The title of the newest issue of Newsweek offends me. It has a huge picture of Tiger Woods on the cover (so big that I couldn’t even recognize that it was him for a while) and the words--Why Can’t We Look Away?
I got news for YOU, Newsweek. I CAN look away. I’d love to look away. But you and your media friends won’t let me! Everywhere I turn, stories about Tiger are splashed around. And I could care less. I have no fascination with the best golfer in the world. That really means nothing to me. I’m not interested in a man who is the best at putting a small ball into a small hole on a large field of grass.
And while we’re on the subject of celebrities and tragedy, I have to say I just don’t understand why the general public cares so much.
Like, Michael Jackson’s death. People all over the world were swooning and sobbing over the news. It’s like, really? Wasn’t his career effectively dead for decades? He had morphed into such a sad, bizarre creature that I wasn’t sure there was anything to mourn. I would sooner mourn his adorable younger face un-mauled by the horrors of plastic surgery.
I remember when I was in junior high and Kurt Cobain had died. People came to school teary-eyed and depressed. I guess I just didn’t connect to his angsty lyrics all that much.
In fact, I can’t imagine feeling miserable at the death of any celebrity. And there are some I wish would die (at least whose publicity would die). Can a popular icon touch your life so profoundly that you would feel such a tremendous sense of loss without him or her?
I can’t imagine.
Although, if I were very hard pressed, I guess I would feel kinda sad if we lost Tim Gunn.
3 comments:
Good points, we all probably want to cry anyways so we need to find a reason to. I'm am sad about these things because I would have loved to hear more of Tupac, Aaliyah or Cobain... they just had so much great music left in them.
I don't care about Tiger but I like hearing about how his scorned Nordic wife beat his a** with a golf club. That and the fact that she will probably wrangle a really good settlement out of him warms the cockles of my heart.
I didn't feel all that sad about Kurt Cobain or Michael Jackson (a little sad for Michael because he had such a sad life) but if Roger Ebert were to die I would totally cry. I read his reviews every Friday. They are so insightful and touching that I would feel a strong sense of loss if he were gone.
Sammy--You left out Biggie!
Tammy--That's right. I almost forgot you are a huge Ebert groupie, ha ha.
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