CSotD: Say it ain’t so, Lance
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There have been many Lance Armstrong cartoons this week, mostly (yawn) featuring a Livestrong bracelet with variations on the inscription.
And, of course, when you work that hard to establish some kind of iconic object to be your public image, it's going to show up, though you hope in the context of a crappy Pearly Gates cartoon (and preferably not for a good long time) rather than in a crappy Fall From Grace cartoon (ever).
There were some other Lance Armstrong cartoons that went beyond bracelets, including a couple that linked his disgrace with other news, but they still didn't really do more than simply say, "Hey, Lance Armstrong was cheating."
We knew that. Political cartoons are supposed to supply the "so what?" and, in this commentary, Steve Breen provides the "So what?"
Quick point of agreement with everyone who is thinking it: I know, I know. He didn't need the newspaper box and it would be a more eloquent cartoon without what is, really, an intrusive label. You gotta have a little faith in your readers, there, Steve.
The kid here is a symbol, because I don't know how many actual little kids today give a damn about Lance Armstrong, compared to the large number of people who are in their late 20s and 30s now and were little kids at the height of his public presence.
The emotion in this cartoon is based on their disappointment, the disillusionment of those who believed as kids and for whom Lance Armstrong and the whole Livestrong thing is part of their experience growing up and establishing their values.
Suckers.
I lived on the Canadian border during the 1988 Olympics, and I remember the roller coaster when Ben Johnson won gold and then was almost immediately stripped of his medal and disgraced for doping. But, while Johnson was a popular and charismatic figure in Canada, he hadn't set up a cult of personality around himself.
And even Pete Rose, whose fans continue to dispute his fall from grace, had let his deeds, not his need for approval, be their rallying point. All that "Charlie Hustle" stuff could be used by coaches to motivate their Little Leaguers, but it was the coaches doing that: Rose himself was (is) kind of a bristly character, and part of the Charlie Hustle personna was a willingness to knock people on their asses if they were in his way.
By contrast, Armstrong falls into that awful category along with the pederast priest who was lauded as a champion for children or the award-winning teacher led off in handcuffs, the person whose betrayal includes not just being fallible, weak and unethical, but having worked to create a mythos around himself that extends the betrayal far beyond its actual victims.
To put it another way, if he were simply a cycling champion who cheated, the disappointment would be keen within that community, but it would be similar to the disappointment when Bobby Fisher turned out to be even a bigger screwball than his eccentric behavior at chess matches had suggested. A shrug and a footnote.
Instead, we learn that he put as much effort into cheating as he put into building up his public image, and his fall becomes not just a disappointment in the cycling community but an insult and a disillusionment to an entire generation.
Breen's cartoon captures that.
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