Culture Shock - Scandal, Privacy, Media Power and the Story of John Terry
The biggest celebrity news story of the year so far has been seriously hard to ignore. Chelsea and now former England captain John Terry’s alleged extra-marital affair with Vanessa Perroncel, former partner of Wayne Bridge, Terry’s close friend and ex- Chelsea team mate, has been everywhere. But now that the media furore has died down a little, it is interesting to reflect on the way three interesting components to this story have interacted with one another.
The first component is scandal. As if we didn’t know it already, the British public loves a scandal. The popularity of celebrity gossip magazines – even the existence of celebrities who are famous for no other reason than their propensity to generate gossip and scandal – are testimony to this fact. And yet paradoxically, the public even love a scandal to the detriment of their own wishes and desires.
On the field, Terry has led England through a very successful World Cup qualifying campaign and there was every reason to believe this would continue. And yet millions were willing to buy the papers that they surely knew would lead to his downfall. Despite the fact that changing the England captain only months before the World Cup is not ideal preparation, perhaps these fans didn’t care, or thought the risk was justified. After all, according to various Internet message boards, many fans thought that if Terry was found to be guilty of the alleged crime, then this constituted an unforgivable betrayal. Many fans, it seemed, felt a great deal of sympathy for Wayne Bridge. Apparent widespread public condemnation therefore raised some important questions about the second component in this story.
The second component is privacy. These allegations have served to re-introduce the perennial debate about any given person’s privacy. However we might evaluate John Terry for the allegations levelled against him, isn’t this ultimately a private matter between him, his wife Toni Poole, and their family? Do the media and the public have any right to judge him on a subject that they actually know very little about? After all, how can we possibly judge the married life of someone we don’t even know? If he fulfils the public role of England captain, should there even be an issue over his private life? This has been Chelsea coach Carlo Ancelotti’s view. Publicly at least, Ancelotti had no qualms about retaining Terry as his club captain, and in turn Terry has repaid him with on field displays of leadership and defensive excellence in the last week or so that have garnered rave reviews. The enemy of privacy, however, is the media, and this brings us to the third component...media power.
This phenomenon has been at full tilt in recent weeks. After failing to silence (and perhaps, in doing so, antagonising) the media with a court injunction, Terry has suffered the misfortune of having these allegations about his private life splashed all over the pages of the newspapers, the Internet and across 24 hour television news. Obviously the media’s power to achieve this hinges on the first component: scandal. The public’s appetite for scandal and the media power to influence public interests appear to be mutually supporting. The media have taken a very hard line judgment on Terry and certainly this has influenced public opinion. Equally, the culture is set by what the public wants and the media reflects this.
And so we have a massive news story. Evidently, the press and the public think they have the right to judge Terry and, ultimately, this has led to England coach Fabio Capello sacking him as England captain.
However, it is interesting to think about exactly what caused the sacking: was he sacked for having the alleged affair itself, or was he sacked because of the media furore caused by the alleged affair? If we think about the former, some people might defend Terry’s England captaincy by citing the aforementioned arguments regarding privacy; and yet, although these might be reasonable arguments, they are swept aside by the force of the latter: media power and the public’s insatiable desire for scandal ultimately prevails.
Despite his excellent performances and leadership, and regardless of the issue of privacy, Capello couldn’t possibly keep Terry as captain because he would have forever carried the huge baggage of scandal with him everywhere he went. His position as captain became untenable. The press would have continued to search for more dirt to pin on him. Every press conference and interview in the lead-up to the World Cup would have been about the scandal, and Capello cannot have failed to realise this. It is no surprise to see that the media frenzy began to die down almost as soon as Terry was relinquished of the captaincy.
In England, we regard the honour of national captaincy highly and expect strong leadership and a figurehead for the team. A major price for this honour is the loss of privacy.
