Public Apologies

Public apologies as of late seem to be on the agendas of celebrities of all walks of life. The latest is Jesse James' mistress, Michelle McGee. Apparently she wants to apologize to Sandra Bullock because she feels equally as manipulated. According to People.com McGee was told by Jesse James that he and his wife were separated and that she feels terrible for Sandra Bullock. What does she expect to achieve with this apology? She was never famous, no one counted on her to be an upstanding citizen. This flagrantly screams, "I want more attention." An apology like this doesn't need to be issued publicly, if it even needs to be issued at all. This same woman posed a few years back wearing a nazi outfit, indicating that she might like attention. a lot. Also, the interview itself was conducted with Today Tonight, an Australian television show. Apparently no American television show wished to provide the stage for this apology so she had to look overseas. The whole thing makes me wonder why we as Americans demand a public apology for misdeeds. In our daily lives people do things all the time for which they don't apologize. A lot of times we don't even think of apologizing, as we seem to be a pretty unapologetic nation. People zoom through cross walks that families stand at all the time. They don't apologize. We cut in front of one another in the Commons' lines and rarely apologize. Saying sorry a lot of the time is a reflex, something we don't think about and don't genuinely mean. Why do we expect so much more from the celebrities we follow? We often idealize the lives of celebrities. Do we consider apologetic people to be key to a perfect society? Are we all sick of people being unapologetic but just can't get up the courage to say we're sorry ourselves. Also, does "sorry," really change anything? I could spill a drink on my friends computer purposefully, deleting all of her essays and such, and then I could apologize. That doesn't mean it's any less of a disaster. Even accidents can't be brushed off with an apology. People accidentally hit others with their cars. Sorry doesn't make it any better. Even though apologies don't change much, we demand them, and apparently we rate them. Popcrunch.com has posted the "top 15 most insincere public apologies" (http://www.popcrunch.com/15-most-insincere-public-apologies/). On the list were Tiger, John Mayer, Martha Stewart, Michael Vick, and Johnny Cash.

All of their apologies seem not to compare. They're misdeeds range from beating people publicly to lip synching. The site bashes Martha Stewart for not apologizing for insider trading but what she did got her jail time. Who did the writers of this site expect her to apologize to? She did time, maybe not as much as she deserved, and she didn't really harm her fans. How can her lack of apology be compared to Dr. Dre who after publicly beating up a woman said something along the lines of, "It happens." Johnny Cash meanwhile started a fire in a national park that killed half of the state of California's condors. Apparently his apology appeared in his autobiography. He said, "I don't give a damn about your yellow buzzards. Why should I care?" Apart from eliciting a huge yikes from me, his indiscretions are horrendous compared to John Mayer's sex napalm comments about Jessica Simpson. He killed half of an entire statewide population of birds. He started a fire and didn't report it. John Mayer said his ex girlfriend was good in bed. Does it compare? Why do we expect an apology of equal magnitude from every celebrity for every indiscretion? Also, do we as a public ever consider an apology acceptable? It seems we're always grumbling about the latest celebrity apology that didn't live up to our standards. But what are our standards? Maxim.com has a "10 Crappiest Public Apologies," section. The first on their list is Ashlee Simpson, and her apology for lipsynching on live tv. Apparently she didn't apologize, rather said her band played the wrong song. I don't understand how this would leave her lip synching a song playing in the background, but in her case I understand the anger. People pay for television channels with shows like SNL. Even though I'm pretty sure anyone with the most basic cable package gets Saturday Night Live, we still have to pay for the television and the connection. It's a disappointment when someone lip synchs on a show we pay for, and in some ways it really does cheat the public of something. So we Americans demand a public apology from artists who lip synch on live television shows. That's fair. But why do we demand an apology from people who cheat on their wives or get into taped fights with their daughters (Alec Baldwin). What does their personal life have to do with our lives?

In some ways, celebrities' reputations, fame, and wealth are based upon the public thinking they're good people. Tiger Woods' image was based somewhat on him having a family and a pretty wife, but still being a pro athlete. He seemed to be the guy who balanced it all perfectly. Since we paid to watch him play golf, does that mean we're paying for an image, and does that mean we believe he owes us an apology? Do we really feel injured when a favorite celebrity of ours cheats on his wife or gets a DUI? Do we demand an apology just because we're so used to it? What would happen if instead of apologizing for an incident a celebrity just completely ignored it? Would we really boycott their movies or refuse to vote for them? Also, if the law deals with a celebrities' illegal indiscretions why isn't that enough for us? Is doing hard time not good enough for redemption?

I'm trying to imagine a scenario in which a celebrity gets into trouble for something and completely ignores it. Say he cheated with one person, kind of like Jude Law and his children's nanny, but instead of apologizing about it just went on living his life. If he was super talented he'd still get movie roles. Teenage girls would still watch them because he's attractive and had a British accent. Couldn't he get away with making tons and tons of teenage girl oriented movies and just continue on with his career and money making. What if a politician chose to ignore a scandal? Could they really ignore it? I guess the biggest risk posed to their denying or avoiding it is the other people involved. Say someone cheated on a woman who chose to remain quiet. We would probably demand an apology, but what would we actually do if none was given? At what point does a scandal produce a public demanded apology? When it's been discussed in two magazines? A newspaper? In some ways the media seems to set us up to demand apologies. I suppose it gives them more to do. They can interview a celebrity they've bashed with criticism and sell tons of copies of the interview. If the media hadn't published stories about Tigers' kids and his wife's betrayal would we be so worked up? If the media hadn't shown pictures of the gross girls Jesse James cheated on Sandra Bullock with and written stories about unprotected sex and potential STDs would we be as angry? Also, Jesse James' is barely even a celebrity. Even if we wanted to say we wouldn't vote for him or pay for his movies, we probably would have little to do to punish him for what he did. He has one television show. Are we going to keep watching it now because he apologized? We seem to be set up to demand interviews filled with apologies. We want press conferences only after we see the apparent aftermath and wreckage of a scandal. The scandal itself isn't interesting usually. People cheat on their wives, they cheat investors, they cheat on contracts. Does the media influence us to demand apologies, building on inherent desire for retribution that lives in the American soul? Is the desire for people to apologize for something done wrong inherent to humans or inherent to only some? Is it even inherent?