If as many people are actually upset and disturbed by the completely unsurprising death of Anna Nicole Smith as the media would have us believe, I can only refer back to my previous entry on despair and add this to my list of despair-worthy items:
1. War in the Middle East
2. Environmental catastrophe
3. People actually upset and shocked by Anna Nicole Smith’s completely unsurprising death
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I just went ten rounds with someone over this re: Barbaro the other week and I don’t really want to get into it again…
But people can care about more than one thing at a time, and I’m not sure what’s despair-worthy here.
I’m not saying she was a pillar of society. I wouldn’t have wanted her life. But she was pretty young, and with a small child, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all to find that kind of upsetting.
I can’t pretend to be shocked or upset as I only had a dim idea of who she was in the first place, but she was a PERSON, for goodness sakes.
Oh I’m not upset about people feeling bad about what happened if they want to. She had a pretty tragic life. What is weird to me is how the *media* presents it, as if we all were her best friends and are at a loss, not knowing what to do now. I don’t disagree, Hannah. People can care about more than one thing at a time obviously. And yes, Haddayr, she was a person. I’m not discounting her; I’m discounting the amount of space it’s given in the news, and how the public is presented as a grief-stricken mess.
Ah.
When you live with your head in a paper bag (running from Autism-related appointment to autism-related appointment), you miss out on how the media is covering things. I think I get what you’re saying, now.
A friend of mine was horribly upset because she said now the woman doesn’t get a chance to grow up and become a real person and now that she’s dead it’s officially a wasted life.
Which _is_ very upsetting, of course. But like I said. Paper bag. Living in it.
It’s definitely sad to see it the way your friend articulated it, as an officially wasted life without hope for making it better in the future. I think I need to start living more in a paper bag like you’re doing at the moment, though. The more I read or watch the news, the more depressed it makes me. I think I’m going to make it an official No News weekend.
A professor at UofP said that Americans are obsessed with celebrities, especially those who are famous for being famous, such as Paris Hilton.
Is it because the rise from utter obscurity to overexposure is the Horatio Alger story of the late 20th/early 21st century? I’m not sure.
Is it a means of distraction, of coping with the sadder aspects of life – a bait and switch tactic?
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