Celebrity death by overdose (or suicide or driving too fast or living too hard) is nothing new. But while some people are immediately lionized — Heath Ledger Phillip Seymour Hoffman, David Foster Wallace, Kurt Cobain—and understood to be the victims of forces (addiction or depression or other forms of mental illness or all of the above) larger than themselves, others wind up being vilified, and their deaths (like those of Geldof and #amywinehouse and Whitney Houston) frequently follow long periods of mockery in the media, during which their exploits are fodder for public consumption and judgment. And, of course, it’s no coincidence that the people who are often most harshly judged in death are women, because it is the women who live a life that veers the furthest from society’s norms are the ones who are also judged the harshest in life. Interesting! Do you believe woman are harshly judged in death?
Posted on: Thu, 10 Apr 2014 00:14:33 +0000