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In the recently released film The Adjustment Bureau, David Norris, played by Matt Damon is a young politician trying to win a seat in the U.S. Senate. His first attempt ends in failure after a picture of him pulling a college prank hits the newspapers.
Norris takes to the stage in-front of his followers and starts to give a speech.
He’d grown up in Brooklyn, his parents had passed away and this young politician was seen to be authentic in the eyes of the public.
He was a real person they could relate to.
Norris tells the crowd that when you got in a fight in Brooklyn “it wasn’t whether you got knocked down, it’s what you do when you get back up and I came here to tell you tonight that I will get back up.”
His supporters break out into applause, but then he stops and says they didn’t really have that saying during his childhood. Instead, the line had tested well with focus groups so his team advised him to use it.
Norris goes on to reveal how they’d tested 57 ties to see how different colours made him look to different demographics.
They’d also spent $7300 dollars on a consultant whose job it was to find out how scuffed his shoes should be to get both the upper class and working man’s vote.
His authentic image was anything but. It was manufactured. Here was a genuine person surrounded by people who were trying to make him seem normal. It turned out the easier option was just being himself. No advisors, no consultants and no focus groups.
It was after watching the film on Saturday night – and I highly recommend it for what little weight my cinematic opinion carries – that I saw the front page of The Sunday Telegraph the next morning.
Australian cricket captain Michael Clarke took up about a third of the page, but the story wasn’t about the looming summer or his challenge to stamp his authority on the side in the post Ponting era.
No, instead, the story was about Clarke dropping underwear maker Bonds from his stable of sponsors.
The reason? Because his management team felt the man responsible for upholding the honour and tradition of the baggy green cap shouldn’t be seen mucking around in his underpants.
Normally, that would be a sound decision. But I couldn’t help thinking back to senate hopeful David Norris and his story about ties and shoe scuffing.
There’s a lot of similarities to Michael Clarke.
This is a move aimed at making him seem less like a model and more like an average bloke.
For some reason not everyone is a fan of the man nicknamed Pup.
They saw his former life of fast cars, a Bondi pad and a model fiancee and instantly made a judgement call about a person they’d never met.
Is that fair? Definitely not, but such is the price of fame.
If you’re in the camp that thinks Clarke has an image problem the big question is this: Will not seeing him on billboards in his Bonds change your opinion of him?
If it does then why?
Why should we care what Clarke does away from the cricket field?
If he is a good bloke does it matter who he poses for?
If he chooses to spend some of his downtime in-front of a camera does it matter?
Isn’t the most important thing that he has the tactical nous to win a test match?
As a cricket fan, I want Clarke to be able to sense when another fielder is needed under the nose of a batsman or when a bowling change is required.
If he fails to do that then you’re entitled to have a crack, but his character shouldn’t be judged by a Bonds commercial.
Like Norris in the Adjustment Bureau, what tie he chooses to wear or how scuffed his shoes are should not make one bit of difference.
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