Heath Ledger either offed himself or OD’ed and the merchants of maudlin are in full emote braying about what a “tragedy” and a “shock” it is.
Tragedy. This is one of those words that has been so bastardized by misuse and overuse that it has ceased to mean anything. What happened to Ledger was not a tragedy. It was either stupidity (drug overdose) or weakness (suicide). A tragedy would have been if he was happily strolling across the street and got flattened by a bus.
It’s not even much of a shock as his friends knew about his depression and drinking problem for a while.
I don’t feel anything when a celebrity dies. It doesn’t affect my state of mind one iota. I shed no tear. I couldn’t care less if some actor living the life of a king and boffing the hottest chicks dies. In fact, I’d like it if all these guys were shot into space. The more heterosexual men shot into space, the better; leaves more women for me.
Women get worked up over the death of some famous dude who they’ll never meet because they are designed by nature to want lots of quality guys around to give them the option of picking and choosing at their leisure. Fewer alphas means a higher chance of settling for a beta.
Heath Ledger was great to watch on screen. That’s why it’s sad.
Not everything is alpha/beta. This is akin to some mad mathematician, applying his formula to everything.
Suicide’s the product of mental illness.
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/suicide-in-the-us-statistics-and-prevention.shtml
As you can see from the statistics, men’s suicide methods are more likely to result in fatal attempts. I’ve read somewhere (and this seems logical) that this is because men are more likely to use more violent and certain methods. Suicide is an action — it’s not a passive thing. I think you calling it ‘weak’ is just your way of firmly putting it in the realm of actions that you will never think of doing. Doing this on the blog, however, is frankly not conductive to anything you say being taken as logical.
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Man I wanted to go this obvious direction and I’m glad you did. I would have also added that he had a kid. IF it was suicide then this is one of the most selfish act because he wasn’t taking his daughters future into thought. I mean once you have kids life stops being about you or you’re problems and for the next 18 years to the rest of your life the only thing that should matter, the only reason for getting up in the morning should be for your child. That’s it. Whatever is bothering you fix it for the sake of your kid, fucks sake.
I think Men’s suicide attempts are more certain because most women use suicide as a cry for help or attention, just saying.
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Bad form, Roissy.
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why are you getting so worked up over some person you don’t give a rat’s ass about? annoyed that all the female bloggers are posting about it? or are you watching the E! channel again? heath ledger was beautiful – as in god’s gift to women and homosexual men and he will no longer be around to delight us with his sheer and utter sexiness. tragedy.
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Impressive. I doubt theres many people who will step up and say how they really feel about Heath Ledger’s death or any deaths for that matter. Way to be honest….or to just stir up, what is sure to be, a shit ton of controversy in the comments section.
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This is sad. Very sad; and roissy, your cynicism has reached new heights. The man was obviously heartbroken.
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I agree with C.M.
This has nothing to do with Alpha/Beta and the fact that you are applying it here is quite scary…life is more than just Alpha/Beta, especially when death is concerned…emotions do exist aside from mating.
For those of us that enjoy good movies and acting that makes us feel something–whether it be joy…sadness…etc…we will miss an actor that was so able to portray those emotions on the screen.
And it was selfish in terms of his own child being left without a father…that is horrible for the child.
But I doubt most people feeling a loss of his death ever thought they would meet him in real life and date him.
They will miss someone who allows them some film escapism.
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why did you care?
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Strictly speaking, a tragedy is what happens when a great person is brought down by some internal flaw – at least, that’s the Shakespearian definition of tragedy.
On the other hand, in Greek theatre, tragedy is what happens when a great person is destroyed by fate – esp. by the jealousy of the gods.
I suspect that by either definition, Ledger’s death could be called a tragedy. Although I would admit that in either use of the word, there might be some question about whether a famous young actor might count as a “great person”.
Any way, even if it’s not a tragedy, it is sad.
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KassyK,
I’m a little torn in that I hope most people don’t miss him because of film escapism. I mean I hope it’s more than that. I get what you’re saying but there’s a difference between the sadness over the loss of life and the sadness because someone wont be around to make movies anymore.
Sad is Sad but at the same time I agree about the term “Tragedy” used in this case if the person did it to himself.
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“Women get worked up over the death of some famous dude who they’ll never meet because they are designed by nature to want lots of quality guys around to give them the option of picking and choosing at their leisure.”
Wow, looking at even the strange reactivity of the females in this thread confirms this.
To the evolved female mind male celebrities are perceived like real men in their social circle (who there is a possibility of sleeping with), instead of the reality: strangers they will never ever ever have any real contact with.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/h0270272w78t5131/
So the inappropriate grieving makes sense, they really do intuitively feel like there was a chance of getting some celebrity alpha sperm.
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I was shocked and upset at Heath Ledger’s suicide. Why? Because I remember seeing the pictures of him with Michelle; both OBVIOUSLY radiantly in love. Only a pure cynic would be unable to see that. I remember reading the interview in Rolling Stones magazine. An interview with a man who was openly in love and expressing his deep love for Michelle and their child. He was cooing over his woman’s beauty, changing diapers, “taking care” of his precious girls. When I heard of the divorce, I assumed it was she who initiated it. Not being a person who follows Hollywood gossip, I know nothing else, really.
But my thought was that he was a beautiful man, deeply in love, and Michelle filed for divorce and he was simply devastated. He went from glowingly in love, to a sad, shell of a man. I don’t get it. I don’t get how a woman can discard a man like that. Forgive me, because my viewpoint is obviously going to seem trite, stupid, child-like, ignorant, and every other degrading thing the more cynical among you can come up with. Frankly I don’t care. I just remember the pictures and the love and that this did not need to happen, but I’m not surprised that it did.
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VK–I was just trying to prove the point that it has nothing to do with “getting with him”. That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.
Rain–To turn this into an alpha/beta thing is a personal affront to me as a person who will truly miss his screen presence. No, I don’t know him in real life so I cannot say I will miss “him” nor would I want to “be” with him…death is sad. That’s all.
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^ continued. Well once again I’m completely out of the loop, so I took the time to check out the details of Heath’s death. And yes, he was into drugs apparently. It’s still sad, still unnecessary but still not beyond my ability to feel compassion.
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we need more studies to prove that we don’t actually feel. bring ’em on.
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This is an example of a really good blog post. You take a stand that’s guaranteed to piss many people off by tipping over their sacred cow of the cult of celebrity. It’s something that I write about often. At least in this case, in contrast to “celebrities” (let’s analyze that term some time) who are on the tabloid “death watch,” Heath Ledger was known and hopefully will be remembered primarily for his acting chops. In “Lords of Dogtown,” I missed some of the beginning and didn’t even realize until nearly the end that the amazing character actor portraying the toasted surf shop owner was him. As for the meaninglessness of caring about actors’ and other entertainers’ personal lives beyond their work, I think you’re pretty much on target.
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16: “As for the meaninglessness of caring about actors’ and other entertainers’ personal lives beyond their work, I think you’re pretty much on target.”
It’s so nice to have people like you to tell us what is appropriately meaningful or not.
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Roissy, you are saying that if anyone gleans anything of value from a source that YOU find stupid, then WE must be stupid….which makes you solidly average.
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Otto, were you absent from class the day they handed out the memo that said blogs, and especially blog comments, represent the opinions of the writer? Nothing in my comment tells you or anyone else what to think. This is precisely why, at the beginning of my comment, I wrote that this was an example of a really good blog post. It was controversial, spurred discussion and, in our case, healthy disagreement.
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Roissy, I’m not worked up about this. At a guess, I’d say that the other female persons posting here tonight are not worked up either. Most of us are simply sorry, and, depending on personality type, we may take this death personally, or not.
I don’t, but then, as I’ve often pointed out, I’m an old lady compared to the rest of you. On the other hand, that makes me that much more able to see the horror of the waste of a young life. He’s just young enough (b. 1979) to have been my son, though it would have been a real stretch.
RIP, Heath Ledger.
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“…we need more studies to prove that we don’t actually feel.”
No, we understand you do feel. That’s the interesting thing. It’s fascinating that the human brain regards distant famous people as friends and acquaintances. The inappropriate emotions are something to behold.
It’s also interesting to see how sympathy is not “blind” but tied to transparent reproductive concerns. The news and blogs make it evident that society pays more attention and sheds more tears when women go missing more than men, and young, attractive women far more than anybody else.
And when attractive male celebrities die, we see the deepest emoting from reproductive age women.
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It’s sad in the sense that he didn’t seem like a d*ck like a lot of Hollywood types. (Of course, we have no idea what he was really like behind the scenes). Assuming I’m connecting the dots correctly, the guy was probably mentally ill, which is itself sad. And regardless, when a non-asshole and father of a young child dies at a young age, it’s always at least somewhat sad, for the family if no one else.
Yes it’s technically better that there’s one less guy to “compete with”, but I don’t feel so threatened by him that I rejoice at his passing, especially since there’s a kid involved.
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He will probably get a posthumous oscar for The Dark Knight.
I guess playing the Joker, can drive a person crazy.
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#12: ‘divorce’
maybe i’m missing something (i hear all celebrity news through my gf), but i thought they had remained unmarried.
random: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Heath_Ledger.jpg
he looks at least forty. something’s been weighing on him.
roissy:
if set a = women for whom you compete and set b = women for whom heath competed (past tense), then the intersection of set a and set b is almost certainly zero.
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While I agree with you about the bastardization of the term “tragedy”, I think you sound vitriolic and spiteful here– like a sniveling beta wallowing in schadenfreude.
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dude… i despise mawkish sentimentality as much as the next guy, but isn’t this going a bit far. “I couldn’t care less if some actor living the life of a king and boffing the hottest chicks dies. In fact, I’d like it if all these guys were shot into space.” So you do care, you’re not indifferent, (as you want them dead?)… anyway you’re right in that it’s usually women who mourn excessively, but it ain’t confined to male celebrities (Dianamania!!)
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Ugh, I am totally taking the bait and chiming in. The thing is, I agree with both Roissy and Kassy. It is a tragedy; a tragedy that mental illness is viewed as a weakness, a tragedy that “we” seem more concerned with celebs (myself included) than the countless others suffering in this world without the resources to help themselves, and a tragedy any time a kid grows up without her parent. No, I didn’t cry, but I am saddened that someone–no matter who it is–falls in to such a place where they kill themselves, intentionally or not.
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i think heath is a strung out loser who pissed a life most of us would kill for away because he couldn’t handle success.
the idea about women liking him because he was a handsome popular actor and feeling like they knew him above is a good one IMO.
men get misty eyed about athletes dying, especially if they grew up admiring them, but i thnk it is true women are much much more emotionaly attached to pretty celebrities.
all you have to do is see the movies that appeal mainly to men and women. chick flicks are all about a woman and her emotional relationship to people and pets around them. women react to them as if they knew the people involved or try and see how bit of their life are similar to those movies.
men are into a much much broader variety of films (and other escapist entertainment) and want comedy, challenging ideas, spectacular action, fantasy, and fucking. emotional identification helps, but is way way secondary to any of the above.
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19: “Otto, were you absent from class the day they handed out the memo that said blogs, and especially blog comments, represent the opinions of the writer?”
No, I got the memo, and was responding to YOUR comment about Roissy’s comment..
“As for the meaninglessness of caring about actors’ and other entertainers’ personal lives beyond their work, I think you’re pretty much on target.”
I disagreed with your comment and was expressing that. Comprende’?
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Among top 10 headlines on reddit.com:
“45,000 die in Congo every MONTH and nobody cares”
“Fuck Heath Ledger: 27 American troops and 394 Iraqis have died in 2008”
I don’t really even know who Heath Ledger is. And he’s really not attractive at all.
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rina:
why did you care?
analysis is not the same as caring.
anyhow, what happened to those kids at virginia tech *was* a tragedy.
the celebrity culture must die, and i intend to be at the forefront driving a stake through its soulless worthless vapid heart with the purifying burn of my words.
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That’s a bit of a silly statement.
The celebrity culture will never die. It has been around forever.
There always have been and always will be people who are more famous/notorious than other people.
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cheche–I guess I am more male then in terms of movies, because I prefer the movies you are describing as “male oriented” minus the dumbass action movies that serve no purpose but to blow up things for mindless entertainment.
I love challenging ideas, fucking and intellectual stimulation tossed in with a bit of drugs and bizarreness in my movies and find chick flicks horrendously boring. Just saying.
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I agree that the word “tragedy” is overused to the point that it has lost meaning. Heath Ledger’s death is a damn shame, but not a tragedy.
I’m sad that a young man with a child, opportunities, and talent died. It seems cruel and unnecessary to heap shame and accusations upon him and slap alpha/beta distinctions onto the sitation.
I don’t care whether that person is an actor, a baker, or a candlestick maker. If I hear about it, it’s going to affect me. It’s called being human and a member of society.
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anyhow, what happened to those kids at virginia tech *was* a tragedy.
Unless there were alpha males amongst the murdered. Then you’re all for it. And you can’t claim that a true alpha male would have fought back, because you’ve said yourself that the sole arbiter of a man’s alpha/beta status is the number of women he’s slept with.
I actually agree with you that people are attaching far more significance to this than it warrants, but it’s still a sad thing when someone dies. Put aside the alpha/beta analysis once in a while: there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
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“the celebrity culture must die, and i intend to be at the forefront driving a stake through its soulless worthless vapid heart with the purifying burn of my words.”
Uhm…good luck with that. Celebrity culture has been around since the oral traditions began. It will be around long after we are all gone.
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it’s still a sad thing when someone dies.
The media does not go batshit crazy whenever anyone dies, but it builds a cult around celebrities. Is this man’s life more precious than the lives of hundreds of others who may not have been famous, but who nonetheless lived?
Everyone is focusing on this man’s death while a war wages on that cannot be won, American democratic Constitutional foundations are being eroded away, and conditions are crumbling all around, with water/food/fuel shortages slowly creeping into everyday life around the world.
The world stock market took a nosedive yesterday, but Heath Ledger was the one who made headlines in my local newspaper. That in itself makes me sadder than the sadness of this man’s death.
Oh, just in case anyone thinks I’m standing on some pedestal, I’m no better. I read about Britney Spears yesterday.
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Hope
yes – we have lots of people being killed in Iraq
thanks (former drunk and not even elected) bush.
then a lot of them come back and commit suicide too.
thanks (former business failure until your dad’s friends gave you a baseball team) bush.
and there are alot of dead Iraqi adults and children.
thanks (psychopath son of CIA former director) bush.
back to headlineactordeath *Wasn’t that the guy who was in the jousting / midieval movie with rock music in it?
lastly actoregocaseguy – if you have kids – be a man and make something of yourself and your children – don’t kill yourself – wtf?
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The media does not go batshit crazy whenever anyone dies, but it builds a cult around celebrities. Is this man’s life more precious than the lives of hundreds of others who may not have been famous, but who nonetheless lived?
Of course not. That’s why I said it’s a sad thing when someone dies, not when a celebrity dies — just after noting that the amount of attention being paid to this one death is indeed ridiculous.
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roissy,
did you have a personal connection to the va tech people? was it tragedy because of the number of people that died at once? the way they died? what about that situation makes it a tragedy in your opinion?
this isn’t about celeb culture. i don’t follow anything in hollywood personally, but when i watch a kid in like 5+ movies, think he’s cute, and watch him grow up into a man, i kind of feel a little connection, you know, i know it’s fake but that’s how movies work. otherwise what’s the point of acting and hiring the same person for multiple movies? why are you confusing the art of drama for the public obsession of pop stars shaving their heads?
isn’t there a celeb who could die that you would think about a lot? i am not crying over heath’s death like i did over my relatives’, but i am thinking about it. i can’t explain why, but i am.
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reggie:
because you’ve said yourself that the sole arbiter of a man’s alpha/beta status is the number of women he’s slept with.
correction. what i said is that the sole arbiter of a man’s alpha status is the number of women he could *potentially* sleep with. it just so happens that the overlap between men who can bed a lot of women and men who can stand and fight to save their own skin is substantial.
df:
Uhm…good luck with that.
it’s the TMZ-ization of america that i would like to see crushed.
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40 rinaface “i am not crying over heath’s death like i did over my relatives’, but i am thinking about it. i can’t explain why, but i am.”
You don’t have to explain or justify intellectually why you are effected by anything emotionally. You don’t have to apologize for having a heart and feeling compassion for any living thing; not that you don’t know that. You’re a woman and a human being. This is different from celebrity obsession. There was a vulnerability about him that many of us perhaps more sensitive types felt. If anyone wants to beat us up about that, who cares?
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rina:
but when i watch a kid in like 5+ movies, think he’s cute, and watch him grow up into a man, i kind of feel a little connection, you know
that’s a girl thing. women get attached to the person and not just the role he plays. most straight guys i know never felt any emotional connection to an actress once the movie ended, besides the obvious one of wanting to bang her, which disappears as soon as a fresher, younger hottie hits the stage. the closest approximation would be sports stars and maybe some rock stars for guys, and i lump that in with my general distaste for living vicariously through other people.
the debased assinine celebrity culture is driven by women, for women, and it has sound sociobiological roots. the TMZs and gawkers and mawkish diana death hucksters are bellwethers of an overfeminized culture in its death throes. it’s time to shame women back to whispering their gossip over the backyard fence.
why are you confusing the art of drama for the public obsession of pop stars shaving their heads?
heath ledger died. his movies live on. so why the sadness for a total stranger? there will be other talented actors to fill movie roles that speak to you.
isn’t there a celeb who could die that you would think about a lot?
no, unless we’re talking about a detached curiosity for the celeb’s life and untimely death.
i spare my emotional attachment for people who matter to me.
i can’t explain why, but i am.
i can. your emotions have evolved to value a high ranking alpha male more than the mass of undifferentiated average males, so when one of them dies you, justifiably or not, feel the loss of a potential mating partner you have built an emotional attachement to through the false positive of his movie roles.
or: when was the last time you wrote a sympathy card to the street bum who pissed himself in the gutter and died holding a bottle of mad dog?
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i have an emotional attachment to several street bums:
– the fat guy who sleeps on 63rd & 3rd and reeks of poop
– the guy who asks for change on Amsterdam Ave & 120th st.
I passed or pass these guys daily, and thus have formed enough emotional attachment to actually care.
Faceless street bums, no.
Thank you anon.
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Miik, so how much do you really love GWB cause you’re not coming across angry enough at his administration.
Anonymous: “There was a vulnerability about him that many of us perhaps more sensitive types felt. If anyone wants to beat us up about that, who cares?”
No. His death is a shock to many not because he was vulnerable in some film but because to you and to many, he was a familiar face. That familiarity is a product of the relentless media machine that pumps images of celebrities daily into our lives. Celebrities going shopping, shitting, eating, acting, their lives and movements documented in such detail that the illusion of intimacy is inevitable. Intimacy is what we share with our friends and family but with celebrity its all fabricated. That it was unexpected and that he was well liked only exacerbates the disbelief. Thousands die everyday, but there is no way to empathize with the faceless that you’ve never seen or known.
roissy:”it’s the TMZ-ization of america that i would like to see crushed.”
I hear you and we are on the same page but this is the modern iteration of what has been going on for thousands of years. In a few years it will be replaced by another method of celebrity deification.
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45 DF:
“Anonymous: “There was a vulnerability about him that many of us perhaps more sensitive types felt. If anyone wants to beat us up about that, who cares?”
“No. His death is a shock to many not because he was vulnerable in some film………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
No??? No??????? You’re not getting it. Truth is you’re not going to. You’re trying to explain the unexplainable intellectually. Because you don’t share the emotion, you say “NO.” “It must not be THIS, it must be THAT.” It’s O.K. You’re a man, it’s not expected. But ‘we’ love men and their differences, or maybe I should just speak for myself. 😀
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there are a lot of people in the world- mostly women- who actually feel a lot, they are more connected to others’ energies, on screen or in real life. i for example, frequently cry when reading books. ideas and expressions in books are meant to touch me, and they do.
other people only pick up strong signals, and ignore the noise. that’s what makes us different.
i, too, love men. i love when men feel profound feelings about important people in their lives. there’s something so deep about it. but it doesn’t negate the fact that i can truly feel shallower emotions about less important people to my life.
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I am not sure everyone on this blog is talking about the same thing. How someone connects with the death of another person is a measure of so many things. It can be temporal, the death of someone who is your age or from your home town or college. It can based on iconic symbolism, the death of JFK Jr comes to mind for that one. It can be art or entertainment. I get a little sad when I hear a song by a wonderful singer that recently died. His music touched me and his songs remind me of that pathos.
It is a connection to ourselves and our concepts of death and life that confronts us when we lose someone. Sadness or mourning the death of Heath Ledger says a lot about many things. Some (maybe more women than men) connect with Ledger more than they connect with the death of the three black and poor girls murdered by their mother in SE Washington, DC in the past month. Maybe Roissy connects more with the VT killings than the murdered SE DC girls. Sadness is really a reflection on our values, as applied to people and culture, and our own self concepts of life.
So Roissy go ahead and attack the cult of celebrity and the keep up the good fight. But you must understand that our image of self which his blog often discusses (e.g., beta vs alpha male, career woman) is many ways shapes our need to laud the unworthy with mountains of praise and riches and scorn while we ignore the needy or deserving of praise and attention and scorn. To project idealized versions of ourselves on others, and like the Gods of old, imbue them with attributes we admire and loath, celebrate and condemn. Much we often do with pets, we turn domestic animals into vessels of our emotions and self image.
My mother passed away less than 4 months ago. A loss I deal with everyday. A man with caring friends in my late 30s, I received love and support from friends from all stages of my life. I also got silence and emptiness from those I am close to everyday or who I consider extremely close. I realized that I am guilty of the same response in past encounters with death. How we respond to death; from the everyday homicide of the poor we rarely see (the SE DC black girls), the public tragedies (the bridge collapse in Minn, the VT killings), the celebrity (the Ledgers, JFK Jr., or Redskin athletes) or friends who go through loss; is a reflection of our self, our lives, our culture and how we deal with loss. It is easier to discuss the VT killings than the personal loss, it may be easier to publicly show pain over Ronald Reagan’s death than to stop our lives at every seneseless muder in everyday life.
It takes a lot more than just bursting the cult of celebrity to put an actor’s death into Roissy’s proper persective. Perhaps the essence of our humanity is on display in such emotional and cultural responses. The mainstream media feeds the beast (think Princess Di) but it is a beast that is part of our human condition.
I choose to think that your pointed analysis of male/female humanity is actually bolstered by closely observing the public mourn the loss of a celebrity. But not because you are correct in your reductionism but instead because it is part of our human condition to enage in such public displays. The more interesting question to me is why the need to do so and what does it say about our values and self interest. It has to say more than we are shallow beings with a love of alphas over betas.
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I took a personal interest in Heath Ledger & Michelle Williams because I thought they embodied a love that I was looking for and I wished the best for them. When anyone accomplishes and enjoys something we want but don’t yet have, it’s cause for recognition that if they have it, so can we. Others might get jealous, but having a “role model” of what you want is a step in achieving what you want. There’s entirely too much focus on the negative. What we don’t want in terms of relationships is on visual display 24/7. So when I saw them in their happy days as a beautiful in love couple, I was inspired; and shocked at the finality of the ending of it. Women are the connectors of humanity and no apology is needed. “Gossip” like this is are useful in that they help us define ourselves.
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Wow. Now women are to blame for some people being sad when someone famous dies too young, and under sad circumstances? What haven’t we done to piss you off, Roissy? Misogyny always looks so illogical when it’s written down. “Women are stoopid and THIS is their fault too! So maybe more of them will sleep with me now…”
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“Fewer alphas means a higher chance of settling for a beta”
One should never settle. Many so-called alphas are pretty good at eliminating THEMSELVES.
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^ without dying I might add.
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dizzy, i have to admit you’re growing on me. i admire your purity.
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This is peanuts compared to the outpouring when Kurt Cobain killed himself. In that case, though, lots of males (fans) cared too — that distinguishes someone with talent from someone without it. I’m not saying Cobain was Beethoven, but since even lots of guys were all shaken up by his suicide, it proves that his appeal wasn’t just attracting young females.
It still fits the “celebrity as my friend” inappropriateness, though. I’ll admit I would fall into this as well if it were Hope Sandoval (lead singer of Mazzy Star).
But what Roissy’s missing is that this isn’t something that the media created, and that can be leveled by human action. That’s Utopianism. Remember what Adam Smith said: everyone in China could perish tomorrow, and the average Englishman wouldn’t care one bit, certainly not as much as he cares for his friends and family and himself.
He regarded it as a mistake to re-engineer this quirk of human nature, and said we had to accept it and work with it as best as possible. TMZ may be making a natural vice worse in magnitude, but as long as mass media are around (and it’s good that they exist rather than don’t), people will think of celebrities as closer than they really are, and we will see these reactions to celebrity deaths.
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More precisely, Smith thought it was futile, not just any old type of mistake, to try to re-engineer that aspect of human nature.
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Whoever quoted the shakespearian and greek definitions of tragedy early on in the thread got it wrong. The opposite was closer to the truth, with whole internal flaw, aka hamartia, usually manifesting itself as hubris was the reason for downfall in Greek tragedy.
Dizzy should be happy to note Aristotle was a rather forward thinking feminist. He let Antigone have enough self-worth to become a tragic hero, even though she was a woman. Oh snap!
We don’t know whether Heath Ledger was a tragedy yet. They still haven’t figure out why he died, and haven’t been able to find evidence of a drug overdose, beside a bottle of sleeping pills.
rina:
You are a russian hippy jew getting a graduate degree from a top tier university in epidemiology or at least some thing related to statistical public health studies.
That in itself just amuses me to know end.
roissy & agnostic:
You feel closer to people with which we identify. Thus roissy overfeminization theory make sense, because for some reason we clamp onto gossip and somehow make celebrities more human. I hate this whole trend of “humanization” and extreme anti-heroes.
Hence Batman Begins is quite possibly the best movie ever made. I would probably cry if Christian Bale died, because he’s the best actor ever 😉
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#56: here’s a definition of Greek tragedy: Tragedy depicts the downfall of a noble hero or heroine, usually through some combination of hubris, fate, and the will of the gods. The tragic hero’s powerful wish to achieve some goal inevitably encounters limits, usually those of human frailty (flaws in reason, hubris, society), the gods (through oracles, prophets, fate), or nature. Aristotle says that the tragic hero should have a flaw and/or make some mistake (hamartia). The hero need not die at the end, but he / she must undergo a change in fortune. In addition, the tragic hero may achieve some revelation or recognition (anagnorisis–“knowing again” or “knowing back” or “knowing throughout” ) about human fate, destiny, and the will of the gods. Aristotle quite nicely terms this sort of recognition “a change from ignorance to awareness of a bond of love or hate.”
That’s the most complete and lengthy definition I can find online (from a university website).
Both the Shakespearean and Greek concepts of tragedy incorporate the elements of tragic flaw and of fate, but the emphasis in the Greek tragedies is rather on fate than the flaw: Oedipus doesn’t do anything wrong except by accident. Try as he does to escape the prophecy about his fate, everything he does just contributes to its eventual fulfillment. Neither does Hippolytus – he just awakens the jealousy of a goddess.
But Hamlet is brought down by his flaws, and Othello, and Macbeth, and King Lear. They do make mistakes and suffer misfortunes, but it’s their own flaws which ultimately undo them.
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He was born with good looks and learned how to act but he couldn’t keep his shit together enough to hit 30. Why is he worthy of celebration, exactly? It’s nice his work entertained the bored masses but he seems to be another brainless actor who couldn’t even use his wealth to see a doctor and get some treatment. This is more Darwin than Oscar.
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58 Roosh, I think he WAS seeing a doctor. Doctors directly or indirectly kill more people than you may realize.
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You really think celebrities have nothing to do with the America you live in? It is inseparable. Celebrities embody everything that is ideal in capitalist America: beauty, money and fame. The idealism is across the genders, although it does take different forms. There are entire subcultures inspired by imitations of celeberity icons. I’m not able to invoke American examples precisely but it seems that you have the subculture inspired by the ‘shot 100 times/women fall over me’ image at least, which is undoubtedly masculine in its nature.
As you have said, it is a complete violation of everything that America idealises for this man to go and succumb fatally to mental illness.
If he has all that anyone would dream of, if he could choose between any woman in the world to sleep with, and then he goes and kills himself, then your dream is in danger of dying with him. There is something missing in the magic formula you have set for yourself.
That is precisely what should be pissing you off, as you seem to have acknowledged in a roundabout manner.
Celeberity worshipping can be annoying, shallow, flawed and obsessive but what precisely do you think you can do about it without overturning your society as a whole, from its very roots as an asset-driven nation? The assertion that this is a female thing (oh, ‘the gossip’!) is more a criticism of the method in which this worship occurs across the two genders. While the female gender may tend to indulge in a desire for intimacy and in an emotional attachment, the male form of worship leans to the more dangerous method of emulation. As demonstrated countless times through suicides and further other scandals, the celeberity class are the last people to idealise.
There are ‘real’ ‘tragedies’ occuring all the time (in the non-theatrical form, clio, but the popularised notion of what constitutes tragedy in the terms of ‘a disastrous event’, perhaps involving the loss of life and grave injury). This is, in fact, quite a large portion of Arabic televised news should you follow it (celebrities? On serious news?! Never!) Examples of the content are how the Israelis killed blah people *insert horrible pictures of death here*; how these many Iraqis died; how many Israeli/American officers died; how many died in Darfur; tsunami surviver interview; who else died in the world? Now, on to the weakening stock markets…
Could you really, honestly watch this everyday in the morning?
Suffering and death do not ‘sell’. The people a block away not being able to afford medical insurance for their family does not sell. There has to be something special and marked about this suffering, as well as it being close to home. Yes, ‘real tragedies’ are underreported but most would simply turn off their televisions if that’s all there was to hear. You just become desensitised, dissillusioned and/or fanatic about the madness after being fed a steady diet of this.
Speaking of Arabs, Dubai might be a nice place for you, roissy. Just the right balance of blatant Westernisation and throwbacks to ideas you seem to love.
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Yeah. Only women care about sad things. All the “Aw that’s too bad…” are just for women. Those crazy girls. They don’t even count. And yet, all we can talk about is getting in their pants… So. Sad.
And please, nullpointer. You pretend to have a college education. So don’t… snap. K?
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i am so happy it amuses you
what if i said that the reason heath’s death touches me is because he looks and reminds me of the senior guy i had a crush in as a freshman who later came down with a serious cancer? he almost died, and having not known him from more than our daily ceramics class sessions, i felt really sad. cause whatever emotion i felt towards him made me feel close enough to him to be saddened over his illness.
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Roosh: This is more Darwin than Oscar.
Not quite. He already reproduced.
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61, 62 dizzy8 & rinaface; Don’t feel bad. By and large intellectuals are living a wee bit much in their heads and one of their defenses is trying to make others feel stupid. It’s what they fear most themselves, and how they compensate for a lack of interpersonal skills.
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At 4:37 PM, cupcake said…
Hey everybody – one of my closest friends was taking Ambien and fatally OD ed by accident. Be frkn careful.
Pneumonia – I’m not sure if this report means to say that the drugs inflicted the pneumonia, oneumonia just means fluid in the lungs; but pneumonia is something that immunodepressed people get. Like people with AIDS and the elderly and sometimes junkies.
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The moral of the story is don’t take pills. Seriously, everyone pops pills in this society. It’s unnecessary.
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live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse. next!
a james dean for our ages (if you equate batman movies with “east of Eden”).
the world keeps turning no matter how many heath’s check out early. like our esteemed host, i could care less if some semi-talented goof dies early.
look on the bright side, now there won’t be “Brokeback II: The S.F. Years”
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Heath’s death is not an isolated event. Whatever the cause of death in the final analysis, he is just one of millions probably who have ‘suffered’ the same fate. So whatever is learned will hopefully benefit many others. Perhaps more daughters will have the benefit of a loving father for more years, etc., etc.
Also the reasoning that he would never give a shit about us or our death is obvious. He knows nothing of ‘the multitudes’, but we know something of him. We have pictures, images, we’ve heard his voice, seen his victories and losses. We can relate.
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