Saturday, March 20, 2010

Scandal Management

In the past few months, the media has gone berserk covering sex scandals all around the world. There was a golfer, a footballer, a singer, a director, a spiritual guru, a talk show host, another TV personality and the list goes on. Now, personally I don’t really have an opinion about whether it is right or wrong or its ethical or forged. The point I am trying to make out here is sooner or later, every celebrity in this world will have to face a scandal, whether he likes it or not. This my dear, in turn is going to require an expert to handle such crisis. A new job which I would like to title – “Scandals Manager”. The person who comes in to help a fallen celebrity handle all the negative publicity that he/she has managed to garner. This professional will state his/her expertise to be – help you get out of the $hit that you got into – knowingly or unknowingly.

Money is power. And with great power comes responsibility (yeah I know Spiderman’s uncle said that!). By transitive closure ;) – With great (a lot of) money comes responsibility. And we as normal  human beings are not taught to be responsible. We “act” responsible only when we are in the spotlight.

I also would love to quote a blog post that I read about these scandals which said “It is part of the life cycle of a modern-day celebrity: Get famous, be adored, do something stupid, be scorned, apologize at a press conference, make a public show of penance, launch a comeback”.

I hereby “announce” that I am an expert in understanding such crisis. So here is Girish’s guide to celebrities in a mess. This shall serve as my resume and credentials for this role ;) !!

1) Tell it to the people who really matter to you, before the media tells them.

Yeah. If you are doing something wrong and you figure out that someone is gonna leak it, do so before that someone goes and leaks it out!

Here is a quick guide to an ideal confession. I really love the way this talk show host handled his scandal. not only did he come out in the open with it before the media went crazy over it. He made it sound so funny that most people were laughing when he confessed and apologized. If this was not enough, he also sued the guy who threatened to leak his scandal and managed to get him arrested. Its like having the cake, blowing the candles and eating it too!

2) Apologize only to the people you have hurt.

You don't owe anything to the world. I still am trying hard to figure out why a golfer in US apologized to me for his philandering. I am neither his wife, nor one of those women. My life in no way is affected by what he has done (well not really, I read a lot about his scandal online – but that was popcorn entertainment for me – I should thank him instead!)

Most celebrities don’t really owe us anything when they become celebrities. We expect all of them to be saints. And then they come out and apologize to the world to the fans and to everyone – it  sounds so fake and made-up.

And here is a quick guide on how to apologize only to the people who were affected by your scandal. The same guy again!

3) Have a conscience.

Well, I shouldn’t really be saying this. Cause if you really get a conscience, my job as a Scandals Manager is threatened. This statement is like an Oil company asking you to drive less or a Cigarette manufacturer telling you that smoking is injurious to health :) !!

4) Do not deny.

The more you try to deny the more your dark secrets get revealed. Investigative journalism makes a whole lot of money out of unearthing scandals because you like it or not we like to sling mud at our heroes.

If any celebrity who reads my blog needs a Scandals Manager, you know where to reach me :) !! Free services for first 10 callers!

4 comments:

  1. How insightful it is to read your blogging:)
    Good One.

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  2. Yea I totally agree with point 1. I don't understand why everyone is so hung up on having the person-in-shame give a public apology.

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  3. @Angela - Yeah I also felt bad when I saw Jack Neo's public apology video. No reason to drag him and wife into it!

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  4. Hmm,I guess I will forward your contact to our HR department since you seem to be quite qualified for this management. :P :)

    Good post... fun + message.. nice work!

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