Dead Celebrities and their Depiction in the Media (featuring dead celebrities and their depiction in the media)

Elizabeth Taylor

So naturally the one thing I wanted to do on vacation I can't, so now it's blog time.


Today's passing of Elizabeth Taylor brings to light a pet peeve of mine: Celebrity worship, particularly on the alleged evening news broadcasts at the three major networks.


I'd like to clarify that my issue stems from networks that claim to be legit news outlets wasting time on covering celebrities. If you're a show that supposed to cover celebrities, a Web Site that has unlimited space for stories, or you have a lengthy news show then that's different.


I'd hate to break it to everyone, but celebrity deaths aren't a big deal and really are not that important, especially when you only have 22 minutes to cover the top stories of the day. My father, a retired colonel in the National Guard, Vietnam Vet, and an overall honorable man, will die some day and not get a word on NBC Nightly News. Charlie Sheen, douchebag extraordinaire, will also die one day, but he'll get a five minute segment highlighting how funny his drug addict behavior was.


Sidenote: to all you people laughing at Sheen, I'd love to see how hard you laugh when its your loved one struggling with an addiction and making an ass out of himself on national tv.

Pretty much.

Now we come back to Liz Taylor. In some circumstances there are some celebrities who transcend their craft (film, music, sports, etc.) and become pop culture icons, a phrase in my opinion that gets tossed around way too much. In my opinion Taylor fits that bill, so when the networks go apesh*t tonight with their coverage its justified. Most of these celebrities don't deserve anything more than a 10 second "we're sorry you're dead" comment.


"Flan, who are you to decide which celebrity the nightly news decides to worship?"


Nobody. This is my opinion. It's the networks that think we want to watch this crap, that's why they spend more time covering Tiger's infidelity and Prince William/Kate Middleton's wedding (and because their covering for a certain someone). And that's on us I guess.


Anyway, like I said, some celebrities deserve tribute and some don't. Here are a few examples of both:

• Michael Jackson. No brainer here. The man changed the face of music, regardless of what you think of his extracurricular activities. Personally I thought the coverage was way over the top, but the King of Pop is an icon among icons.

• Gary Coleman. Are you kidding? This guy's life was a sideshow act. At the time of his death oil was flowing into the Gulf of Mexico untamed and a U.S. Senate candidate said he was offered a bribe by the Obama Administration in exchange for dropping out of a race. I was in D.C. at the time but when I got back home the news was still covering this loser.

Heath Ledger

• Heath Ledger. Sorry pal, love The Dark Knight, but being the hearthrob of every girl under the age of 18 (and a few over 18), playing a gay cowboy, and O.D.-ing because you got too involved in a role doesn't make you newsworthy.

• Ted Kennedy. Ugh. Why this guy, actually his whole family, is so glamorized is beyond me. But he was a U.S. Senator for almost 50 years. That's got to count for something.

Yeah, she's hot.

• Farrah Fawcett. Sex symbols count as icons. And when I say sex symbols I mean real sex symbols, not the fantasies of second-rate bloggers like myself.

I could go on and on. The point is there are some celebrities that leave a lasting legacy that we should pay homage to but most of them don't deserve more than a 20-second obituary notice on the backburner of a news broadcast, if that.

Another sidenote: So I'm reading the ABC News story on Taylor's death. I get to the section about her charity work, particularly the AIDS portion, and I read this:

"..."

Oh, would you look at that! It's not there anymore! That's journalism for ya.

Allow me to reprint the quote from another source:

 “I don’t think President Bush is doing anything at all about AIDS,” she told the crowd at the Eighth International AIDS Conference. “In fact, I’m not even sure if he knows how to spell ‘AIDS.’”

Now when I first saw that my first thought was, "Christ, these people can't even get through an obit without bashing Bush." A few problems with that:

• I was thinking of the wrong Bush. The quote is from 1991 and refers to 41, not 43.

• The writer, Sheila Marikar, failed to mention which Bush Taylor was referring to.

• The writer, Sheila Marikar, probably thought Taylor was referring to W. I'd expect nothing less from a Huffington Post contributor.

Memo to ABC: Try proofreading a story before you publish it. It helps.

Out.