Well, I must weigh in my own opinion on the death's of John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife and her sister. All I can do is quote Troy, who aptly noted that "the media created him, and now they must spend every waking hour mourning their creation."
Now I obviously understand that the media is going to go ape over this sort of story, but I am appalled at just how overboard they go. They suspend all programming and have cameras lingering at the Kennedy Compound (can't they name that thing?) in Hyannis Port and outside Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg's house, waiting for something, anything, to happen.
I think the low point was when ABC had cameras stalking the church from across the street while Peter Jennings and Barbara Walters commented and identified people. They called William Kennedy Smith by the name William Kennedy, and when a group of black folks came out of the cathedral, said something stupid like, "that must be the choir."
And the media carried on about America's Prince and the Son of America and acted as if maybe the President had died. As a writer for the New York Press put it, "How many times can America lose its innocence?"
Not often enough, it seems.
What 's so wildly out of context is the public grief as seen in the media. The media, who were so happy to pillory him while he was alive, now pedestalizing him, just like Princess Diana in Great Britain. A slut one minute, and a saint the next. What's so clear is that JFK Jr. led a pretty normal, non-celebrity lifestyle, and eschewed media attention. He was reluctant participant in the game created for him when he was three.
I am now reluctantly awaiting the Sunday newspaper inserts that will memorialize him in porcelain and china, perhaps showing him saluting his father's casket, or perhaps just rollerblading up Park Avenue. A tragic death has canonized him, made him a true collectible. The special commemorative magazines are already on the newsstands. Remembering an unwitting public figure who really wanted to be left alone, I think. No wonder he ran off and married in secret in Georgia.
Paul and I had a long talk about the whole phenomenon, and he wound up writing an editorial about it. The penultimate paragraph had me all verklempt.
What's frightening is that people are willing to mourn someone they never knew, and make gestures toward that person, that they might never make toward the people in their own lives. I suppose that perhaps it's because celebrities never disappoint us, even when they have our disapproval.
Previous entry... Ring of Fire!