Two of the biggest stories in the entertainment world this week are on the actions of two celebrities over the weekend.
Most talked about is the Kanye West/Taylor Swift incident at the Video Music Awards.
As Swift was accepting her award for Female Video of the Year, West came out of nowhere, took the mic from her and announced that Beyonce was more deserving of the award.
On Saturday night, tennis champion Serena Williams caused a stir of her own when she verbally assaulted a line judge during her semi-final match against Kim Clijsters.
During a crucial point in the match, Williams was docked a point for a foot fault (according to the line judge her foot went over the base line before she served). The loss of that point created a match point for Clijsters.
A visibly upset Williams marched over to the line judge and yelled at her. According to espn.com Williams told the line judge she was going to “take this (expletive) ball and shove it down your (expletive) throat.”
Instead of continuing the match, Williams continued to berate the line judge. Those actions cost her another point, and as a result, the match.
A similar incident happened to President Obama when, during his health care address, Rep. Joe Wilson shouted “You lie!” to the president. According to Wilson, he felt provoked and explained that it was “town hall moment.”
West, Williams and Wilson have apologized for their actions, but many believe it was done just for publicity.
In these cases, these figures spoke the words that many were thinking. After a review of the match there are some who think Williams did not commit a foot fault, and plenty of viewers agreed that Beyonce did have the best video of the year (which was later justified as she won the Video of the Year award). And there are sure to be people who felt the same way as Wilson.
However the fact that they did speak out shows badly on them and maybe even their supporters.
While scenes like this don’t always happen everyday, especially on campus, it’s still important for people to learn from them.
Even with the freedom of speech there are still some things that shouldn’t be said, especially in public and against other people. Acts like these make you wonder where our society is going. Are we becoming too self-absorbed that we feel it’s okay to humiliate others to prove our own opinion?
Is social tact being sacrificed for attention driven individualistic stunts?
Past generations would have classified West and Williams as sore losers. Our society has been shaped by individualism, but we have to be aware of the accepted boundaries.
There are civil ways to disagree and being disrespectful of others is not one of them.
