Those returning from little planet Pluto last week — perhaps aboard an Elon Musk rocket — are undoubtedly the only ones in our solar system who are unaware that this has been Aaron Rodgers’ turn in our timeshare that’s the doghouse.
The unmasked — in more ways than one — Green Bay Packers star quarterback, reigning NFL MVP, State Farm pitchman and “Jeopardy!” host wannabe suggested he was vaccinated against Covid-19 only to reveal that he was an anti-vaxxer when he tested positive for the virus. Along the way, he’s espoused some controversial treatment touted by comedian turned right-wing podcaster Joe Rogan. (Question: Why are the tested vaccines a risk but taking some unproven treatment isn’t?)
I’m past caring if people get vaccinated. You don’t want to, you don’t want to — fine. But don’t pretend you are not in the middle of a public health crisis and put others at risk. Don’t preserve the temple that is your body by violating the sanctity of others’.
That, however, is only one reason some people are upset with Rodgers, who after isolating returned to cheers Sunday, Nov. 14, despite an uneven performance in the Packers’17-0 drubbing of the Seattle Seahawk. Will Leitch, contributing editor for New York magazine, hit the nail on the noggin when he told “PBS NewsHour’s” John Yang that “…the thing with Rodgers, and I think the reason his has resonated so much, it really feels like a surprise. It really feels like we have learned something about an athlete that we thought we knew, and it's very different than the perception we had of that athlete. “
He had come out for racial justice. He wanted to take a year off from playing to host “Jeopardy.” He was a funny State Farm pitchman. In other words, he seemed like a kind of smart, humanistic everyman. Or was he merely playing to what he thought Hollywood and Madison Avenue wanted to see and hear?
Perhaps Rodgers was nothing more than a blank slate in which we could write our own desires, dreams, thoughts and feelings — which is what stars are. Perhaps the reason we’re angry with him is not just because he misrepresented his vaccination status but because in doing so he forced us to recognize our miscalculation of celebrity — something that’s easy to do amid the inauthentic “authenticity” of the digital age in which personal “truth” trumps objective reality.
The undeniable truth is that people are complex. Rodgers is a person. Rodgers is complex. He cares enough about humanity to stand up for social justice. But his concern for humanity stops at getting himself vaccinated against Covid. These are the incontrovertible facts.
That he is a lesser man than we thought he was is on him. That we are disenchanted by the discovery is on us.