Here's my answer for a prompt from Mama Kat:
Amy Winehouse died. Another name amidst a growing list of talented celebrities lost to addiction. Your reaction.
Yeah, that sucks.
But do you know what else sucks?
At least 76 people, many children, were slaughtered in Norway the day before Amy Winehouse was found dead.
To date, more than 7,000 men and women from all over the world have died fighting in Afgahnistan and Iraq.
In America, our government can't get a thing done. Supposedly some sort of financial apocolypse will occur next week if we don't get our crap in order.
In England, a man who owns more media outlets than I do pairs of underwear is being questioned about gross abuse of power, including tapping the phones of private citizens to get a better news story.
All over the world incredible amounts of hardship are being dealt to people who simply can't take any more.
And yet, here we are, talking about a young woman who died from a drug overdose. Yes, it's very sad and I completely agree it's an incredibly huge waste of musical talent. But people fight addiction every day. Some succeed, some don't, but because they weren't famous, we don't hear about them and their ups and downs any more than we hear about the other things I mentioned above. And I don't mean the casual news report, because, chances are, you know about all the things I mentioned above. I mean looking at and examining every inch of those issues, doing real reporting, not just glossy two minute bits. I know Amy Winehouse's life and addiction with be examined with great thoroughness. The E! channel, TLC, Discovery, and maybe one or two of the cable news channels will do about a dozen different shows about her life or related to her addictions.
It's frustrating to me that her life will go so thoroughly examined, yet things that actually matter in real life, that will affect me and you, are going to be left largely ignored. I will have a more comprehensive view of Amy Winehouse's relationship with her pets than I do about how our own economy is going to look this time next week.
And that is my reaction.
8 comments:
this is so true.
stopping by from mamak's
You are so right. Visiting from Mama Kat.
Unfortunately, this is very true. "The people" would rather read about the glitzy & glamorous screwing up their lives than about real people suffering real problems. The government's issues are just dismissed with "I don't follow politics" by so many, when we should ALL be following politics, which affects every one of us, every single day.
It's a sad commentary on modern society when we would rather hear about the downfall of another broken musician, than hear about the very real tragedies that happen all the time.
I agree but at the same time, hasn't society asked for this? Hasn't society put so much emphasis on being famous, being rich, that more people care about the lives of celebrities than they do the debt ceiling nightmare. They care more about the NFL lockout than they do about unemployment rates. To me, her death is a death regardless of circumstance. And it could have been, should have been preventable. Whether it turns out she OD'd or not (it's not looking that way, just the outrageous amount of damage done previously finally took its toll) I think we can use her death as a teaching tool to other addicts. The addicts who are on the cusp of the same end, who think it can't happen to them, the ones who we'll never hear about in the news but who liked her music and are now taking a step back.
I'm also having a hard time seeing the importance.
Very well said!
Stopping by from Mama Kat's
Thank you, thank you, thank you! You said it so much better than I did. :) x
In total agreement... Great post!
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