Heath Ledger Died This Week...Who?

Heath Ledger died this past week. My wife and I were watching election coverage when the news flashed across the screen. All of a sudden the news cycle was taken over by this untimely passing, with reporters standing in front of his Soho apartment in New York City, doctors speculating how this 28 year old man could have died, pictures of the body bag being removed from the apartment as a makeshift memorial was being set up at the front door, and lurid descriptions of pills being scattered around his naked body sprawled across his bed when discovered by his masseuse. After awhile, my wife looked over at me and asked:”Who’s that?”

Then my mother called me and asked me the same question. At my church choir practice, another lady asked me the same thing. This was the second young actor to die this past week, 23 year old Brad Renfro being the first. Although not as “famous” as Heath Ledger, he also got substantial press coverage on his untimely demise by a drug overdose. When the television commentators made mention of Renfro’s death, my wife asked:”Who’s that?” The gap continues to widen between the Hollywood celebrity types and mid America.

I don’t know who the celebrities are these days. The news seems to be saturated with drug laden and drunken bimbos like Brittany Spears and Lindsay Lohan (who?) squandering their time and treasure with debauchery that 20 years ago would have landed them in jail or mental wards. I watched a mother run a scam to get tickets to see Hannah Montana (who?) by having her 6 year old daughter say her father was killed in Iraq. Then there is Disney's High School Musical, starring Zac Efron (who?), a nice young man who also had a supporting role in Hairspray (what?). Several celebrity magazines have run pictures of him grabbing himself on a beach. His female co-star, Vanessa Hudgens (who?), almost crashed and burned when her naked pictures appeared on the internet. So much for virginal fantasies of pubescent young teenagers and a wholesome Disney.

It might be a generational issue. Suzanne Pleshette died this past week, and she barely got a mention on the news scroll at the bottom of the television screen. She did make page 5 of The Vindicator. My twenty two year old son asked me: “Who’s that?” When I responded that she was the co-star of the old Bob Newhart Show, he asked me: “Who’s that?” On the other hand, I still can’t separate Jon Stewart (who?) of The Daily Show (what?) from Carson Daly (who?) of NBC’s Last Call (what?).

Mostly, I think it represents a cultural divide that goes way beyond generational issues. The commonality of the American experience is rapidly disappearing. With 200 television channels, the era when all of America would tune into Johnny Carson at 11:30 at night is long gone. When my parents were younger, the nation went to the movies. There were a finite number of movies and celebrities, both made by a finite number of movie studios. Most people knew what was what.

This past week, the nominees for the Academy Awards were announced. Not only did I not know most of the nominated actors and actresses, I didn’t know most of the movies nominated for Best Picture. Some of them have only been in “limited release”, which I take to mean New York, Los Angeles, Cannes, France, and the Sundance Film Festival. As our common cultural experience fractures, the Hollywood elite are making movies that appeal only to…the Hollywood elite. The last blockbuster that I can remember was Titanic, and we all knew Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

Heath Ledger was an OK actor who appeared in a few OK movies (Brokeback Mountain was a really hokey, corny movie, gay themes notwithstanding), and a few not so OK movies. His death was caused apparently by an overdose of prescription drugs, which is a shame for someone living in a $23,000.00/month apartment. He had the world by the tail. He worked steady, but in his past interviews seemed to be “tormented”. I should have those problems.

As a member of the family of man, and knowing the bell also tolls for me, I regret his passing. On the other hand, Jon Michael “Mike” Schoolcraft III was buried in Lima, Ohio, this week. He was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq. He got no press coverage. I think I will save my serious and contemplative mourning for him