Long time, guys! I'm just now emerging from the seclusion of writing my final project--nice to have a break from the cycle of writing and procrastination.
I'm not normally one who gets all weepy about celebrity deaths, but for some reason I was particularly struck by Whitney Houston's death this weekend. I can't say I was surprised, but I guess I had imagined that her life would be much like Liz Taylor's--she would live hard and crazy, but would be with us for a long time yet. Watching the video below (and the Grammys last night) just made me remember how much I loved her songs as a kid. She missed out on half her life (dead at 48!) and we missed out on many more years of her performances. (If there is any doubt, I submit Tony Bennett and Johnny Cash a exhibits A and B of singers entertaining us well into their old age.)
So, my question for you all: What are the ingredients that cause us to feel the loss of a public figure in a personal way? And was there ever a celebrity (sports, entertainment, or otherwise) whose passing hit you particularly hard?
Whitney Houston on the death of Michael Jackson by RichJuz
R.I.P. Celebrities
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I'll answer the actual question in a moment, but I wanted to take this opportunity to address something that's a bit disturbing to me, which is the "denigrate while they're alive, praise when they're dead" thing that happens all the time. It's that old saying "throw filth on the living and flowers on the dead." For the last, say, 10 years at least, Whitney Houston was a public train wreck. She was publicly ridiculed all over the media, and everyone completely forgot about her impressive singing career. There was even a reality show where everyone got to laugh at Whitney and Bobby and their drug problems.
Then she dies. And all of a sudden, all the hypocrites who cast stones at her while alive are mourning her death and talking about how she was an inspiration. Where were those people when she had problems with addiction and her life was visibly crumbling around her? It makes me a little sick.
We saw the same shit with Michael Jackson. One week, he's a child molester and everyone is disgusted with him. Then the next week he's dead and all the world is singing his praises. Wait, I thought he was a hated child rapist. I must have been mistaken.
Okay, off the soapbox. To answer your actual question, I think there are two things that go into being hit hard by the loss of someone we don't know. 1, it's someone who we associate with personal memories from childhood. 2, it's someone whose personality or persona led us to feel like we knew them personally even though we did not.
I can appreciate that there are many people out there who were particularly struck by the loss of Whitney Houston and I do not want to diminish it… She had a wonderful voice and in many ways her rise to stardom is one of the great rags to riches stories in American Pop History. In some ways, it made her fall even sadder and naturally drew comparisons to Michael Jackson’s rise, fall, and untimely demise. However, for me, that is where the comparisons stop and this speaks to the question of what causes us to mourn the loss of a public figure…
The major difference why I was not affected by the loss of Whitney, the same way I had been by Michael Jackson, is the simple fact that SHE COULD NO LONGER SING… and I knew it. I was excited to hear about her comeback not too long ago and I really was hoping she had expunged the demons and could recapture some of her magic. The truth of the matter is that she ruined her voice from years of drug abuse and physically could not recreate the sound that made her famous. No synthesizer can mask when she simply stopped singing instead of even trying to hit the high note in “I Will Always Love You.” For me, at that point the magic died… the nostalgia died. I knew that even if she still limped along as a public figure she would not become that late career Johnny Cash or Tony Bennett. She would not be afforded the gradual decline of many of her contemporaries, who are still churning out albums despite a decline in skill. When I heard the news of her passing… that was the image I had in my head, not the great performer from 20 years ago.
To use a sports metaphor… which is the Michael Jordan you remember, the one with the Bulls who won 6 championships, or the 41 year old shell of his former self playing with the Wizards? If you can only see the Bulls version, that is only going to bring good memories if you are a fan… if you were younger and only remember the latter version… your image is not going to be the same… therefore you will not mourn the same.
This brings me to the Michael Jackson comparison. Michael Jackson is an interesting case. Yes, he was publically scrutinized and ridiculed as his life took different bizarre twists and turns through the 90’s and 2000’s, but the difference here is that he never lost his talent. In fact, the major criticism of his unsuccessful albums from the last few years of his life was not that he couldn’t sing, but that he had NOT changed… he never updated his sound. The reality here was that his public life of ridicule and his ability as a singer were on parallel tracks. I would argue that his decline in popularity actually led to fewer public performances, which in turn helped preserve the Michael Jackson we all remembered and loved. This idea is only reinforced by watching the documentary for his big comeback to the stage. It was clear that he was obsessed with being the same Michael we remembered from his “Thriller” days. In this case, his actual talent and careful curation of his professional (if not public) image helped keep the nostalgia and insulate our view of him when he died.
Getting back to the original question, I would say that nostalgia and positive shared experiences have the most to do with the people we mourn. With the advent of 24-7 news coverage and reality television, it is harder to keep the nostalgia alive. For some, who may not have watched her story so closely, or just chose to see past it, losing Whitney probably meant losing a part of their life that they hold dear. In any case there will always be haters and hypocrites, who will look to dump on those who are down on their luck. When someone passes away, this no longer matters and it is time to celebrate. When Michael Jordan went to the Hall of Fame no one really sat around bemoaning his last years as a Washington Wizard.
You guys make some great points! First of all, your suggestions of what is needed for personal mourning of a deceased celebrity are spot-on, namely: personal childhood memories + a sense that we knew them personally + an attractive, untarnished vision of said celebrity at their peak. I definitely experienced all three of those with Whitney, having somehow been spared from her train-wreck years (save the occasional clip from the Whitney/Bobby reality show).
I was talking with some friends last night who suggested that the chances of a celebrity surviving drug abuse seem fairly random. Brian Jones is dead in 1969 and Keith Richards is still kicking? Whitney’s dead but not Bobby? Is there any magic recipe that makes survival more likely for famous addicts, or are some people just doomed by genetics? (This is clearly crying out for some academic research!)
Joe’s discussion of the consistency of Michael Jackson’s persona over the years brings up another interesting question: how important is it for musical acts to evolve vs. stay the same? Should entertainers change even when audiences just want the same experience of the artist(s) that they had 10 years ago?
And I agree that the culture of celebrity, which ridicules people relentlessly, creates a stark contrast with the remaining prohibition against “speaking ill of the dead.” Pop culture memory is both well preserved and incredibly forgetful. For instance, I’m sure all of Robert Downey Jr.’s more sordid escapades are enshrined in old episodes of Entertainment Tonight and People magazines, but I’m also betting that everyone under 25 basically thinks of him as Iron Man/Sherlock Holmes. The history is catalogued, but it’s quickly forgotten.
On the Michael Jordan front … I’m not sure if the short window of fame for sports stars makes it easier or worse on them. On the one hand, you have less time in which to publicly screw up. On the other hand, you have less time to erase your notoriety with nobler achievements (although I guess there’s always a career in commentating).
This post has brought up wayyyy to many related topics/tangents, so I’ll stop here. One last note: apparently there’s a movie that Whitney Houston will posthumously star in … so the legend continues!
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