She's Still Dead, Right?: Part II

Whitney died the night before the Grammy’s (she planned that well – if she planned it at all). Perfectly timed to capitalize on that event…but she also happened to die during black history month (the irony of this was apparently lost on everyone). Still, like most dead celebrities, it was the best thing to happen to her career. The Phantom-of-the-Paradise effect kicked into full swing. Which brings me to the iTunes controversy…

So…iTunes UK has a suspicious conveniently-timed price hike on a couple of Whitney albums and the greedy Sony is behind it (the way Amazon does the price-fixing based on internet cookies – so what else is new?). And? So? Sony anticipated our dead-artist fascination and priced accordingly. Really, what’s more disturbing; raising the prices of an artist’s recordings right after they die…or the public’s insatiable need to buy up an artist’s recordings BECAUSE they just died?

Sony is merely capitalizing, albeit quite greedily, on our morbid curiosity. We’re the real sick ones here. I’m still not sure why everyone tuned into the Grammy Awards – a record 14.1 rating (did they think her ghost was going to make a special appearance? For the clips easily available on Youtube? For LL Cool J and his ‘let’s everyone pray to Jesus together’ moment? What?). The corporations start the fire, we fan the flames.

See…there are two phases of celebrity death.

Phase I: Tearful mourning. 'What an unexpected unavoidable tragedy that took everyone by surprise and was in no way the end result of years of stupid self-destructive behavior which resulted in a death that was a long time coming and God and Jesus and our prayers go out to the family and I know he/she's looking down upon us right now." This phase doesn’t last long (but everyone pretends that it lasts forever).

Phase II: Capitalization and Commercialization. Like all tragically-dead musicians, her albums will sell big for the next month or so (the ones you would expect; Greatest Hits, Ultimate Collection, and Bodyguard OST) climbing the charts. Then they'll move up the release date for her last completed film. And then of course, the Tupac-ization. New best-of collections, new unreleased recordings, new concert CDs and DVDs...the dead have no claim to the profits that the living reap from squeezing every last drop from their corpses. Then they'll fast-track a Bodyguard sequel into development (probably Rihanna and Channing Tatum...or maybe they'll do something really creative and flip-flop the races/genders, like Taylor Swift and Shaq or Justin Bieber and Halle Berry or maybe even Usher and Scarlett Johansson).

We’re still riding out the second wave. Phase II is a dead horse of corporate greed.

Speaking of flog-worthy dead horses…Saturday Night Live was on the other night. Hosted by Maya Rudolph. It was alright but free of any surprises (SNL hasn’t had balls since they fired Norm MacDonald). I knew they wouldn’t do a “Whitney Houston in Heaven” joke (smuggling crack cocaine through the pearly gates?). 

No, they’ll mock her in life but not in death. That’s bad taste? Why? You can’t drive the dead to kill themselves. Oh, so apparently, it’s only okay to make fun of celebrity junkies when they’re still alive. It’s only when they die that those jokes aren’t funny (see that Britney Murphy update piece that was pulled from online when she died two weeks after it aired). Nice hypocrisy.

 

If you ever want to know why Mad TV in the late-90's-to-early-00's was funnier than SNL, catch the Whitney-Bobby sketches. SNL played it safe, with Maya Rudolph's Whitney who is just a little crazy, more diva than crackwhore. Mad TV had their Whitney (played to perfection by Debra Wilson) turning her home into a crackhouse and wandering around in a crack-haze stupor, singing her words as a coke-nosed Bobby slapped her ass (see on Youtube - Whitney's MTV Cribs, Whitney's Christmas Interview, Whitney’s MTV Tribute – always ripping off her wig and spontaneously bursting into eyes-closed high-notes). SNL always had to toe the line, play it safe, just in case they could get Whitney on the show or not to piss off her record company. But Mad TV knew they could never get any big name star hosts or musical guests...so they had nothing to lose by ripping celebrities apart limb-by-limb. Satire with a sledgehammer. My favorite kind.

Where was I? Oh yeah…

TOO SOON!

Doesn’t matter what it is, Holocaust or AIDS or 9/11 or the latest dead celebrity (especially those who died from their own stupidity)…it’s always too soon.

“Bad taste?” No, bad taste is doing ‘Whitney’s a crazy crackhead’ jokes for 15 years and then the day after she dies, wiping her slate clean and tearfully mourning her (reference SNL + Brittany Murphy shit). Death doesn’t erase the past. There’s being respectful and there’s rewriting history.

“Too soon?” Not true. These jokes are either always okay or never okay. It’s either always funny or it’s never funny. But you can’t pick and choose. Celebrities will be junkies. That’s what they do. Either mock them in life AND in death…or never at all. But make fun of them in life and then pretend that you never did in death…that’s really inappropriate. Actually, it's just plain wrong.

As The Onion always says, 'Death is funny.' And as I always say, 'Tragedy is no excuse for concealing the truth. And death is no reason to lie about someone's life.’ 

Hey, I’m compassionate. I can feel grief and sorrow. I feel sorry for Whitney's daughter but...that young girl's parents are Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown. She never really had a chance. I'm not saying this to be mean-spirited, I just think death is no reason to lie about someone's life.

The tragedy wasn't just now. The tragedy wasn't her death. The tragedy happened 10, 15, 20 years ago, when she fell headfirst into drug addiction and celebrity crazy. The late-night-punchline transformation. Her voice was gone, her career was shattered, her life was flushed away long ago. She didn't have much left to offer the world. She's dead. It's sad. But when the real tragedy happened (the sweaty cracked-out drug days), everyone treated it like one big joke. So now that the last gasp is gone and her addiction finally took her life, everyone is playing serious again. And to me, that just rings hollow.

Why do we do this? Because we don’t want people to make fun of us after we’re dead. But that’s still no excuse for lying about the deceased while the rest of us are still alive.