Guess what I am so over this week?Celebrity divorce scandals.Everybody’s doing it — cheating, then getting divorced, that is. All the cases that come to mind are men screwing around on their wives — Jesse James, Tiger Woods, John Edwards. The list goes on. Some might call that evidence men cheat more than women, but I think the ladies are probably just better at hiding it.And that’s my main beef with all these two-timing fellas. Not necessarily “why would you cheat on your wife?” but more “why do you suck so hard at covering up your tracks?”I don’t pretend to know what’s going on in these folks’ heads or marriages that would lead to cheating. But I do know the only thing worse than actually being cheated on is having everyone and their mama know all the details of your former boo’s trifling ways. He looks like a hustler, and you look like a fool.I’m not saying cheating is excusable. It’s generally not. But if you’re going to do something guaranteed to emotionally injure your spouse, at least do him or her the favor of making sure no one ever finds out. If you want to have your cake and eat it too, you have to make some compromises.That means keeping it in your pants when trashy-looking neo-Nazis, bleached blonde cocktail waitresses or campaign videographers tempt you with their starry eyes and welcoming thighs. Settle for a less trashy, less talkative mistress whose tits are equally perky, but who is more inclined to take hush money.On the flip side, women who have been cheated on are not ruined for life and destined to be lonely and miserable. Case in point: Hillary Clinton. Talk about making lemonade!Or Jennifer Aniston — she is by no means a poor, unlovable spinster, however much tabloid news tries to paint her so. She is a wealthy, fine-looking lady with a successful career and a love life that is none of your business, and every gossip rag you buy with pictures of her looking forlorn and pouty only increases her brand power.And Sandra Bullock is going to be OK. Sometimes nice girls fall for creeps. It happens to the best of us. If you want to make Sandra Bullock feel less crappy, stop tweeting about what a loser Jesse James is, how he totally never deserved her and how he’s really a secret Nazi.Go rent “The Blind Side.” I’m sure she’d appreciate that much more than your empty, badly informed pity.Perhaps as much as anything, my point here is other people’s marriages or the dissolution thereof are no one’s business but their own. It’s kind of sick we as a culture spend so much time obsessing over the lives of the rich and fabulous. Sure, some of them use their private lives as publicity vehicles for their public personas, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that we buy into it. We reward seedy behavior with high ratings and magazine sales.I’m happy to say I did zero research for this column. I read neither blog nor tabloid and watched no entertainment news shows. I’ve heard about all these other people’s business through the grapevine, at the beauty shop or — on a few rare occasions — on the actual news. I refuse to promote a culture that glamorizes other people’s problems, just like I refuse to cheat on people I date.Principles, people! Grow a pair. Sara Boyd is a 23-year-old general studies senior from Baton Rouge. Follow her on Twitter @tdr_sboyd.–Contact Sara Boyd at [email protected]
Age of Delightenment: Celebrity scandals are not salacious, they’re sad
April 28, 2010