Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Twitter

I really do not care about celebrity deaths: I don't want people to die, but people do die. I'm very sad when people I know die, and I feel nothing for celebrities. #myunpopularopinion


That's what I had written, although it felt really too coarse to publish. Terry Teachout says it much better:

Since then, though, I can’t say that the death of any celebrity has “punched me in the gut.” Perhaps this is a function of the fact that I’ve now lived long enough to lose numerous real-life family members and intimate friends, something that was not yet the case in 1983. Whatever the reason, I was unresponsive to the outpouring of social-media sentiment that was triggered by the passing of (among others) Fisher, Reynolds, Edward Albee, Muhammad Ali, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, George Michael, Prince, Alan Rickman, Garry Shandling, and Gene Wilder. Why should this be so? The reason, I think, is that while I admired some of these men and women, one or two greatly, I didn’t know any of them, nor did their lives and work shape my character or taste.
...
Nevertheless, there is for me an unbridgeable gap between admiration from a distance, however strong, and the more personal sentiment that for me is inextricably tied up with personal acquaintance.

5 comments:

Miss Self-Important said...

I agree with this. I don't understand why people think 2016 was an especially bad year due to what was perceived to be an unusually large number of celebrity deaths. Maybe there are just more celebrities these days? Or more efficient means of conveying information about their demise? Or people feel too intensely connected to actors they saw in a movie once when they were kids?

Emily Hale said...

Yeah, I just do not understand celebrity mourning at all! Francisco maintains that they are our new saints and that's why we mourn them.

Miss Self-Important said...

Well, that's possible, or in secular terms, just the only heroes we can agree on. Most forms of actual heroism are now subject to great controversy, whereas bringing back fond memories of one's childhood (spent watching movies and listening to music) is an uncontroversially virtuous deed.

Hopkins said...

I'm with Francisco on this one, though I think the surprising sadness of 2016 was that for so many of these people death came out of the blue, and often at a younger age when they were still producing art (Alan Rickman). I also think it's valuable to celebrate the life lived. I was only deeply saddened by Gene Wilder's death, but he is one of my favorite comedians of all time, and his work is hugely important to me.

Emily Hale said...

I suspect I would have been devastated by Colwin's death if I had been reading her before she died.