Is It Mel Gibson, the Apology, or Something Bigger? Communicating "I'm Sorry"
Why won’t the latest celebrity flap go away? Such situations calling for a public apology come and go about once a month. Some movie star, athlete, or politician gets caught shoplifting, driving while drunk, doing drugs, having an affair, uttering prejudicial slurs over an open mic, or taking a bribe and the public becomes outraged about the duplicity. The public persona and principles preached don’t match the private behavior. Typically, what further enrages us about such situations is that the celebrity involved first takes the stance: "It’s none of your business." When that line doesn’t work, he or she tries to make excuses, "I was drunk/stoned/conned/didn’t know blah, blah, blah … " fill in the blanks. When those excuses don’t calm the waters, they finally come out with a belated apology. The public accepts the apology—if there’s a true admission of wrong-doing.
Let’s side-track here a moment on what makes a good apology:
1) Admission of guilt or wrong-doing. The person accepts responsibility for what was said or done and its inappropriateness, inaccuracy, error, weakness, hurtfulness, insensitivity, or whatever.
2) Specificity. Apologizing specifically sounds sincere. Global, blanket apologies convey lack of concern or understanding of the situation or damage caused.
3) Amends. Apologizing typically involves some attempt to make things right, some words or gesture of goodwill toward the offended person or group.
If the apology follows these guidelines, life goes back to normal. We once again buy their music, see their movies, go to their ball games, elect them to office.
So what has happened in the Mel Gibson situation? He has apologized. So why is the story still hanging on in the media after five days? What do you think?
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