Tuesday 26 July 2011

tragedy





Last Saturday I was up early and off out shopping. Got home around 4pm, pottered about the house for a bit then sat down and put the laptop on.
Top of my facebook newsfeed "RIP Amy Winehouse".
So I put Sky News on.
Since I just wanted to catch up on events but was also checking mail and things online I left it on in the background for a couple of hours.

Very sad, another talented young person dead, and of course I feel for those who knew and loved her.
But the day before 90+ innocent people lost their lives in Norway, and some deranged and disturbed individual pushed the destruct button for them, Amy did it for herself.

And yet she was getting more coverage then the Norwegians.

Sky news kept replaying an interview with her father in which he had spoken of his fears that she would end up dead, and yet they were also saying that they weren't sure if he had even heard about her death as he was believed to be in America.
What ?
How very inappropriate. Here you are broadcasting all about the events as you see them, endless conjecture about her drug and alcohol problems, repeated footage of an interview, various non-entities giving their opinions on the phone, and yet you're not sure if all of her closest relatives are aware.
Imagine if you lost a child, well no don't it's too awful to even imagine, but what if you heard about it via the television ?
Whatever happened to the days when a tragic death might be spoken about on the news but the name would not be given until "all relatives have been informed".

In the wake of the Murdoch / News of The World phone hacking scandal I would've thought all aspects of the British media would want to be very careful about crossing lines at the moment.

I suppose when anything happens to a person who lives their life in the public eye it's very hard to keep it quiet but this was all over the news very soon after she was found, and by the time I put the TV on fans and the media were camped outside her house.
Makes me think someone made a call to the press.
And it seemed to me that on my TV we were getting about 5 minutes out of every 30 about Norway. It was that that I wanted to know more about since I had not seen much news the day before.
But no, Sky obviously thought that yesterdays news was just that.

I understand that Amy's death is closer to home then the events in Norway, and that some people may feel as if they know her whereas those who died abroad are strangers, but I doubt whether anyone who followed the story of her life could say they were really that surprised at what happened.
Given that it's been three years since she last released any music and her few public performances were only noted for the state she was in, would she really still be quite so famous without the drug binges, failed relationships and public displays of messiness. She certainly wouldn't have been in the tabloids and gossip magazines without it.
Her story the last few years has just been a car crash carried out under the glare of publicity.

However nobody could've predicted the massacre in Norway - the whole country must be in a state of absolute shock. And since the media is largely responsible for relaying what happens in the rest of the world shouldn't they be getting some perspective on the coverage they give ?

It's quite clear that all the people close to Amy had tried to help her overcome her problems. But the only person who can really stop addiction is the addict themselves. You can offer help and intervention but unless the addict wants it you're wasting your time.
I guess fame, fortune and money don't make you happy.
In fact they probably just made it a whole lot easier for Amy to get what she thought she needed.

But this isn't a story about some tragic abused homeless lost soul who turned to drugs to escape the horrors of her life, she was perhaps unlucky in love but this is a person who pretty much had it all.
She might've made some bad decisions and choices, but SHE made them.

What choice did the young people who died on that Norwegian island have ?





RIP.
Every person who died too soon these last few days.


9 comments:

  1. I've never really understood why these rich and famous pop stars become drug addicts. Could it be boredom?

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  2. Cette chanson est formidable. Si triste qu'elle soit morte.

    Et les massacres en Norvège? C'est terrible.

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  3. There are just way too much young wasted lives these days, to call it tragic has become an understatement.
    I also made a post dedicated to Norway, and their commitment to peace via the Nobel peace Prize. It is so ironic.

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  4. Too much of the "news" these days (how the fuck old am I?!? *these days*) caters to the lowest denominator and has become sensationalized infotainment and no longer news/fact based coverage. Don't get me wrong, I like a celeb story as much as the next person. Ok, maybe a bit less than the next person, but I just feel it has it's place (Access Extra E Tonight et al) and not a 24 hour cycle places where real/important news ought to live. Sadly, it's only a reflection of what ratings show people want. ...Of course, I want to hit most people in the head with a brick, so what do I know?...

    Great read DCG.

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  5. tragedy ... norway

    amy ... destiny

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  6. Wait... has news not always been this way? I sometimes feel very sorry for celebs, and also wonder WHY anyone would want to be famous. To have your life so open to everyone would not only make it difficult for privacy but the pressure of addiction and being surrounded by people who use you for monetary gain "no, you're fine Amy, it's what rock stars DO." Yet the death of Amy is with sad shakes of our head, and inevitable comments or jokes about how predictable it is.
    Maybe that is why we are more comfortable with it. People would rather watch something like that on television where they can feel bad for the girl, yet feel somewhat like she had it coming. She was asking for it. Everyone could see it was coming. Where terrorism scare the fuck out of us, and who the hell could predict Norway. People tune out maybe because it connects to all our fears because those people HAD no control over it. We all like to think tragedy can be avoided by doing the right things. It scares us, I think, when it happens unpredictably.

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  7. @GB - Maybe. That and the fact that they have the money and access to more then most can afford.
    @TBG - Oui en effet, les mondes devenu fou.
    @Tracy - Fuck !! just for you :)
    @Vi - It's wrong isn't it.
    @PB - That thought occurred to me too, kinda emphasises the difference between the two.
    @BBG - I have a brick you can lend anytime.
    @Andrea - Exactly.
    @Jamie - That's a very good point. People can sympathise with Amy whilst safe in the knowledge that it's not going to happen to them, but I think the feeling about Norway is if it can happen there then maybe nowhere is safe from terrorism. And you never know what your neighbours might be quietly planning.

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  8. The news always covers the wrong story.

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