Scandals like the Bullock-James-McGee triangle are self-fueling fires

If you look at anything under a magnifying glass too long, it’s bound to burst into flames. The same could be said of the intense media scrutiny that has been directed at the state of the Sandra Bullock-Jesse James partnership: with so many news outlets focusing on the still-unfolding story of Jesse James’ extramarital affair with professional harlot Michelle “Bombshell” McGee, the only direction the story can go now is up — in flames, that is.

Just as we saw in the sensationalized Tiger Woods scandal earlier this year, lascivious stories of lurid interest have a way of snowballing out of proportion. The prospect of claiming one’s 15 minutes of fame has a way of coaxing women (at least, they’ve all been women so far) out into the open — women who would’ve previously been satisfied with a notch in their bedpost that came from a PGA champion or badboy mechanic with a TV show.

In Sandra Bullock’s case, it’s very likely that the first crack in the dam came from the weight of all the attention resulting from her surprise win in the best actress category in this year’s Academy Awards ceremony. As soon as the story broke, reporters were all too happy to cast Bullock as “America’s sweetheart,” an epithet I hadn’t heard applied to the illustrious star of Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous before there was a need to cultivate her image as a pitiable damsel-in-distress. Once a scandal like this gets going, it can almost keep itself going indefinitely.

The only way to keep stories of this nature from mushroom-clouding out of proportion is to cut off what is, in effect, the fuel to their fire: Media attention. To this end, I would implore any bloggers who may be reading this to cease all deleterious coverage of this scandal, and to do your part to keep it from invading the blogosphere.

Thank you for your cooperation.