Rest in Peace, Indeed
Wow.
I am sitting on my book-strewn bed in a tangle of blankets and flannel sheets snacking on food that probably isn't meant for breakfast, listening to the radio and generally enjoying a leisurely Saturday morning, and Scott Simon on NPR's Weekend Edition just said something wonderfully sensitive, sympathetic and almost beautiful about the recently deceased Anna Nicole Smith.
In the last several days, I have been appalled at the coverage of this woman's demise. I was especially surprised at the extent of coverage on NPR. I don't want to sound like a snob and imply that Anna Nicole Smith wasn't good enough for NPR, but NPR usually doesn't cover the more titillating, sensational stories so thoroughly.
[As an aside, however, I have noticed that in general NPR seems to cover stories without a lot of substance for much longer than strikes me as informative. I can understand repeating the same story throughout the day, but when the same story is repeated for three or four days, is it really still news? It certainly ceases to be as interesting.]
When I first heard about Smith's death, my first thought, quite frankly, was "Who cares?" It's a tad harsh, I suppose, but I didn't find it to be particularly newsworthy, especially since I was fairly sure that her death was not being reported out of respect or concern but for the sensational reporting possibilities. Once more the press could make a spectacle out of a woman who has been simultaneously admired and criticized by the media who focus solely on the persona created by her obvious public actions--working in a strip club, having a child at sixteen, marrying a wealthy man almost three times her age, posing for Playboy, battling with weight problems--without concerning themselves with the troubled woman behind the persona.
The fact that she has died is only the beginning of the story. Now there must be an autopsy so that we can know the intimate details of where and how she died and thus speculate on the reasons it may have happened.
Whatever anyone may have thought of her, whatever she may have appeared to be in public, she was a human being who struggled through life just as most of the rest of us do. Sure, her struggles led to fame and fortune to some extent, but she had to deal with real hardship, the gravest of which was surely the loss of her son. I can't imagine any loss greater than that of a child, but after the young man's death, his mother was watched closely, but not out of sympathy.
Sure it can be argued that she sought out fame and fortune and enjoyed the spotlight that sensationalism offered to her, but now that she has died, is it really necessary to continue to look for as many sordid details as possible? Don't people have anything better to do? Wouldn't it be better to take a more magnanimous approach of not saying anything at all since you can't think of anything nice to say? Or just think about how you would feel to have the death of yourself or someone you love mercilessly and unsympathetically scrutinized.
Rest in peace, indeed.
I am sitting on my book-strewn bed in a tangle of blankets and flannel sheets snacking on food that probably isn't meant for breakfast, listening to the radio and generally enjoying a leisurely Saturday morning, and Scott Simon on NPR's Weekend Edition just said something wonderfully sensitive, sympathetic and almost beautiful about the recently deceased Anna Nicole Smith.
In the last several days, I have been appalled at the coverage of this woman's demise. I was especially surprised at the extent of coverage on NPR. I don't want to sound like a snob and imply that Anna Nicole Smith wasn't good enough for NPR, but NPR usually doesn't cover the more titillating, sensational stories so thoroughly.
[As an aside, however, I have noticed that in general NPR seems to cover stories without a lot of substance for much longer than strikes me as informative. I can understand repeating the same story throughout the day, but when the same story is repeated for three or four days, is it really still news? It certainly ceases to be as interesting.]
When I first heard about Smith's death, my first thought, quite frankly, was "Who cares?" It's a tad harsh, I suppose, but I didn't find it to be particularly newsworthy, especially since I was fairly sure that her death was not being reported out of respect or concern but for the sensational reporting possibilities. Once more the press could make a spectacle out of a woman who has been simultaneously admired and criticized by the media who focus solely on the persona created by her obvious public actions--working in a strip club, having a child at sixteen, marrying a wealthy man almost three times her age, posing for Playboy, battling with weight problems--without concerning themselves with the troubled woman behind the persona.
The fact that she has died is only the beginning of the story. Now there must be an autopsy so that we can know the intimate details of where and how she died and thus speculate on the reasons it may have happened.
Whatever anyone may have thought of her, whatever she may have appeared to be in public, she was a human being who struggled through life just as most of the rest of us do. Sure, her struggles led to fame and fortune to some extent, but she had to deal with real hardship, the gravest of which was surely the loss of her son. I can't imagine any loss greater than that of a child, but after the young man's death, his mother was watched closely, but not out of sympathy.
Sure it can be argued that she sought out fame and fortune and enjoyed the spotlight that sensationalism offered to her, but now that she has died, is it really necessary to continue to look for as many sordid details as possible? Don't people have anything better to do? Wouldn't it be better to take a more magnanimous approach of not saying anything at all since you can't think of anything nice to say? Or just think about how you would feel to have the death of yourself or someone you love mercilessly and unsympathetically scrutinized.
Rest in peace, indeed.
posted by minervasowl | 9:18 AM
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