The Fall of an Icon

Americans demand the illusion of perfection from their cultural icons. As “cultural saints” who “establish meaningful and practical values for fans” (Laderman) celebrity icons need to maintain the illusion that they are unreachable figures to emulate. Their power comes from the image that these figures present to the world, not the reality of their actual personality. At the same these figures are held up as paragons to aspire to, there is a desire to find out how what sort of likeness the publicly presented icon has to the private image. This helps to explain the prevalence of tabloids focusing on celebrities. They humanize these icons in ways that make them more relatable while emphasizing their nature as secular icons.

Sometimes, learning more about a celebrity icon can actually destroy their image as a “cultural saint.” Lance Armstrong is the perfect example of this. After beating cancer Armstrong won professional cycling’s most prestigious and famous race, the Tour de France
, an unprecedented seven times in a row. Through partnerships with Nike and his own charitable foundation his image was used to help raise hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer research. For his fans Armstrong was an example of that showed adversity could be beaten, incredible things were possible, and charity was the proper reaction to success.

Throughout his professional career Armstrong was followed by persistent allegations that his victories were the result of performance enhancing drug use. Eventually it was determined that Armstrong used performance-enhancing drugs, and was stripped of his titles. As a result Nike ended their use of his image, and his charitable foundation changed its name to remove any connection with Armstrong. Fans turned on Armstrong because the revelation of his cheating punctured the icon’s inspirational image. Armstrong went from a positive example of what could be achieved through hard work and dedication to a negative example of what could be lost through dishonesty. The genuine good he did for the as an icon was based on his image, not the object itself.

Power of Perception

        As Shabana Mir discussed in both her lecture and article, “You Can’t Really Look Normal and Dress Modestly”, appearance is a crucial part of our identity. Although we may hope and believe that we’re in control of our first impressions, there is something that always gets the chance to speak first – our clothes. Despite our best efforts to reserve judgment until actually getting to know someone, it’s incredibly difficult to not categorize an individual at first glance. Later on, we may be able to look past this initial judgment but nonetheless a first assessment has already been made. It’s hard to deny this aspect of ourselves. It’s how we work to make sense of our surroundings and generally function on a day-to-day basis. The issue to discuss here is the disconnect that occurs between the message we put out and the message that is received.

        What I hope to convey is not always what others pick up on. As such, a fair amount of control lies with the observer. As I was sitting down to consider how religious clothing or paraphernalia factors into identity on campus, I realized that I couldn’t come up with many examples. This may be attributed to the fact that there just simply isn’t a lot of religious clothing worn around campus. Or perhaps it’s because I’m not looking for it. The most common example I could think of was cross necklaces. Do I notice these because they’re most common or because, as a Catholic, this is a symbol I am most attuned to pick up? The answers to the commonality of religious paraphernalia on campus are not ones that I know. However, thinking about this issue drew my attention to the power of perception. It highlighted the fact that while we may like to believe our identity is in our hands, the beliefs and perceptions of our peers in fact play a significant role in our identities. Thus, bringing forth the question of how private is the formation of our identities? Do we internalize the perceptions of self that society throws back at us?