So it makes me a bad person. Maybe

[smeddley]

My f-list is flooded by reports of Heath Ledger's death. My first reaction was "who?" Then upon reading a bit of a linked story, "oh, him!" As in, I remember '10 things I hate about you' and 'A Knight's Tale' and... I've already forgotten, one of the others I've seen (not 'Brokeback Mountain', still haven't seen that one). My final reaction was, "hmph."

Honestly, I care very little about celebrities or celebrity news. I know not who is sleeping/married to/having babies with who. I'm probably lucky if I can correctly guess 'alive or dead' in most cases (okay, for now I know this one). And only once in awhile, if they're really famous and I've seen them in lots of things, can I correctly name who played a part (though there are some I still get mixed up). And in some cases ("Shut up, Leonardo, you weren't even nominated") only through a joke or tangential story.

So it sucks you're dead, Heath. It also sucks that today (in the US alone) almost 1,900 people died of heart disease, 1,500 people died of cancer, 300 people died in accidents (mostly wrecks), and 12 people - in my age group alone - were murdered. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. And I bet very few of them get more than one or two lines in the news, if that.

All men created equal? Well, you certainly don't die equally.

Me? I'm more concerned with my crappy, intermittent internet service, so pardon me if I'm grouchy. It's been a rather rough day.

Also: no duckies yet. :( *le sigh*

Comments

[foxfirefey]

For me it was just one of those things where I liked him in the movie about the Grimms Tales, and he did very well in Brokeback Mountain, and the upcoming Joker gig he was doing looked pretty interesting.

And then all of the sudden BOOM, DEAD. And it's all like, wat? Wait, nooooo!

I don't think you're a bad person for not caring about whether he dies or not. But I don't think it's surprising that people are making a bit of noise about it--anybody who was fond of he movies he makes now knows that there won't be anymore movies from him, ever, all of the sudden and very unexpected like! In that way, they have a personal connection to him that's now gone.

My fondness for him was exceeding casual--aww, that's Heath Ledger when I recognized stuff he was in--and I never really thought about him much or knew anything about his life outside of what he did, but it definitely is a bit of a jolt to hear that he's a corpsicle now. And a little sad, not in a despondent sort of way, but "oh, that's just a pity now".

Kind of like if there was an author you liked that died, you might be all, aww, what a pity, no more books from X.

[smeddley.livejournal.com]

Grimm! That was the other movie! Though I didn't recognize him in it, per se, it was listed in his credits and I've seen it.

Eh, someone else will take his place and be just as young and cute and fawned over in a year. No one is irreplaceable.

Even, yes, authors. There's always a new undiscovered talent around the corner, and though it might be sad that one series is done, you might find a better one you wouldn't have before. *shrug*

I'm not commenting so much on my f-list, who are mostly, 'oh, look who's dead' and moving on, but I seriously do not understand people who will mourn celebs more than, say, their own families. That's just weird.

[foxfirefey]

So you're telling me that if an author who was in the process of writing a book you were looking forward to kicked the bucket, you wouldn't be disappointed? Come on now.

Ironically enough, two of the three posts on my friends lists on the topic are talking about how everyone is talking about it, ha.

[smeddley.livejournal.com]

Would I be disappointed? I dunno, can someone else finish the book well enough?

Frankly, a lot of my favorite authors are dead (I vaguely recall hearing about Douglas Adams dying, though probably significantly after the fact).

I guess I very much separate the author and the story, the actor and the character. If someone else can carry on the story or the role, to me, it makes very little difference.

Much like were I to die, someone else would step up and design the roads and most of the world wouldn't notice a thing.

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

Ok, I do have to disagree here. I don't think every talent, whether it be an author or a scientist is so simply replaceable. There is always new, undiscovered talent out there, but there are also people that make a significant mark on our societies, our worlds, and even us personally. (not that I'm saying that Heath, specifically was such a person, I'm just arguing the point here)

And to give some evidence to the validity of my stance on this, I offer up the following examples:
The horrible 'sequels' written to Gone With the Wind
All the books written in V.C. Andrews in her name, based on her notes after she died. Ugh!

[smeddley.livejournal.com]

For now, perhaps not. But I look at it - to use an example in current news - as it's just a matter of time. Tom Brady is OMG THE BEST QUARTERBACK EVER AND THE PATRIOTS ARE THE GREATEST TEAM EVER! Yes, until the next time someone great - and probably better, comes along. Not the same, mind you, and I would never say that someone is 'replaceable' in the eyes of their friends and family, no, no, no - that's completely different. But in 100 years, are people going to look back and really, truly, honestly miss Heath Ledger as an actor?

If two people can independently invent the telephone, well, no one is irreplaceable in the eyes of society as a whole.

And I admit I was a bit snippy in this post, having seen many comment in communities like 'How can you talk about things like this, Heath Ledger is DEAD!' And I kid you not, people were kinda being put down for going on about their lives when someone they really didn't know and didn't impact their lives had died. That's really the sort of overreaction that threw me for a loop.

As for you examples, yes, the people who did end up writing those were a failure. That is not to say that someone else (perhaps more talented) could not have done a spectacular job. Take, for instance, fan fiction. There's plenty out there that is eye-searingly awful. Truly bad. But you know what? There's quite a bit out there that you almost couldn't tell is fan fiction (okay, yes, you have to hunt for the good stuff, it's buried under heaps of crap). And there are even the very few, rare, amazing pieces that are... dare I say it? Yes, better than what the original author wrote. So it takes the right person, but it can be done.

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

I'm also more biased on talent that is tied to creating or discovering. Sports and acting are not on my list the way that authors, artists, and scientists are. I just think there is such an element of uniqueness that each individual brings with their potential that although, someone else can write 'just as good' of a story/melody, it still won't be the same story/song that would have been written. The level of talent can be replaced, but something unknown and irreplaceable has been lost.

[smeddley.livejournal.com]

But you never know what talent might be lost, so... every young child that is killed should be mourned equally as much as a great author/composer/artist, because they could have been and we will never know. It's a slippery slope to sadness, I think.

And since I don't like to be sad, I take the other path, the somewhat more cold hearted and flippant 'life goes on' one. I'm sure that says something deep and profound about my mental state, but I'm not sure exactly what...

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

I think everyone has their own balance when it comes to mourning life and realizing life goes on, and it's a balance that shifts and realigns throughout your lifespan, and depending on what you are looking at.

Environmental issues always tug so strongly at me, and as a younger person it felt like worrying about what everyone else was doing to the environment would consume me, and I distinctly remember a bio professor explaining that even if every atomic weapon would go off at once, that the impact on loss of overall life on earth would be less than whatever happened to the dinosaurs, that enough life, be it microbial and what-have-you, would continue in some form, and evolve from there. That was such a profound relief to me.

Now, I still care about the environment, but motherhood and age has certainly shifted my priorities and attitudes about so many things. That's part of life too I think. Though sometimes I feel like I'm going through Maslow's Heirarchy backwards.

[oneworldvision.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with you. And because I'm lazy, I'm just going to copy and paste my comment to madcowsexiness:

I'll never understand why people get so personally affected by celebrity deaths. Then again, I don't get the fascination with celebrities' lives, either.

I think this is the third Heath Ledger post on my flist -- fourth if you count the disclaimer at the top of ljsecret -- and the only one so far to not sound like you personally knew the guy. I mean, it's sad when anybody dies, but... everybody dies.

...Except that now there are six posts on my flist. If he'd been ugly, no one would care.

[smeddley.livejournal.com]

Sorry, didn't mean to add one! O.o

I'm way more bummed that my ducks didn't arrive. I was really looking forward to them in a 'bright spot' sort of way. And, of course, the continuing internet woes. Woe.

[oneworldvision.livejournal.com]

I hate waiting for mail. Which reminds me, I've got some textbooks to order.

Internet woes are some of the worst woes of all. I killed my phone's battery last night just refreshing Facebook and the one blog that will actually load on my phone's browser. I shall never take my spiffy school connection for granted again.

...Until the next time it craps out on me.

[smeddley.livejournal.com]

It's amazing how dependent we are on such things. I don't know if it's so much that I take it for granted (though I do a bit) but the 'I'm paying a bloody fortune for this service, it should work!' feeling.

Mmmm, textbooks. That sounds like far too much fun!

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

More than half of the "Heath =(" posts on my flist are because the people had either met him, or are friends with his family/people who went to school with him/his best mates.

[oneworldvision.livejournal.com]

That's entirely different, then. There's no one on my flist who has any connection to him at all.

[alankria.livejournal.com]

If he'd been ugly, no one would care.

Seriously.

Vapid woman at work sat down and the first thing she said was, "Isn't it terrible?!?!!?!?!" Fortunately the other woman on my desk replied, "Yeah, I feel sad for his kid/s" and that shut the idiot up. I imagine she hadn't even thought about his child/ren.

[gelsey.livejournal.com]

I happened to like him a lot, but I'm not uber-squealy about actors. i am sad, however, that he died.

*pets* Sorry your day was crap. It'll get better :D Hugs.

[smeddley.livejournal.com]

See, and that makes me feel bad. Because to be totally honest, I'm not. I could lie and say I am, because a person died and all, but I don't feel anything.

Sadly, my chosen method of feeling better (munching on things) took a wicked turn because of the only sweet thing I could find that sounded palatable (really, don't ask...).

[mmmontserrat.livejournal.com]

Yes, lamenting death is something I do daily.

Rod is totally trained with me blindly offering up, how do you think you're going to die today.

Deathgothgirl at heart just call me.

[smeddley.livejournal.com]

Stastistically I'm most likely to die in a traffic accident. The second-most likely cause of my death is, interestingly enough, suicide. That one, at least, I can avoid. Homicide clocks in at three, followed by cancer.

In a few years I'll move up another age bracket, and those will shift arround.

Overall, everyone is most likely to die of cardiovascular disease. Take care of your heart!

[mmmontserrat.livejournal.com]

I KNOW. I can't believe I'm sucked into the whole celebrity drama thing.

I don't normally get this way over celebrities do i?

Heath was different though. The first movie I bought? don't you find that a little strange? and it was the smallest low budget thing.

Actually I like Julia Stiles more. She kicks ass. She was such a nerd!! And she lost her popularity because she was raped? So she decided to kickass on the other cheerleaders? Too real. Anyway...yes my mind enters fantasy realms at times...

Heath is coming off my icon page though. I'll use julia stiles tomorrow.

maybe I could do a celebrity a day...would you defriend me if i did that? Would you annoy you beyond belief?

[smeddley.livejournal.com]

If you did celebrity news I *might* have a chance of answering a question right if I ever go to trivia! Seriously, I have almost zero exposure to celeb news, and it seems a lot of the questions revolve around them.

The pink category was my nemesis in Trivial Pursuit.

[alankria.livejournal.com]

Bloody hell, finally got to the swamp of HL posts on my own flist. "Oh my god I'm so shocked/stunned!" etc.

What.

Friends/family/other people who knew him? Yeah, they're understandably upset/otherwise affected by his death. People who were personally touched by one or more of his films? Okay, maybe.

"He's so cute, what a waste" people?

I, um. Wrote some swearing and some capslock and then deleted them. Imagine the capslocks of rage. Because seriously, what the hell makes him so special to someone who had no connection to him? Oh, wait. Cute and white.

(This is what bothers me about the continued coverage of the Madeleine McCann thing -- a pretty blonde white girl who was kidnapped months ago, and it's still fucking going on in the news about her, and if she'd been black/Asian/Hispanic/other non-white or fat or her parents hadn't been rich, no one would have cared.

If, say, Britney died of an OD, everyone would point fingers and most people wouldn't really care. No one cares about the mentally troubled, the druggies, the ones who've fucked up. It's just the cute, balanced, mostly-white people.)

Well, I could teal deer about this for quite a while longer. I'll save you from hearing what you probably agree with anyway.

[smeddley.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of that bias in the news, and it's a big deal around here - the split between JoCo and KCMO isn't completely racial, but... sort of. So when a crime happens in JoCo (like the girl who was kidnapped and murdered, yes, cute and white) the news people are all over it. Meanwhile, four or five people are murdered in KCMO and they get, oh, three lines in a news story?

Now, some of that is probably brought on by the community. KCMO is more of a 'don't talk to the police' mentality, where JoCo is more helpful demanding. Still, isn't the news supposed to be impartial?

Yeah, it's one of those things I get rather... long-winded and vehement about, too. And that's why I usually try to avoid the more serious topics, because it works me up and then you can't get me to shut up! O.o

[cyn2write.livejournal.com]

I know this makes me a bad person, but my first thought when I heard Heath Ledger was dead was, "Isn't it funny? If we just leave them to their own devices, the celebrity problem will take care of itself!"

Unfortunately with the case of Britney and Paris and Sean Penn, it has dragged on too long.

[smeddley.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and like I told someone else, I think Britany has really overloaded even the celeb-loving people. How much drama can you really have? After awhile it just desensitizes you. I'm not sure there's anything some of them could do that would surprise me at this point.

And maybe it's just because I'm on LJ and therefore see more of it, but does this crop of celebs (especially all the teen ones that have been growing up recently) just been completely insane? Is it just terribly unfashionable to be even a little bit normal?

[cyn2write.livejournal.com]

It's what happens when a person begins to believe the world revolves around herself instead of the sun. But when the paparazzi makes what they eat for breakfast national news, how can we blame them? Maybe we should just do away with all of them, first.

[smeddley.livejournal.com]

Well, the press is only reacting to the public's interest (because this news SELLS!) so it's a vicious spiral. I can only hope that it burns itself out (seriously, who isn't tired of Britany?) but I'm not holding my breath.

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

I agree that the media coverage is a ridiculous circus, but put most of that blame on the press.

I am shocked and saddened, myself. I know a lot of other horrific things also happened yesterday, but it's often just simply too overwhelming to grieve each day over statistics like that, compared to a singular lost of someone, that through their celebrity, that many knew of to some degree. And given that, he wasn't overexposed in the news a la Britney/Anna Nicole before his death with constant reports of drug use and erratic behavior, just simply as a driven actor, someone that could actually bring something to the screen other than just a pretty face.

Personally, it makes me sad, simply because it is a death, a loss, and one that is such a terrible waste, whether it be from an accidental drug overdose or a suicide. I find most suicides so heartbreaking. In large part I'm simply sad that though this is a celebrity OD, that it is also a fairly regular problem with this demographic of young men, and it's just such a waste. One of my sister's roommates died in a very, very similar way just a few years ago, and it was agonizing for the family to sit there and wonder was it intentional or wasn't it? And which, frankly would be worse? Even accidental, what a terrible, STUPID, wasteful accident to have, it's not as if they were hit by another driver or slipped and fell or anything.

Anyway, I think everyone is fine to react any way that they happen to. There's nothing wrong with being 'hrmph' about it, and I have the feeling that because the press is already going out of control, many more people will be tired and annoyed by it before long. Honestly, I between the press in our society, and our insurance companies, I don't know which I'd rather see scourged and started anew with better boundaries.

[smeddley.livejournal.com]

I blame the press only insomuch as they are responding to a willing audience. If no one cared, then they wouldn't make a big deal about it. That's why all those murders in the inner city - even those of young children - don't make much news. Because, sadly, no one cares. And it's really sad to see people get so worked up about an isolated incident when there are real problems in their own community that they so blithely ignore (and I'm not talking about you or anyone I know, but more 'the public' as a whole). Yes, I know we can't wallow in grief every time someone dies (I don't even know the number of people around the world dying every minute, but I can guess the number is rather large) but I do have a certain grudge against the media/public blowing one death so much out of proportion to others.

And to your last statement: I'm voting press, but that's a *LONG*standing grudge, so I'm pretty biased!
Maybe I'm just a sucker for the underdog, a champion for the little guy.

And I'm not saying I don't think people should be allowed to grieve any way they see fit - they can shave their heads and make a pilgrimage to a movie set for all I care - but I do want to stick it out there that I don't understand it, and, yes, maybe bring a little perspective to the people berating others for not being heartbroken.

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

Yes, it is ridiculous that anyone would berate someone for that.

I think our press does our society such a disservice, and yes, there is the audience to consider, but it's a feedback loop, just because there is a lowest common denominator, doesn't mean that should always be the press' target.

I was in a discussion once with someone where they commented that it should be mandatory that every eligible citizen vote. I was horrified. Yes, I think voting is so important, but if everyone had to vote, gods, our country would be even more skewed and warped than it is now. It would be possible for political campaigning to become even worse. (not to open a philosophical worms here, but do you know where I'm coming from?) I'd rather people gave a shit enough to attempt to be educated and informed and make the effort to vote, rather than vote for the sake of voting and make their choices on irrelevant, popular flavor on the day sort of reasons.

[smeddley.livejournal.com]

Oh my god yes! An uninformed vote is WAY worse than no vote at all. People who only vote because a celeb tells them to vote for so-and-so, or just because their friends are, or for any other reason than 'I like candidate X and want to vote for him' should just stay at home. Those people annoy me.

My state is having a caucus this year! I think it will keep all but the die-hards out of the primaries. I shall be going, though I am slightly curious how long it's going to take... Primaries are so much faster, and the polling place is closer. But you gotta do what you gotta do.