By Thompson Perry
American culture has an obsession with celebrities. It’s not anything new, and it’s not going away.
I suppose it’s only natural, as these people bring to life the characters and songs and ideas that we enjoy so much; in short, they entertain us. Celebrity news has never caught my fancy, but I wouldn’t begrudge others their interests; I watch grown men in matching uniforms and count the number of times they can successfully throw a rubber ball through an orange hoop.
Sometimes, though, our natural, innocent interests in these people who entertain us go a step too far. They start to bring out the worst in us. The recent death of popular actor Heath Ledger is an excellent example of just how misguided celebrity news and cheap sensationalism can truly be.
On the afternoon of Ledger’s death, speculation regarding the actor’s passing was rampant. Some newscasters suggested that his recent breakup drove him to suicide.
Others claimed that he overdosed on narcotics. Some media pundits opined that his role as “The Joker” in the upcoming “Batman” film took him to a place so dark that he couldn’t find his way back to a healthy reality. These were people speculating on the cause of death of a man they’d never met, hours after the body had been discovered.
It got far worse than a few ill-conceived and irresponsible suggestions in the media, however.
At approximately 6:45 p.m., medical personnel wheeled the lifeless body of actor Heath Ledger from his apartment. It should have been a solemn moment; not because the man in the black body bag made movies, but because he was a human being with dignity, a young man who had just suffered a tragic death.
It wasn’t solemn at all, though; the vultures had circled and spent the previous hours preparing for this moment, and suddenly it became about them. I’d never seen so many camera flashes ignite, and they illuminated a most tragic scene. Headline news replayed the footage repeatedly, at multiple angles and even in slow motion.
Celebrity gossip site TMZ even sunk so low as to install a camera outside of Ledger’s funeral home. In the ultimate display of insensitivity and bad taste, the site offered streaming video of the viewing.
I’m sure that’s exactly what the actor’s family intended when they requested that the media respect their privacy as they grieve their loss.
Most disturbing is the reality that the daughter Ledger left behind, 2-year-old Matilda Rose, will one day be curious.
When she’s old enough to scour the internet for information on the father she never really got to know, she’ll have to sift through video of his corpse being wheeled out of his apartment while gawkers take pictures and record video. She’ll have to filter out the commentaries written upon her father’s death, calling him “suicidal” or a “druggie” even before an autopsy had been performed.
And she’ll deserve better.
