In response to the question of who was his greatest enemy, the Criminal Minds character Jason Gideon replied,
"It's not a who. It's a what. Ignorance."
Actor Shemar Moore, SSA Derek Morgan on the show Criminal Minds, was found driving drunk in early June. Wait, didn't you know? Oh yeah, it was all over the net! Oh yeah, I found it on TMZ, IMDb, TV guide, USA today, MSNBC, etc. Oh, wait. Didn't I forget something? Where are the Criminal Minds fan sites? Why didn't I list them?
In this age of the internet, one would think that something like a star getting into legal trouble would immediately appear on the numerous fan sites. However, in this incident, you would have been stretching your luck. In fact, very few of the fan sites acknowledged that it happened. Some did; others refused to talk about it. Why? The most common answer: "This is part of his private life. We don't need to discuss it."
Do they not realize how bogus that answer is? I do believe that if something does not affect the show, then it is part of the private life of the actor/actress. I believe that then we do not need to discuss it. But that answer is coming from fan sites that have gone as far as discussing how the girlfriend of one of the other male co-stars looks. Isn't that private? The girlfriend doesn't affect the show; she's not Yoko Ono. Why do we need to discuss how she looks? I consider it far more appropriate to discuss something that could actually affect the show, as that is what I am a fan of.
Now, as I stated earlier, I believe that if it does not affect the show, it is private. In California, it is not uncommon for people convicted of DUI to do jail time. In fact, Shemar was supposedly facing six months. His court date, June 26. Shooting for season 3 of Criminal Minds begins July 9. Do the math. It affects Criminal Minds all of a sudden, so, this bothered me. Why wouldn't the webmasters of the fan sites tell the visitors that this happened? People who came forward and said something were almost reprimanded for doing so. Why were we so afraid to say that one of our stars screwed up?
You may be wondering what this has to with gods and actors.This incident with Shemar Moore is a prime example of a shiftthat has happened in pop culture today. Now, if we love a star, we distort who they are and what they're capable of. Simply put, we deify them. We mention the good qualities, but just let it slip about their bad qualities. It's like we say,
'My favorite star screwed up? What, no, of course not! They couldn't have! But, hey, if I don't say anything, it never happened, right?'
Where does that sort of logic come from? Why should we expect these people to be better than us? We are only setting our selves up for disappointment. As a defense mechanism, we pretend it never happened. Refer back to the quote. Do we realize how destructive it is to ignore what happened? As scary as it may seem, you may have picked an idol that is up to no good.Ignorance leads to disappointment because in today's world, you can only keep it up so long.
Now, the biggest question of all arrives; how do we correct this? It's quite simple. If you love a star, show, movie, whatever, keep yourself educated about what happens with them. Don't be nosy, but don't be oblivious.Knowledge is power, but going to far into the person's life is rude and disrespectful.Ignorance might be bliss, but asI have already stated, it leads to disappointment.So, we find a balance, as we must do with many aspects of our lives.
Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to say that Shemar Moore is a bad person. He is an amazing actor who has shown absolutely fantastic character. However, driving drunk is a stupid, selfish move. Lucky was he that no one was hurt, no one was killed, and that now he got out of prison. I am very disappointed in Shemar Moore, and I'm truly sad that it happened. But what's really sad is that in the end I became more disappointed in the fans' reactions to this.