Moving On

It is challenging to understand the hoopla over a singer’s death, especially a singer with a history of substance abuse and a career that languished for the past dozen years. It’s sad when anyone dies unexpectedly, but the headlines that scream WHITNEY’S TRAGIC DEATH are a bit over-blown. She died as many of us wish to die, peacefully, in our sleep, with the added benefit of a nice, hot relaxing bath, her struggles with addiction finally ended. A quiet end for a life of public desperation and despair.

A tragic death occurred locally the other morning when a man driving a truck suffered a seizure, lost control of his vehicle and careered off a transit bus into traffic, where his truck crushed beyond recognition a PT Cruiser and its driver, who was waiting for a red light to change, then pushed the wreckage into the intersection where it involved another 2 vehicles. Thankfully, there was only one fatality, but that was a tragic death for an unaware driver waiting behind the wheel of his car for the light to change.

A tragic death occurred out of state the same morning when a school bus on its way to school was hit by a huge 18-wheeler at an intersection, killing one triplet and critically injuring the other 2 girls. The family is not just grieving the death of one of their daughters, but praying for the survival of her 2 sisters, truly a tragedy for this family.

The word “tragedy” is reserved for specific circumstances, those that can be characterized as dramatic, calamitous, disastrous events, especially those of some moral significance. Houston’s death has none of these features and could best be described as “not unexpected,” or “a sad, sudden passing,” or “sorrowful,” but not especially tragic. The media makes it up as they go along, “hyping” (an abbreviated form of the word hyperbole, which means to exaggerate for effect) commonality into exceptionality without reason other than ratings. People with tangential connections to Houston proffer profundity about who she was and the impact of her life/death on America as if Whitney Houston were the second coming, not an addicted singer struggling to make it through just one more day.

Whitney Houston lost her battle with just one more day, but leaves this world as if she saved us all from certain doom in the process. She sang, oh, yes, she sang, but the Glee star, Mercedes (Amber Riley), who covered I Will Always Love You, sang it as well on last week’s episode of Glee as Whitney ever sang it – and better than Whitney has sung her signature song in a dozen years! When what you do to earn fame or garner respect can be replicated by others who are just as talented, or, perhaps, more talented, but didn’t get your break-through fame by using family connections, then you are not “the one,” but merely one more.

The week before her death, Whitney sold fewer than 500 albums; during the days following her death, sales of her albums soared into the tens of thousands. If her life truly is worth mourning to the extent the media hypes it, she would have been selling albums every week, but no one cared about her drug-fueled past, nor her questionable present, until she died. That defines hypocrisy, not tragedy, and certainly does not merit the overwhelming public displays of distraught grief that have filled the TV screens for the past week.

Whitney’s passing is a sad time for her family, but it’s simply one more moment in time for both the singer's fans and the media, who move on quickly when the next "tragedy" offers another opportunity to boost ratings.