What Are the Rules for Celebrity Forgiveness?

A conversation I saw on Facebook caused me to think: what are the rules for celebrity transgression (and subsequent forgiveness)?  Last night's BET Awards featured performances by both Kanye West and Chris Brown.  For those who have been living under a pop culture rock, Kanye West famously interrupted Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV Music Awards and ended up looking like an asshole to just about everyone.





And Chris Brown famously hit Rhianna and was blackballed by the world as a woman beater.   Isaiah Washington called T.R Knight a faggot and was subsequently fired from Grey Anatomy.  Time will certainly tell how these three men are ultimately judged, but it seems that they have all befallen the same fate -- relative obscurity a decline in adoration since the incidents occurred.

Listeners seemed to turn the other cheek when Chris Brown released a CD following his domestic violence charge.   Kanye West disappeared from the pop culture landscape and Isaiah Washington has fade into relative obscurity since he lobed the slur at T. R. Knight. 

So, why is it that we reward good behavior with celebrity and punish bad behavior with obscurity? There are, I believe, several things at work here. First, I think we have culturally developed into a society that covets celebrity and wholeheartedly worships at the alter of celebrity idolatry.  And when a celebrity transgresses, we feel personally let down because we have invested so much in that celebrity.  As such, we seek to hurt them like they hurt us and the only way we can do that is by refusing to consume the products they produce. One could argue that before his death, Michael Jackson was punished in this way once allegations of child molestation were levied against him. 

Secondly, I think there is a sense of patriarchy at work as well. I hold the belief that we live in a male-centered/dominated society that automatically views women as "the weaker sex." As such, we must punish Ike Turner for his violence against Tina Turner (as we should). As a result, Ike Turner died nearly penniless while Tina Turner enjoyed a career resurgence after she left him.  And the same fate seems as if it will befall Chris Brown referenced by disallowing him to sing any of his own material but instead to mimic Michael Jackson on last night's BET Awards.

Third, I believe that race often plays a role in the way these things play out culturally.  Janet Jackson (the black woman) took the fall for the Super Bowl debacle, not Justin Timberlake (the white man).  Just as Kanye West and Isaiah Washington took the fall for their incidents with white people. Certainly in the last two cases, there is an element of assholism, but there is also the undeniable race element.  One only need to look at the myriad media events where a person uses a homophobic slur to see this play out. For example,  Shia LaBeouf emerged unscathed after being caught on tape calling a friend a fag, so it's not as if we culturally hold the notion that using the term is off limits unlike, say the "n" word.

I'm still unpacking all of this, but it seems that our punishment of celebrities for their transgressions has more to do with social constructions than it does about what it right or wrong.