posted dozens of updates, challenging the stories of Tiger Woods, his wife, and even the official statements of the police with actual footage, eye-witness testimony, etc. And US Weekly entered the fray yesterday, dropping a bombshell of past and current philanderering on the part of Woods. The gossip press got the goods — and if the speed of publication, as well as the amount of dirt they obtained, is any evidence, they got them easily.

5.) TIGER IS A GREAT GOLFER. BUT HE’S A SHITTY CELEBRITY.

He didn’t cover his tracks. He didn’t have a password on his cell phone. He left messages on his mistresses voicemails. He had relationships with several women — many of them young (21!) and ready to brag. One alleged mistress still has over 300 text messages from him. He didn’t cover his tracks. He had no defense plan. And he somehow expected none of this to effect his public image.

Just look to his first real attempt at P.R., released today:

…Although I am a well-known person and have made my career as a professional athlete, I have been dismayed to realize the full extent of what tabloid scrutiny really means. For the last week, my family and I have been hounded to expose intimate details of our personal lives. The stories in particular that physical violence played any role in the car accident were utterly false and malicious. Elin has always done more to support our family and shown more grace than anyone could possibly expect.

But no matter how intense curiosity about public figures can be, there is an important and deep principle at stake which is the right to some simple, human measure of privacy. I realize there are some who don’t share my view on that. But for me, the virtue of privacy is one that must be protected in matters that are intimate and within one’s own family. Personal sins should not require press releases and problems within a family shouldn’t have to mean public confessions. (Statement available in full here).

I understand his argument. A person’s private — sexual — actions are, for most people, indeed just that: private. If Tiger Woods chose to remain a sports figure alone — winning The Masters, winning everything, but staying a golfer and no more — perhaps he would have isolated himself from public scrutiny of his private life. But part of what makes Tiger Woods Tiger Woods is his public visibility: not only due to the color of his skin (over which he obviously has no control) and his resultant uniqueness, but, more importantly, through his endorsement deals. Over $1 billion worth. The reason he is a celebrity — and not just a golfer — is that his face is EVERYWHERE. In the pages of The New Yorker selling watches, all over Sports Illustrated and ESPN selling golf gear, in newspapers, billboards, car commercials, The Wall Street Journal, credit card ads, Gilette Razors, all that is Nike, you name it.

Mindfully holding back on all the potential snark that could be unleashed using the rhetoric of above advertisements

The significance, of course, is that a celebrity is chosen to endorse a deal BECAUSE of their public image. If not, why not choose another good looking man to say they use a particular product? Wood’s image is of excellence — but also of the absence of scandal. Of dedication and drive. Not extra-marital affairs. When a company pays Woods to appear in association with their products, they are hitching their good name to his. When scandal erupts, that scandal extends to those companies, even if only by association.

My contention, though, is not necessarily that the press has the right to know everything about every celebrity. Rather, if a celebrity — and Woods is a celebrity and a public figure, no matter how much he bemoans the fact — chooses to do things that read as scandalous, he must protect himself against the ramifications, either ahead of time or in the aftermath.

Tiger Woods refused to do either of these things, instead passing blame to the press and its audience. He may admit to ‘sins,’ but his insinuation — that WE are the ones who are, in truth, at fault — is as elitist as it is absurd. Each of us certainly contributes to celebrity journalism and scandal mongering through readership. But the idea that a man who has willingly and mindfully made himself into a public figure should have a right to privacy is absurd. Would he also like us to give him his privacy while he plays golf? Leave him alone when he tells us to buy watches? Not tune in to watch him put on the Master’s jacket?

I realize that he is attempting to make a distinction between his public image — which he wishes to be available for consumption — and a private one. As evidenced by the case of Robert De Niro, whose anti-stardom I profiled a few weeks back, this is certainly not impossible. But you have to play by the rules — a maxim that Woods, of all people, should know by heart.