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'Genie, you're free'

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Dick Whitman, Aug 13, 2014.

  1. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    Notorious B.I.G., Arthur Ashe, Amy Winehouse, James Dean, Nick Drake, Big L, Ian Curtis and many more could join that list.

    That tweet came not long after the news first broke. It's very likely the tweeter wasn't sure of the cause of death.
     
  2. dooley_womack1

    dooley_womack1 Well-Known Member

    Without the type, no controversy, just a perfect encapsulation of the public persona of Robin Williams. And I feel sure that's all that was meant to be. And how a life ends doesn't at all mean the legacy shouldn't be appreciated.
     
  3. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

    Correct. But the "suffering artist" caricature does exist and is perpetuated, if not celebrated, by a lot of media.
     
  4. RecoveringJournalist

    RecoveringJournalist Well-Known Member

    How the fuck does Arthur Ashe get put on that list?
     
  5. RecoveringJournalist

    RecoveringJournalist Well-Known Member

    There's a difference in being sad that someone died too soon and having their deaths romanticized. With Ledger, just to pick one, we got story after story about how fucked up he was after playing the joker.
     
  6. britwrit

    britwrit Well-Known Member

    I'm surprised that it was the academy that sent it out - not just one random blog post that managed to go viral.

    Still, for once it's true that The Internet Is The Cause Of Everything Bad. In the time that it would've taken to print up and at least fax out a release, a quick rethink would've stopped this cold.
     
  7. Mr. Sunshine

    Mr. Sunshine Well-Known Member

    This has absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand.
     
  8. ringer

    ringer Active Member

    Romanticized? What's romantic about a drug overdose? I don't think anyone ever thought that.

    Maybe what you meant is that the post-mortem tributes to their lives/careers were overplayed. That's fair.

    But celebrating a career and "romanticizing death" are completely different.
     
  9. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

    No, I mean "romanticizing."

    Part of it is that most of the people I mentioned died at the height of their careers, so that's how they'll be remembered. They didn't have a chance to get old and start sucking or ripping themselves off just to make a buck.

    That's a huge part of the reason these people are hailed as geniuses or pioneers or the ever-so-appealing tortured artist. A huge part of their appeal is that they died young. Thus romanticizing "the artist who died young."
     
  10. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    I do find it interesting, that, in my area, for the longest time, radio stations weren't playing Jackosn songs. Then he died, and they started playing them again. It's almost like they decided that it was safe to play them, now that he is dead.
     
  11. RecoveringJournalist

    RecoveringJournalist Well-Known Member

    I think there is some truth to that. Jackson became the guy who died at 50 from some sleeping drug instead of the guy who was accused of molesting kids.
     
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