Judgement Before Talent?

Personally I dont care what a celebrity does in their free time, how they act or their views on anything in this world. What matters is the product, whether it be music or a film, that they produce for my enjoyment. If I enjoy what they do in their field, their personal life means nothing to me. I think people get too caught up in what a celebrity does in their spare time and let that rule their decision making on whether they’re good at what they do. Because honestly let me tell you, there is no one with a clean record in this world no matter how “perfect” they may seem or act. Do you judge every single person because of what they do in their spare time? Then what makes a celebrity so different? Because they’re in more of a spot light? Because we have this misconception that if they’re up there on the silver screen it means they should be “perfect role models”? If that’s the case then shame on us for believing that’s the type of world we live in.

And what makes the celebrities of today any different then those of the last 100 years? Actors from the dawn of Hollywood were getting into trouble, beating their spouses, drunkingly crashing their vehicles and sounding off to others because of their opinions. Opinions that are just that: their own opinions. Last time I checked I thought we as Americans lived in a world where we had the right to live and think for ourselves without other people telling us what to do. When did that change? And how does a celebrity’s opinion change the way they perform their talent? And how come certain celebrities’ entire career (read previous works before ‘scandal’) is stained when something they do or say goes public and blown way out of proportion? 20 years of amazing and excellent work is suddenly bad because they voiced their opinion or got caught being human and showing human emotions.

Another question I have is why do some celebrities seem to be “forgiven” after a few years (or sometime’s months) while others never regain a total pardon? An actor can be amazing at what he does, has a hard time adjusting to their new fame and glory, suffer depression, become addicted to drugs, “Oh no! he’s doing drugs! And now he’s in rehab, what a terrible person!”, then 4 or 5 years later do one film, have audiences go “Huh, he’s still a good actor, let’s forgive him and cast him in everything we possibly can!”. How does this happen with one celebrity but not all of them? Is it because we’re so wishy washy in our world that we find ourselves casting judgement on a person too soon without giving them a second chance, only to down the line realize we were wrong and quietly apologize to ourselves in a voice not loud enough for the rest of the population to hear?

We are a stubborn society, filled with people who are afraid to admit when they’re wrong. I will be the first to admit that I have acted this way in the past. Situations have come up that I have misjudged or judged too quickly only to find myself wrong. But I’ve learned from my mistakes in the past, apologized to people for my misjudgment and actively seeked ways to avoid doing it again in the future. Perhaps I’m too forgiving of people.

We all have our opinions and I respect that. We all feel, think and act freely of one another and we should be able to live in a world where we can express our opinions as civilized persons and move on. But perhaps we can just learn to not judge so quickly next time. The only problem with this concept is that it works strictly on a case by case basis. There are certain situations where judgement would probably work better to be casted quickly upon a person for something they did. But these are usually severe circumstances (i.e. killing someone, holding people hostage, etc).

I’m not ranting about any single celebrity when I speak of them in general. These thoughts have been running through my head for the last 15 years of my life as I’ve watched a handfull of my favorite celebrities go through this. Most dont seem to recover from their tainted public image but that wont stop me from enjoying their talent and work provided to me. I am no longer ashamed to admit I like Michael Jackson’s music or watching Pee-Wee Herman movies. I dont care what they did in their free time, all that matters is that the work they produce is entertaining. After all they’re entertainers.