Could things get any worse for Tiger Woods? Well, yes, as a matter of fact they can, as hard as that is to believe. Take a look at the latest cover of Vanity Fair magazine, which you can see right here, along with the article, and of course right in front of your eyes. My first reaction when hearing about this and that Annie Leibovitz did the photo shoot was to cringe. It can’t be good. Her photography is so penetrating and in your face, that it’s almost uncomfortable to look at sometimes.
My second reaction when I actually saw it was to be amazed at the power of perception. If I, or any of us, had seen it prior to his “troubles,” our impressions would have likely been positive. His absolute dominance in his sport, the athlete of the decade, and the most popular athlete in the world, his discipline, work ethic, focus, all of these things and more could have come to mind. Now what do we see?
What I see spells creepy. Most of us probably look at this photograph now with all we know, or think we know, with a certain kind of revulsion. How could he do it, throw away not only his family, but literally hundreds of millions of dollars and all the respect he’s earned over the past 14 years? Students of human nature with all its millennia of gory predictability shouldn’t be all that surprised. The Vanity Fair article’s conclusion captures it fairly well:
In the end it was the age-old clash of image versus reality, the compartmentalization of two different lives that inevitably merge at some certain point, whoever you are. He exhibited the same superhuman confidence off the golf course that he exhibited on it, apparently convinced he would never be caught despite the stupid sloppiness at the end—text messages, voice-mail messages. He deluded himself into thinking he could be something that he wasn’t: untouchable. The greatest feat of his career is that he managed to get away with it for so long in public, the bionic man instead of the human one who hit a fire hydrant.
As the saying goes, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It appeared that he had it all, but now all he has lies tattered in ruins. A word to the wise.
This appears to me to be a tale of two cultures.
What a bloody fool Tiger must have been to let the VF degenerates take this photo of him. Unlike the Miley Cyrus incident, he doesn’t have age-related immaturity and lack of parental judgment to fall back on. This appears to be just a grotesquely idiotic attempt on his part to appeal to a tougher, younger, and, yes, blacker crowd, while also attempting to increase his public sex appeal rating.
Those are such ephemeral and indeed contemptible goals that one marvels at the stupidity of his decision to characterize himself in this way.
Jim, I haven’t ever followed golf, and hence Tiger was always a rather outlying, alien phenomenon to me, although I respected his accomplishments on the world’s lawns, just as I would a fabulous billiard player or dog show dog walker. Your analogy to President Clinton is apposite, and I think the phenomenon of compartmentalization indicated here is all too common in our time. But I also think there’s more to it than that: this incident shows the continual struggle between two cultures, two mentalities, in our society and indeed our civilzation.
Tiger was well known, I understand, for untoward behavior on the gold course, but his greatness as a golfer bought him a good deal of tolerance from the press and of silence from his opponents, who would have been dismissed as merely jealous upon lodging any complaints. (That may well have happened at times, for all I know.) And I also suspect that the press gave him a good deal of slack based on his ethnic background, reluctant to criticize him for things seen as endemic to a particular culture (even thought it was one in which Tiger was not brought up).
Thus it seems likely that what really happened here was that a culture of excellence in which he was brought up, strongly inculcated by Tiger’s parents and other adults with whom he was surrounded during his formative years, was ultimately overcome by the wider culture of excessive latitudinarianism and indeed antinomianism that encouraged him to act on his worst impulses.
Like Mr. Clinton before him, Tiger appears to have fallen for the illusion that the free ride he was getting would never end. What both failed to understand was that once a story of private failings becomes public, the U.S. media immediately chase it to death while indulging themselves in the inherent puritanism that characterizes Americans of all political stripes but especially those significantly to the left and right of center.
James, when it comes to ideology and political advantage, the left will apologize for anything.
All that photo needs is “Thug Life” tattooed across his stomach … (Tupac fans, anyone?)
Here’s a part from the Vanity Fair conclusion that struck me:
“In the end it was the age-old clash of image versus reality, the compartmentalization of two different lives that inevitably merge at some certain point, whoever you are.”
We heard the same thing about The Big He back in the 1990s — especially the “compartmentalization” part. C’mon! You remember? He was a great president, and could compartmentalize his disgrace of the Oval Office carpet and wash room with what he had to do for his real job.
Unlike Clinton apologists, I’m done being as big a fan of Tiger as I once was.