The Tiger Woods Redemption Plan is Almost Complete

Remember when Tiger Woods was the most hated man in America? Well, he is now on his way to being another example of how a celebrity athlete (and really, any celebrity) can redeem his public image. By my count, he is on step four of a process that includes five key elements.

1. Time

We are Americans. We have the shortest collective memory on the planet. The main thing any disgraced public figure needs to do is just wait. We will forget. How often do people mention Bill Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky scandal these days? Or Rob Lowe’s hotel room escapades? Or what Kobe Bryant did in that hotel room? Or, or, or. We could list scores of examples.

Woods’ dazzling fall from grace began in December 2009. In pop culture terms, that’s an eon ago. Back then, no one had even heard of the Harlem Shake.

I’m sorry, the what?

Exactly.

2. The love of a good woman

This is a standard device in the movies, especially Westerns, and it works in real life, too. If you want to transform the outlaw gunslinger into an accepted member of the community, you give him a respectable love interest.

John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939) is a classic example. The Ringo Kid (John Wayne) recently escaped from prison and seeks revenge. Dallas (Claire Trevor) is a prostitute driven out of town, but Ford manipulates her character masterfully. Another character gives birth to a child, and there’s a much-discussed scene that has Dallas holding the newborn baby while all of the men dote on the child and completely change the way they look at Dallas. Ford deftly moves Dallas from one archetype, the Whore, to another, the Mother. She is redeemed. So when Dallas falls in love with Ringo and fights for him, it redeems Ringo. He must be good deep down if this good woman loves him, right?

Lindsey Vonn is Tiger’s Dallas. And she is perfect for the role. She is a successful athlete herself and has (mostly) earned her fame through ability. She is respectable. Yes, she is fond of posing for pictures in bikinis or less, but these days that comes with being the face of a women’s sport (I’m not condoning that, by the way, just observing). She is beautiful, pale skinned and blonde, and competes in a sport that constantly provides her a snowy white backdrop. Good grief, if this were a movie we’d be praising the writer, production designer, and costume designer for their brilliant use of symbolism. Compared to the women with whom Woods cheated on Erin Nordgren, Vonn is downright virginal.

And now, the media are even presenting her as the Mother figure. Exhibit A: the headline, “Lindsey Vonn Plays Mom As She Takes Tiger Woods’ Kids to School,” and text of this New York Daily News article.

See what happened there?

3. Begin to Win

Woods took some post-scandal time off, then his play was shaky for a while. Fast forward. Woods won The Players earlier this month. It doesn’t have quite the marquee, quasi-heroic value of a major tournament, but it’s a high quality win. And Woods has reclaimed his #1 ranking. The days when the media referred to him as “disgraced golfer Tiger Woods” are long gone. He is back to being “world no. 1 Tiger Woods.”

As Stax songwriter/singer William Bell says, “Everybody loves a winner.”

4. Some other jerk paves the high road

Sergio Garcia, you can stop apologizing, because I guarantee you, the Tiger Woods publicity team cannot thank you enough. Garcia made an unequivocally racist joke at some dinner associated with the PGA Championship, suggesting they serve Woods fried chicken. Read about it here.

Garcia’s racism does two wonderful things for Woods. First, it makes Woods a victim, and that automatically evokes sympathy. Especially when the victimization is as ugly as blatant racism (I’m sorry, a fried chicken reference isn’t implicit – Garcia knew what he was saying; it was blatant and intentional). Second, it allows Woods to be magnanimous. Take a look at part of Woods’ response to the remark on Twitter:

“I’m confident that there is real regret that the remark was made. The Players ended nearly two weeks ago and it’s long past time to move on and talk about golf.”

Aside from being a deft use of the passive voice (whose real regret is it?), it’s a show of forgiveness, of sorts. Woods and Garcia have been chipping at each other for a long time, but suddenly Woods is on the high road. If Woods demonstrates forgiveness to others, he will earn forgiveness in return. Garcia gave Woods the ideal setup to do just that. Woods suddenly looks like the bigger man in a situation, which didn’t even seem possible three years ago.

5.Win big

The only thing Woods still needs to do is win a post-scandal major. As this article points out, Kobe Bryant provides a nice example for Tiger. Two championships did wonders for Bryant as he moved on from his own scandal, and an equivalent accomplishment will do the same for Woods. He is one major tournament win away from fully recovering his image and turning his infidelity and depravity into a footnote. Woods is back on his game, and it seems only a matter of time before he wins another Masters, U.S. Open, or Open Championship.

I promise you, when he does, Lindsey will be there to embrace him just yards away from the 18th green. If his kids could be there, it would really complete the picture. There will be tears of joy over the full culmination of his comeback. The announcers will play right into the moment and aver that Woods’ troubles are far in the past and he is once again the envy of every young golfer in the world. The media will provide the purifying waters, and Woods will emerge from them, redeemed.

Look, I’m not writing this to attack Tiger Woods the Man. I do not know him personally. We can never know celebrities merely by being familiar with their public images. Maybe he has genuinely changed. Maybe he never deserved to be demonized in the first place. I don’t know, and frankly, don’t care.

But witnessing the fall and rise of Tiger Woods’ image is yet another fascinating study in American celebrity and media, and it says a whole lot more about us than it does about Tiger Woods.

More BRAVE Character Redesigns

If you think it’s terrible what Disney did to Merida from Brave, just take a look at how they’ve updated the triplets.

Argo, Ben Affleck Named Year’s Best by Southeastern Film Critics’ Association

The Southeastern Film Critics’ Association, of which I am a member, has tallied the votes and announced the results to the public. My own ballot didn’t look exactly like the overall results, of course, but I think we as a group did very well in a year which, surprisingly, gave us a lot of good stuff to choose from. Here are the press release and the results. Take a look.

The Southeastern Film Critics’ Association has voted Ben Affleck’s period thriller Argo the best motion picture of 2012. The organization, whose 48 members represent electronic and print media outlets in nine Southern states, also named Affleck best director in its annual poll.

“Argo was far and away the most-mentioned film on our critics’ ballots,” SEFCA president Philip Martin said. “While there were other films that had more first place votes, Argo was consistently well-regarded by our membership and it ended up winning the poll by a comfortable margin.”

In a much closer race, actor-director Affleck was named “Best Director” over Kathryn Bigelow, whose Zero Dark Thirty edged out Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln for the second spot in the critics’ poll.“It’s interesting that the top three films are all dramas based on historical events,” Martin said. Argo is a dramatization of the joint CIA-Canadian covert operation that extracted six fugitive American diplomatic personnel out of revolutionary Iran in 1980; Zero Dark Thirty is about the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden after the September 2001 terrorist attacks and Lincoln is about the 16th president’s efforts to pass the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution that would formally abolish slavery in this country.

Daniel Day-Lewis became the first three-time winner of the group’s “Best Actor” award for his performance as the title character in Lincoln (Day-Lewis previously won the award for his work in There Will Be Blood in 2007 and in Gangs of New York in 2002) while Jennifer Lawrence was named “Best Actress” for her turn in the dark comedy Silver Linings Playbook.

Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild was the overwhelming choice for the group’s Gene Wyatt award, given for the film that “best evokes the spirit of the South,” with Richard Linklater’s Bernie — yet another dramatization of a true story — finishing second.

“Overall it was an amazing year for Southern film,” Martin said. “I can’t remember a year when we had so many excellent candidates for the Wyatt Award. Our members nominated 13 different movies for the award — and one actor: Matt McConaughey, for appearing in the Southern-set films Killer Joe, The Paperboy, Bernie and Magic Mike in 2012.”

2012 SEFCA AWARD RESULTS

TOP TEN
1.    Argo
2.    Zero Dark Thirty
3.    Lincoln
4.    Moonrise Kingdom
5.    Silver Linings Playbook
6.    Beasts of the Southern Wild
7.    The Master
8.    Les Misérables
9.    Life of Pi
10.    The Dark Knight Rises

BEST ACTOR
Winner:    Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Runner-up:    Joaquin Phoenix, The Master

BEST ACTRESS
Winner:    Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Runner-up:    Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Winner:    Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Runner-up:    Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Winner:    Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables
Runner-up:    Sally Field, Lincoln

BEST ENSEMBLE
Winner:    Lincoln
Runner-up:    Moonrise Kingdom

BEST DIRECTOR
Winner:    Ben Affleck, Argo
Runner-up:    Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Winner:    Moonrise Kingdom: Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola
Runner-up:    Zero Dark Thirty: Mark Boal

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Winner:    Argo: Chris Terrio
Runner-up:    Lincoln: Tony Kushner

BEST DOCUMENTARY
Winner:    The Queen of Versailles
Runner-up:    Bully

BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM
Winner:    The Intouchables
Runner-up:    Amour

BEST ANIMATED FILM
Winner:    ParaNorman
Runner-up:    Frankenweenie

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Winner:    Life of Pi: Claudio Miranda
Runner-up:    Skyfall: Roger Deakins

GENE WYATT AWARD for FILM THAT BEST EVOKES THE SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH
Winner:    Beasts of the Southern Wild
Runner-up:    Bernie

Go Dawgs! Sic ‘em Woof Woof Woof!

S.N.I.P.A. and UGA Music Business
Songwriter: Dodd Ferrelle
Video shot by UGA MBus students
This version edited by Late Fall Productions (Me!)

Backyard Campout

My son and I are camping out in the backyard tonight. The weather is perfect, the Moon is nearly full and gloriously bright, and the crickets, tree frogs and all their cousin species are in perfect harmony. I’m lying here enjoying the moment, and all I can think is, “Shut up, dog!” Who are these neighbors of ours who are letting their little furry speed bump yap and bark like it’s being kicked around the yard? (It isn’t, for the record, being kicked around the yard.) Do I live next door to the Bumpuses? The real problem is there’s too big a divide between my son’s bedtime and mine. I absolutely love camping out, but the nipper was out like a log by 9:30. Which leaves Dad with at least a couple of hours of lying and listening. As pretty as those bugs can sing, no song is so good that I can listen to it for 2 hours. But this is my own nature. I know that. There’s a reason I don’t partake in mostly sedentary, repetitive activities like fishing or golf. Or listen to Bob Marley. I don’t do sedentary well. The closest I come to sitting and doing nothing for a couple of hours is watching a movie, which for me isn’t idle, mindless, or passive. I’d love to someday be one of those guys who sits in a boat with a line in the water or plays 18 then shoots the bull in the clubhouse for a while. But that’s just not me yet. Nor is it me yet to just lie back and do nothing while our little neighborhood and all of its creatures carry on. So I’m blogging, working my thumbs on my phone’s painfully petite keyboard until my knuckles feel arthritic, while my son saws toothpicks in somnambulant bliss. For now, at least, he hasn’t caught his father’s disease. He is as peaceful as can be. It’s a real lesson for me. Yeah. I need an iPad.

small, beautifully MOVING PARTS and Annie Howell

Sometimes I really love my job.

My Gainesville State College colleague and friend, David Smith, and I are co-hosting South Arts’ Southern Tour of Independent Filmmakers with The Arts Council for the third year in a row. Last Thursday, we had the great pleasure of screening the indie comedy/drama small, beautifully MOVING PARTS and having a Q&A with the movie’s co-writer and co-director, Annie Howell.

It’s funny – these events always end up being scheduled during weeks when my schedule is already packed. I lead the Q&As, and I always struggle to find time to research the filmmakers. Our screenings are always on Thursdays, and by that point in the week I’d much rather just go home after work and crash. But nearly all the time, I end up energized afterward. The films are always at least interesting – in this case it was damn good – and the people are usually as friendly as they are fascinating. Annie was especially so.

I was extremely impressed by the film’s writing, acting, and directing. The story has techno-geek Sarah Sparks (Anna Margaret Hollyman) dealing with an unexpected pregnancy. Sarah has a natural affection for all things technological. Even while she is waiting for the results of the pregnancy test, she marvels at how the device functions. Sarah has a bit of trouble with human relations, however, which seems to stem largely from having a mother who left the family when Sarah was rather young.

David Smith, Kevin Eagleson, and Casey Fronek preserving the evening

Discovering she is going to become a mother dredges up a lot of complex feelings and the desire for a maternal role model. So Sarah embarks on a road trip to make contact with her mom, with whom she hasn’t spoken in some time.

Annie and her co-writer/co-director, Lisa Robinson, use Sarah’s tech fetish in creative ways, and the movie charts growth in Sarah without ever saying too much (my primary screenwriting peeve) or beating us over the head. Hollyman gives an outstanding performance, playing the situation realistically and believably at all times. Hollyman understands film acting and uses her face in expressive yet restrained ways. It seemed a very mature, accomplished performance for someone in her first starring feature film role.

Annie and Lisa also use an impressive number of locations for a modestly budgeted production. Annie told some hilarious road stories about the production. During most of the shots of Sarah in the car, the rest of the crew were crouching silently in the back of the van while the cameras rolled. They filmed some scenes on the streets of Las Vegas, which I assumed would be a nightmare, but Annie said it all went very smoothly.

David Smith, Annie Howell, Gladys Wyant, Me

The evening left me rooting for the film and for the filmmakers. small, beautifully MOVING PARTS will become available for streaming on Netflix in the near future, but it needs to be in a certain number of queues before Netflix will order it for DVD distribution. I urge you to add it to your queue. If you’re not on Netflix, look for it via other home video services.

Annie also has a really interesting body of short films. There is a DVD compilation of her shorts available, and one of her shorts, “Tia & Marco,” has been used as an episode of the ITVS series FUTURESTATES. “Tia & Marco” can be viewed here.

Rosemary’s sketch

We had a standing room only crowd, and they loved the movie. To give a sense of how taken the audience was with the movie and with Annie, a local artist named Rosemary Dodd did a sketch of Annie during the Q&A. Several people stuck around afterward and talked to Annie about things that had little to do with the movie.

It was a great night. You can read Annie’s blog about the night here.

TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE review

It’s been a long time since we’ve been able to say this: the new Clint Eastwood film is a great date movie.

Trouble with the Curve comes billed as a sports movie, but baseball serves merely as a backdrop and a source of conflict for two intertwined stories, one about a father and daughter bonding and the other about two opposites falling in love.

Click here to read the full review