Forgiveness Through Talent

Note: Midweek Music Review has been suspended until further notice.

I like Daniel Tosh's stand up comedy.

For those who are unsure who exactly Daniel Tosh is, he would probably best be known for running the Comedy Central show Tosh.0, which runs other a rather simple premise: Play dumb clips from the Internet, then make fun of them. VH1 tried it a few years ago with middling results, but Tosh is more successful because he's a more vicious comic and it suits the stupidity of the Internet well. As a white dude from California, he is unafraid to make jokes many would consider in poor taste and, as that tends to suit my own sense of humor, we come back to the first sentence. I like Daniel Tosh's stand up comedy.




There's a bit in his stand up special that has been on Comedy Central three or four times since the beginning of his show, from 2007 that inspired the idea behind this blog post. Check it out.



If you're not into running video clips on your netbook (why do you own a netbook, by the way?) here's the transcript of the relevant part:

"I love that Kobe Bryant puts out a commercial this year that says, "Hate me because I'm a champion, hate me because of my work ethic." It's like, "We hate you because you were accused of rape!" What planet does he live on where he's like, "Seriously guys, why are they pissed off? Because of the rape? Are you sure? That doesn't add up.""

In 2007 this was true. In 2010? Not so much.

How is it that it doesn't seem that we give a shit anymore that Kobe Bryant was accused of rape? The victim was a 20-year old female, and amidst the media circus her name - supposed to be confidential - was released to the public, as well as personal information on the woman that led to her not wanting to participate in the trial. The case was eventually dropped.

Here's the thing, people still like Kobe.



Especially in the Los Angeles area. People defend Bryant on and off the basketball court like those in the Chicago area defended Jordan, when it has since come to light that he was an egregious womanizer, a near-complete asshole, and arrogant as fuck. But Jordan wisely kept his public image as a charming guy intact, and even after his divorce there has never really been any Jordan backlash.

But Jordan was never charged with any felony sexual assault charges.

So why does Kobe get off the hook? Bill Simmons, one of Kobe's biggest detractors as a sports writer recently wrote an entire article on Kobe. The first thing he mentioned? Kobe's status as a poor teammate. Simmons often jokes that Michael Jordan's stint in baseball was a cover-up by David Stern of Jordan being suspended for gambling. Did Stern pay off NBA announcers, analysts, commentators and columnists to never mention again that, um, Kobe was accused of rape?

I understand that the charges were dropped without a trial, but Michael Jackson went to trial for his crimes and came away clean, yet all anyone had to say about MJ prior to his death and subsequent career Renaissance was that he was accused of molesting children.

Here's the reason.

Kobe is a great basketball player.

It's a fucking retarded reason, but it's true. As a public we've forgiven Kobe because he is an amazing basketball player and that matters. As a sports fan, I understand that we love to watch people who are the best at what they do, and we are likely to forgive all kinds of fucked up shit if they are. If MJ's accusations would have come during the Thriller era, I don't think we'd have seen half as many jokes about the Neverland Ranch.

Last year something similar happened, though it was in the realm of music and not sports. On their way home from an awards show, Chris Brown beat his girlfriend Rihanna so bad that she looked like this:



As of this posting, the top news stories regarding Chris Brown are two reviews of his performance at a charity benefit for the Haitian earthquakes and a story talking about him collaborating with Kesha.

Chris Brown beat a woman, and I don't care what sort of justifications may have been given for it (I've heard things from 'she was egging him on' to 'she was scratching and biting him', as if these things justify beating someone so bad their eyes are swollen shut in any way), and yet he still has a fucking career. We were willing to put him on stage before the entire world at a charity benefit.

How is that not silent acceptance of this behavior?

Well, it is. And the thing is, we do accept it.

Why?

Because he's a great performer, and we like to see people who are the best at what they do. There are very few people who dance or put on a show as well as Chris Brown, regardless of what you think of his particular brand of R&B. And because he's so good, we're willing to look the other way even despite his behavior being so unabashedly awful that he should probably be serving prison time.

When people step over the line so blatantly in most situations, it becomes the very first thing we talk about regarding them. If your neighbor Jim was accused of making advances towards one of his daughter's teenage friends, the entire community knows about it and it becomes the first thing anyone mentions when talking about Jim. But when a celebrity does it, it suddenly varies. If he's a celebrity for mediocre reasons, or if he's a celebrity who isn't part of the absolute cream of the crop in his area of expertise at that time, we shun them (See: Plaxico Burress, Adam Jones). But if they do cross that boundary into being truly great at what they do, we forgive them.

Celebrity is escapism. Watching someone perform extremely well in a given task allows us to tap into that feeling of greatness and experience it for ourselves when there isn't much of it in our own lives. We forgive them because they allow us the opportunity to live vicariously through them and we don't want that vicarious triumph encroached upon.

We'd rather idolize an alleged rapist and a spousal abuser for their talents than take them to honest task on their flaws.

If he had won a Super Bowl, would we have given a shit that Michael Vick killed dogs?