For Whom the Bell Tolls
It’s tough these days to figure out what is important, and what is not. It’s fairly clear the news media hasn’t figured it out. 24/7 saturation coverage of the death of Anna Nicole Smith shows that titillation (no pun intended) trumps more serious news any day of the week. But does the news media actually have it right…..at least as to what our culture deems important? After all, they wouldn’t show it if we didn’t watch it, and ratings is the name of the game. The death of Anna Nicole and the subsequent media coverage clearly demonstrates our culture’s priorities.
If the media is the message, the message is clear: we are in trouble. Here we have someone who was a stripper and a gold digger, whose claims to fame were her implanted bust size, Playboy layouts, and pole dancing. By marrying a rich, dirty old man, she stood to inherit a ½ billion dollars. She contributed nothing to our society; not one life was saved nor one child fed or educated because she came this way. She represented complete and utter self serving narcissism with unlimited assets. Yet her death commanded news coverage that would normally be accorded to a head of state. The coverage rivaled that of the death of Pope John Paul, Princess Diana, Ronald Reagan…only the OJ saga surpassed this type of media coverage. At least he was a football player and an actor, albeit a very bad actor.
The tragedy here is that America’s fascination with celebrity for celebrity’s sake has resulted in the death of two people, Anna Nicole and her son, Daniel. What we are left with is a bad Law and Order script involving the suspicious circumstances surrounding these deaths, the murmurs of possible wrong doing by a Svengali-esque sleazy lawyer, an innocent baby who may be worth a ½ of billion but for whose life I wouldn’t give a plug nickel, and three men who obviously were sleeping with Anna Nicole about 12 months ago now looking to get a piece of the action, again, no pun intended. We are totally mesmerized.
In the "Lord, you can take me now" catagory was an email I received from an outfit called Madblast.com. It contained a video satire on the death of Anna Nicole called the "Dead Booby Dance". It was tasteless, awful, and I laughed my head off. What does that mean? And no, I am not going to give you the link. You are just going to have to look for it yourself.
John Donne said “No man is an island….any man’s death diminishes me”. He was wrong. I think I can safely say that my life has not been diminished by the death of Anna Nicole. On the other hand, the values of our society which allows the type of news coverage her death has received, coupled with my willingness to watch it, does concern me. It is our society and my own macabre curiosity that is diminishing me. I don’t have to ask for whom the bell tolls. I just have to turn on the news and know that is definitely for me.
If the media is the message, the message is clear: we are in trouble. Here we have someone who was a stripper and a gold digger, whose claims to fame were her implanted bust size, Playboy layouts, and pole dancing. By marrying a rich, dirty old man, she stood to inherit a ½ billion dollars. She contributed nothing to our society; not one life was saved nor one child fed or educated because she came this way. She represented complete and utter self serving narcissism with unlimited assets. Yet her death commanded news coverage that would normally be accorded to a head of state. The coverage rivaled that of the death of Pope John Paul, Princess Diana, Ronald Reagan…only the OJ saga surpassed this type of media coverage. At least he was a football player and an actor, albeit a very bad actor.
The tragedy here is that America’s fascination with celebrity for celebrity’s sake has resulted in the death of two people, Anna Nicole and her son, Daniel. What we are left with is a bad Law and Order script involving the suspicious circumstances surrounding these deaths, the murmurs of possible wrong doing by a Svengali-esque sleazy lawyer, an innocent baby who may be worth a ½ of billion but for whose life I wouldn’t give a plug nickel, and three men who obviously were sleeping with Anna Nicole about 12 months ago now looking to get a piece of the action, again, no pun intended. We are totally mesmerized.
In the "Lord, you can take me now" catagory was an email I received from an outfit called Madblast.com. It contained a video satire on the death of Anna Nicole called the "Dead Booby Dance". It was tasteless, awful, and I laughed my head off. What does that mean? And no, I am not going to give you the link. You are just going to have to look for it yourself.
John Donne said “No man is an island….any man’s death diminishes me”. He was wrong. I think I can safely say that my life has not been diminished by the death of Anna Nicole. On the other hand, the values of our society which allows the type of news coverage her death has received, coupled with my willingness to watch it, does concern me. It is our society and my own macabre curiosity that is diminishing me. I don’t have to ask for whom the bell tolls. I just have to turn on the news and know that is definitely for me.
Comments
You hit the nail on the head concerning your blog about Anna Nicole. Are so many Americans that shallow that we give individuals like Anna Nicole some sort of important status? Not me. Even though Margaret Thatcher, (to name just one woman in history), was not perfect, she at least had something to contribute to the world.
SK
SK