I'm Supposed to Care?

Tiger Woods apologized the other day for cheating on his wife. He said that he hoped that the public could forgive him.

I was puzzled by the apology.

The pundits came on and told us how we were supposed to feel about it and psychologists told us about his body language and whether or not they felt he was being honest.

I was even more puzzled by all of that.

Tiger Woods is a golfer. Period. Tiger Woods probably owed his wife an apology, but I don't know what their arrangement was (nor do I care to) and I don't know what kinds of things she was engaged in while Tiger was... busy.

If Mr. Woods was my moral Northstar from whom I sought guidance on how to live a moral and corruption-free life, then I would surely be confused by his transgressions. But as far as I can tell, Mr. Woods never claimed to be an awesome family man from whom others could learn. If he ever marketed himself to the public as a domestic bliss Svengali, then the public would have a right to expect an apology.

I feel sort-of sorry for celebrities sometimes- I think that the public expects way too much from them. Actors are folks who are good at pretending to be someone else. This does not give them political insight greater than anyone else. I don't care who Tim Robbins or Spike Lee or Susan Sarandon thinks should be president. I see the ads and the interviews where the celebrities are giving their opinion on political issues and I wonder why they think they've got the answers.

I don't care what they think about gun control, same-sex marriage, the war in Iraq or wearing fur because they aren't experts in the field- they're actors.

I'd like to know what Sarah Jessica Parker does for her skin (truly, not just what the ads say she does) because she's my age and I look 15 years older than she does. Clearly she has some kind of insider information on how to keep your eyelids from being baggy, but I still don't care who she's going to vote for.

So Tiger cheated on his wife and apparently disappointed his public. Maybe they shouldn't count on him to be anything other than a really good golfer. Maybe the public should have apologized to him for expecting him to be more than simply an impressive athlete. Maybe we got it backwards. Maybe when the spotlight fell upon him for his off-the-course behavior we all should have turned the spotlight off and said, "We're sorry; we forgot- you're an incredibly good golfer- nothing more, nothing less. We'll see you on the course."