Tony Romo, Celebrity Quarterback

When Eminem donned what looks like a children’s Cowboys dress-up set in his new video “We Made You,” many people said that he had Tony Romo in his sights, that this was a “diss,” etc.

 

These people are obviously unfamiliar with Eminem, and hip hop in general.

 

Eminem does dress like Romo, kind of, while dancing with a plump Jessica Simpson impostor by the General Lee; at the end of the video, he throws a cheeseburger to Simpson in a faux-touchdown completion.

 

Light ribbing, yes; cold-blooded indictment of Tony Romo, not really.

 

Eminem doesn’t even mention Romo in his song; he tells Simpson that he’s “here to save (her)”, so I guess that might be construed as slightly incendiary. Really, though, for Eminem, this is the lightest of satire.

 

This is the man who is the undisputed, hands down, king of battle rapping; if he wanted to “diss” Romo, he would have, and he would have left little doubt about his intentions.

 

The real question, it seems, is what is more indicative of Romo’s degree of celebrity: The fact that he was parodied in a music video, or the fact that it has garnered such attention, specifically for this fact, since its release?

 

I’d opt for the latter.

 

Not only will Romo make headlines for just about anything he does, but he’ll make headlines for something he had nothing to do with, whatsoever.

 

Some might say that Tony Romo is sinning against Bill Parcells’ commandments, that he has become a “celebrity quarterback.”

 

Perhaps he is; but the fact that Tony Romo is a B-List celebrity says far more about us, as a nation, than it does about Romo as a quarterback, or a person.

 

We live in an age where celebrities are created every day, for no discernible reason other than the fact that they were loud and/or drunk and/or obnoxious on another created celebrity’s dating show. (Think “Real Chance of Love.”)

 

We live in an age where celebrity-status is handed to anyone with a sex tape (Kim Kardashian/Paris Hilton) or an obnoxious amount of undeserved money (Hilton, Kardashian, Brody Jenner, the entire cast of ‘The Hills’, etc, etc.)

 

It is celebrity engineered for the new millennium, and it is geared directly towards our increasing need for instant gratification.

 

So in the end, could Tony Romo ever have not been a celebrity?

 

The answer, of course, is “no.”

 

Romo is just a man, blessed and cursed by his ability to throw a football; a man looking for his own real chance of love.