[Z]

I just read a very interesting article that mostly focuses on the death of Amy Winehouse and why some people find it okay to make jokes about something like her death, but not about other things. I'll quote it below; but the basic premise of the article is that people feel they can joke about things that are seen as inevitable, but not about things that just come out of the blue. For example, the Norwegian massacre was a random act of violence and was therefore deemed more shocking than the death of someone who had a history of substance abuse.

Last week, on the day Amy Winehouse died, I sat down and wrote a eulogy that several people, including my wife and online employer, found unnecessarily ghoulish. And while it's true I thought it was amusing to quip that London officials had banned Amy's cremation for fear of a nation-wide contact high, I was pretty sure I wasn't the worst person in the world. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered what it was about this tragedy that made me so completely fine with cracking jokes. I mean, it didn't occur to me to write a bunch of zingers about all those murdered Norwegian children from the week before. Why did I have no compunction about making fun of this? And why did I get annoyed when I saw people leaving Facebook statuses about the Winehouse tragedy and summoning up the "27 club." Why did it ring false?

A little more than a week later, I'm still not sure, but I think it has something to do with the distinction between fiction and real life, and the difference between tragedy and the tragic. In literature class, they teach you that tragedy is defined by inevitability. Tragedy requires a fatal flaw that can only lead to one unhappy conclusion. King Lear's arrogance sows the seeds of his destruction. Macbeth's lust for power seals his fate. Or take The Godfather as a more modern example. Despite Vito Corleone and then Michael Corleone's desire to ultimately run a legitimate business and to set rules for how they conduct their affairs, the enterprise was still based in crime, intimidation and murder. That flaw can only lead to more bloodshed. Corleone brothers, sons and daughters will be murdered. And like Macbeth, the taint of spilt blood will leave its mark. That's tragedy. Inevitable. Logical.

All good tragedies follow this rule because if they don't, the events are merely tragic. And no one cries about that. Sonny and Fredo Corleone can't slip in the shower. Lady Macbeth can't develop breast cancer. That's melodrama. A soap opera. We want a death we understand. One that feels fated. One that is carefully constructed and inevitable. Anything less than that and we resent the writers. We accuse them of playing God, sprinkling death arbitrarily down puppeteer strings solely for the purpose of messing with us. And we refuse to cry.

But unlike fiction, it seems the things in life that elicit the greatest sadness are the merely tragic. Those slaughtered Norwegians; that Brooklyn boy abducted blocks from his home, murdered and chopped into pieces, and John Lennon shot for no foreseeable reason outside his apartment. These are the stories we can't look directly at. Those that make the world seem a sharp and narrow place, impossible to navigate without getting sliced and bleeding out eventually. There was no reason these things had to happen. No logic. And we cry and look at ourselves and our families and pray. Or we don't think about it or we hope that talking profusely about how terrible it is will keep the evil away like a talismanic incantation. It's the tragic events that terrify us most in real life because unlike tragedies, you can never see them coming.

But Amy's story is a classic tragedy. A story of a woman whose unique ability to keep living was matched only by her desire to die. You could take her career, her teeth, every ounce of her life-sustaining body fat, and she would not stop. Hers was a heart that beat so fierce, that even in the bloodless hollow of a battered shell of a body, there was the thump of determination. Someone else would have given up. Gone to rehab. Or jumped in front of a moving train. But Amy said, "Screw you, heroin. Get into my body and get the job done. Nice and slow." And so it did. It may have taken seven years, but Amy finally got her wish of fatally overdosing on junk.

And some people see that steadfast dedication to suicide. That blind determination to be a living tragedy and can't help thinking about those other people -- God-smacked by the tragic -- who had to witness this. The young cancer-riddled mothers clinging to life, forced to suck up chemotherapy in the hopes it will keep them alive long enough to see their child's third birthday. Or children afflicted with horrific diseases identified by foreign names and numbers. Or anyone living in tremendous pain, but still praying for another day of life. How debilitating to their struggle to watch a celebrity throw it all away in a constant game of Russian roulette that inexplicably took years to end? And we think, Well that death makes sense. All is right with the world. That was supposed to happen. That can't be us. And we do not cry.

But maybe these kind of lines between tragedy and the tragic can't be drawn. Maybe it's wrong to talk about Amy's mental illness and physical addiction in terms of a fatal flaw as if it's a conscious choice. Well, OK. What if it weren't drugs? What about adrenaline junkies. What if I told you it was a 38-year-old father of three who just had to hang glide constantly? Or only enjoyed life when he was base jumping or free-climbing mountains? If he fell to his death, would you grieve for him the same way you would that young dad who was hit by a bus? I don't know. I don't think I would. Is it wrong? I'm not sure.

Or maybe I'm not comfortable forgiving the mental illness that leads to suicide because it's too close to forgiving the mental illness that leads to murder. Wouldn't we call that Norwegian terrorist, that Brooklyn child-murderer and Mark David Chapman mentally ill? These aren't rhetorical flourishes. I'm asking. I don't know where to draw lines. But I do know dark humor will always rise up to meet that kind of moral discomfort.

Some people aren't plagued by this uncertainty. For some, it's because they are just better people with larger hearts who have room for both tragedy and the tragic alike. Others haven't asked the questions. And some are just lying.

But Amy's biggest fans, the ones who call her a true genius of unique talent, seem to be the most forgiving. (Personally, I don't think those have to go hand in hand. I still haven't forgiven Greg Giraldo, one of my comedy heroes, for overdosing and I'm pretty sure given some of his Heath Ledger jokes he wouldn't mind me making fun of him for it.) But these fans do forgive her and although they haven't written Facebook statuses bemoaning the loss of a million other people who have succumbed to addiction and mental illness (albeit without musical ability), they say it's a tragedy that such an artist had to die in this way.

And I'll agree it is sad that people succumb to addiction and mental illness. And it's not hard to find compassion for that condition in the abstract. In fact, it's not hard to sincerely wish that no one had to suffer such things. And I do. I wish that whatever chemical or biological or environmental affliction that trapped Amy into a death spiral of heroin addiction didn't exist. But without those influences, she probably would have been some completely different person. Someone who wouldn't write a hit song about not going to rehab. And if that were the case, Amy wouldn't have had the pain that so many of these fans loved her for. And they wouldn't be changing their profile pics to her face, lamenting the "27 club" and urging the world to see the tragedy.

We see it. And it is a tragedy in every sense of the word.

What do you make of the argument? I definitely agree with it; I was annoyed by all the coverage her death was getting because I had no sympathy for her - whereas I found the Norwegian massacre deeply shocking.

[Niamh.]

He's right of course but I still have sympathy for people like Amy

[Cromwell1900]

Taking Amy fans out of the equation here then id agree with all that was written.

I think with Amy there was a preparedness for her Death, a partial acceptance that she was not going to live long, and we we're use to the idea. All the while it was clear that Amy was the reason for her own misfortune, although people had sympathy for her ultimately her being the cause is the one Certainty people can rely on.

Although a Philosophical debate could be had as to what extent addiction or any type of fatal flaw for that matter, is that persons fault, i think for most people it was clear that Amy's Death had the shock factor removed and was no ones fault but her own. If you can establish blame then surely you can make jokes at the expense of the blameworthy, with the level to which you felt sympathy for her deciding if you we're to laugh or frown.

Good Post OP!

[lostalex]

We don't even know how she died yet. If she died of alcohol, or drug use, then of course there is humour in it, because her most famous song has the chorus "they tried to make me go to rehab an i said no, no no".

The punchline writes itself. Irony is funny.

[Pyramid*]

Originally Posted by Zee

I just read a very interesting article that mostly focuses on the death of Amy Winehouse and why some people find it okay to make jokes about something like her death, but not about other things. I'll quote it below; but the basic premise of the article is that people feel they can joke about things that are seen as inevitable, but not about things that just come out of the blue. For example, the Norwegian massacre was a random act of violence and was therefore deemed more shocking than the death of someone who had a history of substance abuse.





What do you make of the argument? I definitely agree with it; I was annoyed by all the coverage her death was getting because I had no sympathy for her - whereas I found the Norwegian massacre deeply shocking.

Your last paragraph about sums it up quite well - it reflects my own opinion.

[lostalex]

Many people joke about how Elvis died. And of course twitter was awash with Michael Jackson jokes when he died.

[Ammi]

What do you make of the argument? I definitely agree with it; I was annoyed by all the coverage her death was getting because I had no sympathy for her - whereas I found the Norwegian massacre deeply shocking

No one could foresee the Norwegian tragedy and it was a planned and deliberate act against the helpless, so of course the term shocking is applicable, whereas with Amy her drug and alcohol abuse have led to a not surprising end. At another time, without the tragedy in Norway, I would have expected there to be a large amount of media coverage of her death, as she had already achieved much acclaim and had more potential in the music industry, but because of other events there appears to be resentment from some for this. I wonder if this resentment and lack of sympathy would be the same if the timing was not so 'bad'. Interestingly, there is another thread about what is great about Great Britian and the fact is, being a British music talent, I find her death extremely sad and tragic, but not shocking. Someone mentioned Michael Jackson, who's lifestyle had also been criticised, so are we to assume that if he had died at say the same time as 9/11, the reaction would be 'oh well, what do you espect, move on' I don't imagine so. People we know who smoke and die of cancer, or drink and die of liver diisease, or eating disorders......they're all self inflicted, but the loss is still the same. It doesn't make them less deserving, well imo anyway.