Bill Cosby rape allegations. Hulk Hogan getting scrubbed for racism. What else could ruin my childhood? ThunderCats being really dogs?!
— a Twitter post
My thoughts, in light of recent headlines, sometimes echo the tweet above.
In the twinkling of an eye, as the biblical saying goes, it seems reputations are being wiped out, right and left. And it hits closer and and closer to home as one person after another whom we adored or respected is revealed to have royally screwed up in some shape, form or fashion.
And faster than one can say “You’re outta here,” endorsements are pulled. Hit TV shows are cancelled. Names are taken off buildings and pulled from Hall of Fame record books.
Geesh, I was still trying to get over the Lance Armstrong and Marion Jones scandals, OK?
I’ve warned readers — and myself — in this space about putting people on pedestals. We all have feet of clay, whether we’re somebody’s idol or not. But reputations are biting the dust so fast these days, my heart goes out to those who are downhearted and disillusioned as a result.
As the person/party’s downfall unfolds via media in front of us, it’s easy for the mind to dart back and forth — one minute wondering, “What were they thinking? How could they have shown such an appalling lack of foresight and good judgment?” Another minute thinking, “OK, ‘They’ [those sinister powers-that-be said to control the music industry/celebrities] must be mad at him for going against them.” In yet another minute, we’re murmuring against today’s media for jumping on the story and convicting people before they’re found guilty.
And then wondering, “Sheesh, what skeletons might fall out of my own closet and mess things up for me?” (After that last thought runs through our heads, some of us hasten to join in with those vigorously condemning the person, trying to drown out our fears.)
So, not knowing what to do, how to feel, we basically wring our hands. Feel really bummed. And wonder if the ThunderCats, those cartoon icons that made their debut in 1985 and were produced by the venerable Rankin/Bass team, were really dogs.
Above it all, the question hangs in the air: Should news of a person’s misdeeds, alleged or proved in stone, negate all the good things that person did? We wonder: “If I mention this person’s name ever again in any remotely non-negative way, will I elicit the ‘How could you laud that [fill in misdeed here]-ing so-and-so?’ reaction?” Names can be pulled off of a building or scrubbed from record books, but it can be tough to pluck good memories from the mind. We Cosby and Hulk Hogan fans know it can be tough to simply stop liking a person, no matter how badly they may have behaved.
“It’s a crazy game Americans in particular seem to play, the way we need to believe desperately in our heroes,” Robert Huber wrote in a 2006 Philadelphia magazine story (posted online) exploring the two sides of Cosby. “We want Bill Cosby to be as sweet as Cliff.”
Just like the makeup of humans themselves, situations like these are complex. And can be tough for us to suss.
Well, we can blame society for being a teeming, shifting, gag-at-a-gnat-and-swallow-a-camel hypocrite whose standards of acceptability seem to change from one headline to another.
But I think the best thing fans of the disgraced can do is what we’re supposed to do with everything we encounter in this life anyway … use it as a learning tool. Continue to love the sinner (no need to feel foolish over what we didn’t know/hadn’t heard), but hate the sin. As I’ve said before, the sages among us can impress upon the impressionable the dangers of short-sighted actions and their sometimes very far-reaching consequences. We can examine ourselves for anything in our lives that could come back to bite us and be proactive in softening the sting of said bite. And we must remember that when it comes to a toss-up between gifts and character, character trumps.
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hwilliams@arkansasonline.com