Phil said:
Here’s an example from my own life. When Kurt Cobain killed himself, I thought it really sucked. I like Nirvana a lot, I had seen them in concert, I admired his songwriting skill and in general thought he was talented.
When I first heard the news, my first thought was that I wasn’t terribly surprised. My second was, “What a frigging waste.”
At the time, a friend and I were doing a college radio show on Thursday nights. That week, I brought my guitar, we wrote some parody lyrics about Kurt’s suicide and autopsy to the tune of Nirvana’s “Lithium,” and sang it on the air.
Death is inevitable, therefore I laugh at it.>>>
And maybe that’s what the rub is. (That was a terrible sentence!) I mean, people can’t treat death humorously.
There are those who find “celebrity death” humor tasteless, but I think its part of what goes along with being a public figure.
Here in Chicago, Walter is on a pedestal, but it didn’t take long for jokes about Payne Stewart, or JFK Jr., etc to circulate.
And yet, there are those who can’t handle that at all. I have a brother-in-law who is witty and sarcastic, a biting sense of humor, who makes light of not only public figures, but folks in our own family, often tastelessly and unmercifully. But if someone dies, you can’t make fun of them anymore, its “tasteless,” or “crude.”
I don’t get it. If anything, it should be the opposite. Once someone’s gone, they can’t be offended by your humor anymore. But where do we get off ripping folks in life, and then suddenly treat them saintly when they die? Is this part of the celebrity culture?
SoxFan59
“Its fiction, but all the facts are true!”