‘Tiger’ Reveals a New Villain

HBO's two-part Tiger Woods doc serves as an indictment of the vulturous tabloid media and its toxic pursuit of "great American entertainment."

One hundred seconds. That's how long it takes. First, you hear the voice of Earl Woods, and a prophecy for his son. That he would transcend the game of golf. A prophecy that would come true in more ways than one. And then, 100 seconds into HBO's Tiger, you see Tiger Woods, the greatest golfer of all time, moving at a glacial pace, shuffling in his bare feet to the back of the room where his mugshot will be taken.

You've seen the mugshot. You know the story, and the one before it. In 2009, Tiger Woods did some troubling shit and we all found out about it. He cheated on his wife. A lot. He caused a lot of people pain. His wife, Elin Nordegren, undoubtedly. The more than a dozen women he carried on intimate relationships with simultaneously, for sure. The people that paid him a lot of money not to fuck up his reputation. The friends and partners he cut out of his life after it was all over. It was all very shameful. It was all disappointing.

And in the twelve years since the news first broke, Tiger Woods has been the only defendant in the case of Tiger Woods before the court of public opinion. But now, with Tiger, his life and career are back under the microscope. And after watching the film, I noticed that in the wake of Woods’s moral missteps, something a bit more unsettling than infidelity was taking place. A dark cloud that swelled. And it was right there in front of us the whole time, because we’re all a little responsible for it.

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