Blurty for Petey.
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| Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 |
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Article TorontoSun.com *************************** I have never before seen such a confluence of would-be corpses. Nor have I ever been so affected by it. At a time when Internet death pools for troubled stars spring up with regularity, the unexpected death of actor Heath Ledger last week has shifted our obsession with troubled stars into a different light. Ledger, an academy-award nominated actor, was found dead in bed at his Manhattan apartment last Tuesday afternoon. He was 28 years old. An autopsy has failed to reveal any conclusive cause of death, but everything from suicide to natural causes to accidental overdose have been bandied about in the press. It's not that the "live fast, die young" way of life is somehow a new trend by any means. Famous men and women have been dying before their time long before Ledger. Troubled 25-year-old actor Brad Renfro was found dead on Jan. 15. And before Renfro there was Jonathan Brandis and on and on. What's different is not that young people are dying; it's the way you perceive the dead when they are your contemporaries. For my generation -- born in the '80s -- the immortalized dead, like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe were always just that -- dead, buried, and mythologized on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. They had ceased being people and had become icons before we were even glimmers in our parents' eyes. But that distance of time that glosses over death with post-mortem fame and adulation doesn't even take decades to develop. Beyond the golden age of Hollywood deaths and the casualties of rock and roll, like Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, there are those closer to my generation who have already achieved a cult status in death. Time has already had a softening effect on the deaths of River Phoenix, who famously died of a drug overdose outside of a Los Angeles club in 1993. Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain has achieved something of a godlike status since his suicide in 1994, although many say the movement his music spawned died with him. But something shifts in the brain when the people dying are your age -- or younger. River Phoenix was just 23 when he died, but to my 12-year-old self, that seemed like a grown man. Any grown man could die. Same with Kurt Cobain who, 27 at the time of his suicide, had seemed almost old. So maybe my generation is now getting our first look at the grit behind the glam of the live-hard die-young tradition. In the past we've recognized it, even bought into it, but perhaps never grasped the root of it. But we're no longer protected by the luxury of time and youth. What's worse, far from being removed from the tragedies, we're now watching them unfold in real time. In some cases, we're even betting on who will be next. Not only are we being asked to experience the death without the glamour and mythology but, thanks to the relentless scrutiny of the paparazzi and the Internet, we're often watching the preceding slow decline before the crash and burn. IT'S JUST SAD One Internet pool is betting Lindsay Lohan will be found dead at age 25 in Paris while, with her obvious drug use, the world seems to be bracing to make Amy Winehouse the next Janis Joplin. Word is the Associated Press has already prepared an obituary for perpetually troubled pop star Britney Spears. Maybe years from now these young people will be tragic figures, emblazoned on memorabilia and posters. Their music will be covered by bands of the day and their performances will be dissected by pop-culture historians. But for right now, it's just sad. The difference between tragedy and mythology seems only to be time. |
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Blurty for Petey.
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