Let’s face facts: Had the woman who allegedly killed and mutilated a relative’s cat intended on wearing the cat blood to a Toby Keith concert, no one would have mentioned what performer she was going to see. But because Lady Gaga is a nontraditional performer who pushes a lot of boundaries, her name was associated with a terrible act of someone clearly not in their right mind. This is no different than the unjust fingerpointing done to Marilyn Manson after Columbine.
Aside from the sensationalizing done by KFOR-TV, this illustrates a bigger problem with our society: the lack of accountability, which probably began with the phrase “The devil made me do it.” We have become so entrenched in our own wellbeing that when we get caught with our hands in the cookie jar, we instantly seek to lay blame on someone else. Even lousy parents blame violent video games for their children’s violent behavior (they tried that with Columbine, too), and waste no effort asking themselves how the children got their hands on the game to begin with.
But it goes way beyond that.
Timothy Geithner tried to blame his tax problem on TurboTax, Bill Clinton chose to lie about a sex scandal and George W. Bush invaded a country under false pretenses. These things seem very different, but it’s still about accountability.
When the people we look up to cannot admit fault, when they are at fault, is there really any question why we have no ethics with regard to our own questionable actions? How hard is it for people to just say, “Yes, I did that, it’s my own fault, and I accept full responsibility?” Frankly, it’s stuff like this that makes us all come off as callow, we really need to man up, because this behavior is beneath us.
And for the record, I am not a Lady Gaga fan. But I am a fan of media that properly filters irrelevant information.
—Brandon Wertz
Oklahoma City
