The Sandy Standard

The world knows how low we can go, but we seem unable to find the bottom and continue to plunge into the grunge of life's worst. For a public figure, that grunge has restorative properties: no matter how ugly the mess, wallow in the grunge for a few weeks and careers are revitalized. If you're a person on the fringe of fame, grab ahold of a famous person and leap into the pit, dragging the famous one with you. Wallow in the grunge and you may no longer be on the fringe, but at the center of the evening news and the centerfold of a star magazine.

You will have made it to the top of your world by wallowing at the bottom of what the rest of us believe is the worst of the real world.

Along comes Sandra Bullock, a principled woman whose private life was violently torn from her by excruciatingly public exposure by fringe people who used her stardom to create a career. Jesse James was not by anyone's wildest dream an "ideal" mate for Sandy, but she saw something in him no one else saw. After waiting privately for her Mr. Right to come along, she chose Jesse. She knew his past but believed in his future. On the heels of her awards season triumphs, the fringe people gathered at the grunge pit, waited for the right moment, grabbed ahold of Sandy and jumped in.

It was really not about Sandra Bullock, but about the whores and hookers who survive on the coat-tails of someone else's public life. They sell themselves to public figures with an ulterior motive, and that motive is always about me, me, me.

Sandy, however, pulled herself out of the filth: immediately. She took care of her personal commitments, not her publicity. She left the public venue and went private, an unusual H'wood coping mechanism. Endless speculation was just that: speculation. No one saw her, no one knew what was going on, and there were no publicity releases either to justify or explain the personal situation between Sandra and Jesse. Questions shouted across a school parking lot went unanswered; accusations splashed across the pages of the tabloids were ignored.

Sandra Bullock stayed home and took care of her personal life in private.

Perhaps we can use Sandra as the new standard for appropriate conduct. Perhaps other public figures can realize that nothing is gained by public confrontations, accusations, justifications. Stay home and take care of personal problems personally and privately. Make decisions based on what is best for yourself, your family, and the other people in your life who are important to you. When you arrive at your decisions about your life, do it and move on.

More public figures need to learn to be more private and stop believing that any publicity is good publicity. No one makes a lasting career from exposing another person's private pain, but that lesson needs to be retaught to Hollywood. Keep your private business private. Please.