Celebrity Culture
Society focusing in on the death of one person, underscores the death of thousands every year.
Many writers and television analyst have cashed in on the latest death of movie actress Natasha Richardson. Her death was tragic, but because of the media coverage, our own lives have devalued just a little.
Death is the inevitable thing we can’t escape, and it’s always there in our future. It’s the final resting place, and the obvious definition of failing to exist.
Hundreds if not thousands of people die in the United States everyday. Thousands of people worldwide perish without a single word uttered about them. Patriotic soldiers die overseas, and their names aren’t even mentioned in a national newspaper.
What is it about a C-list actor that’s more important than any other life that’s cut short. One writer even took it upon himself to do an entire article about celebrities whose lives have been taken early in life. Yet every other life that’s taken is just mentioned on the thirteenth page in some obituary and forgotten.
It’s this culture that we live in that puts these people on pedestals, and try and mimic our lives after theirs. I see no national coverage about a mother whose lost her only child to a car accident, or a young woman who lost her life to an abusive husband.
Congress even started conversing about passing a law requiring individuals to wear a helmet while skiing. It’s as if not one person has ever passed away from a skiing accident. It’s not important until it happens to a celebrity.
In society, we tend to focus in on just one person or event. In doing so, we forget about the other six billion people in the world; or the other three hundred million in our own backyard.
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Post CommentDee Gold
On March 22, 2009 at 10:30 am
something to ponder about
LeeAnne
On March 22, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Sad but true.
Karen Gross
On March 22, 2009 at 3:25 pm
This is something I have been noticing a lot lately – the media is obsessed with celebrities, especially in the United States. Even their “real” news programs include updates on the lastest stunts of Britney Spears or Michael Jackson. It seems that whenever a tragic event happens, the news media will interview celebrities who have no connection to the event – as if their celebrity status makes their opinions matter.
Jack Bingham
On March 22, 2009 at 4:57 pm
The same could be said for events like 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina. The media praised all the donations during these events, but fail to mention that it takes donations year round to help the needy, not just one particular event that happens to make national news.
Elizabeth Abbott
On March 24, 2009 at 6:41 am
The stuff that sells the printed word. It’s what makes it so very difficult for writers. It does make the difference between broadcasters and the writers that write for them. Maybe we could look behind the scenes. E