Hard to describe why Rivers death makes me sort of sad - not shocked, just sad. But its something like this: My thought is that if Joan Rivers had passed on in, say, 2008, I would have had fond memories of her in the 80s - including three generations of my family rolling with side-splitting laughter listening to one of her albums. However, Id have had little notice of what she had been doing since then, since red carpets and any knowledge of fashion are (clearly!) not my thing. The documentary A Piece of Work changed that. The realization of just how strong her insecurities were - and how she battled endlessly through it all like a lone Berzerker cutting through an enemy army - was so striking that it put all of her career in a very different light: one of perseverance - not inhuman and stoic, but human, emotional, and a real style of head down, plow ahead - and laugh, you bastards cuz what else are you gonna do, die? I still never bothered too much with the red carpets and fashion critiques, but always paid attention to her whenever she appeared on the scene since then. Crass and vulgar was something she was unafraid to be. (Last year, regarding and article entitled Joan Rivers blasted for fat jokes, Holocaust jokes, my Facebook comment was Oh for gods sake - its like they just met her.) But somehow, even with some of the people she skewered, she never seemed to be mean. And she never spared herself, ever. Once she was on Larry King Live, back in the day, and she was talking about the day she got the call that her husband, Edgar, had committed suicide. She said something like, I was in the hospital and I was told that I had a call and... and Larry King interjected, wait, why were you in the hospital? and without losing a beat she gestured to her face and laughed, well, why do you think? That openness, and the continued opening of herself to the world which she seemed to do in these recent years - for me, at least - made me view all of her humor in that context. And makes me sad for her loss not just as an icon of humor but as a person.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 11:52:42 +0000