Blind love

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Co-host of BBC's hit series Top Gear Jeremy Clarkson has been suspended from his show for getting into a fracas with a producer. Always a controversial figure, the argument happened because after a filming day, he wanted a "juicy steak". But as filming took longer than usual, the chef had gone home, and all he was left with was cold food. Supposedly drunk, he called the producer a "lazy Irish cunt", and then punched him. In the face.

Jeremy Clarkson has always been known for his aversion to political correctness, employing all kinds of jokes and remarks, insulting everyone from every culture, and that is precisely part of his appeal. But with this event, Clarkson crossed a line - his finishing line. And I cannot help but to think he ruined his career and one of the best jobs anyone could ever hope to have in television over a juicy stake.


The news brought joy to several of his detractors, including - I kid you not - eco-feminists. However, fans of Clarkson’s unmeasured sharp-tongue made a petition begging BBC to maintain the host, and even David Cameron himself has spoken on favour of his friend and “huge talent”.



While I think it’s stupid for us to be insulted with some non-PC humour (he was on his “final warning” with BBC), I think there’s been some sort of moral issue here that needs to be talked about. An issue that I've seen more than once.

First of all, let me make sure that I’m a fan of Top Gear. Before being a factual show, it is a comedy parodying the manhood psyche, and Clarkson – with his rude, overly manly ways – is the figure of the trio who best represents this parody. James May would be the professorial pedant "with no sense of direction", while Richard Hammond would be the enthusiastic/annoying younger man of the trio. This clash of personalities makes for a show more entertaining than most sitcoms out there, for the trio is a genuine dysfunctional family. Jeremy and his mates transformed a then serious factual programme at the verve of cancellation in 2002 into a massive, international gold mine for BBC.

However, my admiration for the show and its colourful members will not keep me from the fact Jeremy did something very wrong.
We're not talking about smoking on television; he punched a producer for no good reason. His importance doesn't mean he's untouchable, and we can't actually expect something like this to go unnoticed. But many fans however seem to conveniently put their emotions in front of the hard facts. Some people are downgrading this attitude, while some others are outright doubting this, believing Clarkson couldn't possibly do something like this - even if he has a very well-registered history of similar conflicts. And there were people who even believed the fault is on the producer: it was not enough to have been assaulted by Clarkson, as he got harassed furthermore with threats and insults from fans. On top of that, whoever is criticising Clarkson for what he did is kind of getting the same fate. Those fanboys just can't accept the fact that Clarkson was 100% wrong, with himself being the first one to admit he was.

Fans can be complicated. Sometimes, they do not reason with things evenly or fairly. They defend their idols to the bitter end, no matter what they did. They clash with other people for not sharing their thoughts, and even with fellow fans who just happen to have different views on their subject (perhaps to the point of contesting if they are real fans). And this is not a phenomenon that is happening far away. No, it happens right here in DeviantArt. Hell, it happens particularly in DeviantArt: this place is the lion's den.

Some people have this deep commitment with those they're fond of, withholding them as incontestable idols in their lives, maybe even role models. They don't ponder; they don't think things over. They're passionate, and the most shocking part is that many of them are not children or teenagers at all, which would be the forgivable scenario. It would be somewhat understandable if we were talking about 15-year-olds who wouldn't know better (the old and valid "I was young and stupid"), but that's not the case with many people. Some of them are far above their 20's and 30’s, and they still have that mentality of “what/who I love is perfect and awesome”.

Another classic example was Chris Brown, after the accusation of physically assaulting Rihanna. Many condemned his attitude, but there were fans – including young girls who should be getting an important life lesson out of this event – who defended him, calling him a victim of circumstances. I remember one girl even declared Rihanna just “hit her face in the door”, completely unable to accept the truth, all for the fantasy that her idol is always innocent. And some even argued that “Rihanna kinda deserved it”. Paraphrasing Clarkson himself in the Top Gear America Special, this makes me wonder if people started mating with vegetables. There can be no other rational explanation to this level of backwards thinking.

Some admirers have to deny or diminish these "moral lapses" from their idols. And this is the problem with blind admiration: it blinds you to the facts, since you're not judging something fairly. You can look up to some people - and even to hold them as life paragons - but you can't think they are perfect beyond flaws or questionable actions. I love Gandhi, but I do not contest the darker aspects of his life, revealed by historians who did more research than seeing his 1982 biopic. I won't refuse or downgrade such aspects because of unflinching admiration.

When famed actor Christian Bale infamously burst in anger at the set of Terminator Salvation against director of photography Shane Hurlbut, I noticed fans were more than eager to forgive and even to justify his action (if I remember well, even Ron Howard defended Bale). While I understand that Shane should have know better as a cinematographer himself, it gave Bale no right to freak out the way he did. But to his many fans, Bale was perfectly justified in doing what he did. In the end, it's not a matter of principles, but on who he was. Let that rant have been made by an extra in the same stressful situations. They would have fired the guy and shamed him merciless for his lack of professionalism.


But perhaps one of the most infamous cases of reckless fanboyism regards Roman Polanski. To all those who are not sure what all the commotion about him is, he was accused in 1977 of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl, and he became wanted in the USA ever since. That he is a hugely talented director, that is certain, but that is not a shield for what he did. Nowadays, Hollywood has pretty much forgiven such hideous action, to the point several A-list stars signed a petition for him to be released after he was arrested in Switzerland for his warrant in America. All those stars perceive Polanki's talent and importance to be bigger than what put him into this situation. Before they think about what he did, they're thinking about who he is. So they diminish what he did. You hear things like "oh, c'mon! He just assaulted a girl! And she was close enough to age of consent! Do we know for certain that what he did was true? She may even have wanted to rip him off or something!" and all that apologetic nonsense.

Some people can do very wrong and unjustifiable things, like Polanski. But others do so wonderful and meaningful actions that the things they did wrong may look indeed insignificant close to what they did right. An example of this is Lance Armstrong. American hero, extraordinary cyclist... and a cheater. User of steroids for most of his career. Americans felt betrayed by such discovery, and the man was soon shamed and felt into disgrace. But there's another side: Armstrong was a cancer survivor himself. His multiple fights against cancer and his victories over it were part of his mythos. Understanding he had the kind of money necessary to fight such ill but others were not so fortunate, he created an institute to support the cure for juvenile cancer. He invested in it, and he used his fame - built on his cheating - to fund this cause.

You can perfectly argue that this may have been another tool Armstrong used to build his image of a real-life superhero, a publicity stunt. But this publicity stunt paid off, as the institute was a success. In face of this, using steroids to win some cycling races feels utterly benign. And I don't mean that because he's my idol. He's not, and I'm certainly not forgiving him for what he's done. But I recognise that such actions decidedly triumph over what he was doing wrong. Something bigger and much more noble than winning races. Let's rationalise it like this: he used steroids to win races, but he saved the lives of thousands of children. Is he bad?


Now, let's kick it up some notches. Let's get political.

An extreme example of this idol-minded behaviour was regarding Augusto Pinochet, the tyrannical leader of Chile’s military dictatorship from the 70’s to the early 90's. As history revealed, the guy was a scumbag of enormous proportions, and he was never truly brought to justice as he deserved. In the event of his passing, many of his supporters started to publicly deny his crimes against humanity. "He just staged a coupé, for Christ’s sake! That was nothing! It was that or letting the evil, democratically elected left-wing government linger. He didn’t actually tortured and murdered dissidents in cold blood! All that you've all heard are lies from the liberal media!". Nevertheless, at very least, most people who come in contact to Pinochet's story will instantly understand he was a villain.

Meanwhile, Fidel Castro - a man I absolutely despise - has a troublesome high level of international admiration. An iron-fisted dictator, he is nevertheless seen as a hero to many people around the world;
usually by those who believe him to be a successful example of left-wing politics. Because nothing is more pro-people than being an oppressive dictator for decades, with possibly hundreds of political arrests. For sure he had some sound ideas about investing in education and sports, and I'm not to demerit him for that. But to what cost? When I once confronted a girl I know about his atrocities, she simply rebutted by declaring “he didn’t kill anyone”. You can’t get more childish than that. After all the testimony of survivors, after all the shocking stories, after all the horrors, this all can be shouted down with an euphoric “he didn’t kill anyone”, from someone who’s never been there, or never bothered to get in touch with such stories, or to read the other side of the story (for all they know, lies). Ignorance over facts can be voluntary, and it is much more warming than the cold truth. "History will absolve me", he once said. Not if it depends on me.

In one episode of The Sopranos, the Italian-Americans of New Jersey couldn't accept the protest of Native Americans against Christopher Columbus in the Columbus Day. The Natives accused him of his crimes against their people, and the Italians were having none of their valid criticism. In the episode, they diminish
Columbus' actions against Natives by saying he was - if I remember it well - "a victim of his age". Yes... he was the victim. They loved their idol beyond any reasoning on what he did. What happened in that episode - and in real life - is that the Natives feel Columbus' crimes were ignored, and that he was seem by Americans as a hero. They felt their tragedy was ignored by the media, and when you are in the minority side, this is truly hurtful.

Concluding this small compilation of examples to make my point, people put emotions in front of reality. I don’t believe all those people that defend Clarkson have this mindset, as some of them may realise he did something very bad, and just wanted BBC to forgive him, or to give him a less harsher punishment. But some people are unable to realise their idols can do bad things, or that not everyone has to love them. It's not bad to look up to someone; it's bad when we believe them to be unambiguously perfect because we look up to them.

_____________

Update
May 20, 2022


At first, I didn't care to pronounce myself about this whole debacle between Amber Heard and Johnny Depp. I mean, celebrity clashes occur all the time, and I believe myself to be above that - I certainly didn't care about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock, or the joke Chris Rock made, or for that matter, the event in which it all took place. But there's something about this particular lawsuit that reminded me very much of this essay I wrote all the way back in 2015. When I first wrote it, I was inspired by the then eminent firing of Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear, and how fans rallied behind him, demanding BBC to maintain their idol in the show, and accusing the producer he assaulted as the guilty. But the Amber/Depp case is a beast of a much bigger magnitude: there's a lot of social misogyny and scumbaggery at play in here.

Johnny Depp is - or he used to be - a big movie star. Someone making millions of dollars; at one point, the dude just straight up brought an island. He has an island: how many people do you know that has a goddamn island? He has made some of the most beloved roles ever, and is part of the American collective consciousness. On the other hand, by all means, Amber Heard has only become widely known due this event: she's nowhere as big as her former husband. She's 36, and only recently she's been getting some notorious roles. She's not as beloved, and as a result, she's being regarded as the villain here: the one trying to destroy our virtuous hero.

This is not of two sides in equal footing; this is the story of one being lambasted by fans for daring to go against their idol - even if the whole process was started by Depp, over a post Heard wrote about her failed marriage. But it's not just a matter of one being bigger than the other: it's also a matter that she's a woman who's daring to stand up.

It wasn't enough that she had to go through an abusive relationship: now she's receiving death threats. To exemplify the level of grotesquery here, one piece of shit threatened to put her baby in a microwave. She's even being targeted by part of the media - the conservative media, of course. Even nerd culture is on her - which is not surprising, since nerd culture is no stranger to misogyny and ignorance. Some fans want to boycott the upcoming Aquaman movie coming next year, because she's in it. Meaning this may result to unrecoverable damage to her career. Deep fakes are being made of her, and fake news of all sorts are being spread around.

Make no mistakes: these people understand Depp really did those things, and that Heard is innocent and right. But that doesn't matter, just like it didn't matter that the election wasn't stolen. What he did, what happened... none of that matters. And this whole situation further exposes a poorly disguised gender prejudice in our world, even after Harvey Weinstein: had this been the other way around, people would be rallying behind Depp, wishing him well.

To me, this marks the death of MeToo. Women in the showbiz had their moment raising hell, but it's all over now. And in the same way the world is gladly returning to normal after the pandemic, so Hollywood and fandom are returning to normal after MeToo. Time for normality again.
© 2015 - 2024 GusCanterbury
Comments3
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Norton211's avatar
The point is, as it's been said, there are better things to worry about than what some middle-aged bloke on a television program about cars pops off.

Besides, if people keep getting offended at shit as easily as they have been, life in this world is going to become unpleasantly restricted down to the littlest details in time.