Sure, President Barack Obama would be the easy choice for Person of the Year. Let’s face it, the year WAS all about him (just how he likes it). He’s gotten enough attention, and besides, I don’t want to reward failure.
I’m going in another direction.
We’ve long abandoned the post-9/11 belief that we were focused on the wrong things, that cops, firefighters and soldiers were the heroes, not vapid, selfish empty celebrities. 2009 was a year in which our celebrity obsessed culture seemingly jumped the shark on a monthly basis. This was the year that TMZ became a more important news organization than CNN. People with no discernable talent beyond whoring themselves out became instant millionaires and celebrities. 2009 America is a society obsessed with manufactured reality and phony celebrities.
Here are but a few of the year’s lowlights…
Jon and Kate Plus 8
One of the biggest pop culture stories of the year was the sad saga of Jon and Kate Plus 8. We watched, in prime time, a family destroy themselves and implode, for our amusement. We saw a father of eight act like a child. We saw a mother more interested in maintaining her reality TV show than her family. Mercifully, the Octomom sideshow seems to have died down.
Teenage ‘Hollywood Hills Burglar Bunch’ Suspected in Celebrity Robberies
A group of teenagers obsessed with celebrities went on a crime spree robbing Hollywood’s young, rich and famous, everyone from Rachael Bilson to Lindsay Lohan and Orlando Bloom. According to news reports, “An accomplice who is now cooperating with Los Angeles police said Rachel Jungeon Lee had orchestrated the robberies in order to fulfill her dreams of owning items previously belonging to Hollywood stars.” Now she is facing 20 years in jail.
Tiger Woods “mistresses”
When news broke about Tiger’s car accident and the unusual circumstances surrounding it, attention quickly turned to a National Enquirer story published two days earlier claining he was having an affair with a ” 34-year-old “New York party girl†named Rachel Uchitel.” In the next day, countless stories were published about Uchitel and her celebrity obsession. She became national news overnight. Tiger’s other side action saw this as an opportunity—to get famous, and maybe even rich. (Famous is more important than rich these days). Now, Tiger is facing a string of woman coming forward claiming they had affiars with him. Obviously ruining ones reputation is worth it if the payoff is celebrity, even for 15 minutes.
All of this garbage brings me to the exception to the rule. To a man thrust into the white hot spotlight of national media attention who manged to handle it with the same grace that got him famous in the first place. I am of course talking about US Airways pilot Chesley Sullenberger, the hero of the Hudson river landing.
Scene Systems did this incredible recreation of the flight using the air traffic control audio togteher with a video recreation of the flight, in real-time. This is chilling stuff. It also the greatest example of grace under pressure that you will ever see.
Sullenberger’s grace and humility remained intact even as the entire country stood and applauded. He became an international celebrity overnight yet it didn’t seem to interest him, and certainly did not change him. Imagine the offers he had flying at him, with companies frothing at the mouth to attach his heroism to their products. How many people would be able to handle instant celebrity and potential riches the way Chesley Sullenbereger did? Probably about as many as could land a 747 safely in the Hudson River.
Because he was the exception in this celebrity obsessed year, because he has undeniable skill and talents, because his was literally THE feel good story of the year, Chesley B. Sullenberger is the Pundit Review’s 2009 Person of the Year.