I think that was about all I could muster for the news that Tammy Faye Whatsername had died. Why is her death headline news, exactly? Because a decade and some ago, she bilked thousands of people out of millions of dollars? You’ll pardon me if I can’t really muster up a lot of sympathy for her.
I’m sorry, this is just more of America’s bullshit obsession with people who are famous for no good reason. Why do we pay attention to these sorts of people? What is it about our culture that draws us to what are basically utterly worthless, and often *vile* people, and causes us, as a culture – certainly not me, with fame and as an inevitable result, money?
Why can we just ignore these people and have them go about supporting themselves legitimately, or self-destructing by themselves? I’m talking Paris Hilton, Jack Thompson, et. al. Let’s just stop paying attention to them, *please*. There’s a war on. Our government is the most corrupt, most incompetent in my lifetime, and I’d guess the most corrupt *ever*, to be perfectly direct. Why does all that get swept aside because some con-artist kicked the bucket?
I think it is because the human brain is wired to perceive people they recognize as members of their tribe. So humans care about famous people because they recognize them and see them as members of their extended families.
That said, I am totally with you. There are much more important things we should be focusing on!
My friend made a comment on her blog about the demise of Tammy Faye and it got me to wondering why she even cared. Apparently, TF was on some reality show a couple of years ago and she came off like a really good, thoughtful person who had dome some bad things in life and was actually remorseful for them. I didn’t watch the show, so I can’t vouch for that … but my friend said that TF today seemed like the type of tough old broad you’d admire. Whatever that means.
Also, I think maybe because she was so very forthright with her struggle with cancer, maybe people somehow felt like they had a better understanding of what it means to go through that struggle? Oftentimes, you hear so and so celebrity has cancer, but that’s just a statement from their publicist. Having seen TF the last few years here and there, she was very forthright and honest about the pain she was in and what cancer really was doing to her. Maybe cancer survivors felt a special kinship/bond with her?