First off, if you are a legitimate fan of Whitney Houston, turn back now! This place is not for you. I was instructed to go into this column as sensitively as my human nature would allow, but just thinking about this topic is enough to make me want to hurl my body into I-20 traffic going through Atlanta during rush hour. Whitney Houston is dead, and oh my God, I don’t care. Neither do half of the people pretending like they do on Facebook and Twitter.
For those of you like me who didn’t know, Whitney Houston was a classic example of celebrity drug abuse mixed with (in my own opinion) an incredibly mediocre pop-diva career. Now before you tell me how much of an impact she had on the music world and how you would entirely support me throwing myself into the Atlanta traffic I mentioned before, please name five Whitney Houston songs right off the top of your head. I bet you made it to “And I Will Always Love You” and then one of the fascists, sociopathic squirrels on campus did something surprisingly modest that you found more interesting than jarring your brain trying to remember the songs of a forgotten diva.
So why am I bashing Whitney Houston so hard you might ask? I’m not bashing Whitney Houston. Ok, I am bashing Whitney Houston…and Amy Winehouse…and Ryan Dunn…. and Michael Jackson. I woke up this morning with the sole objective of utilizing my column to slap every single person on Earth in the face who believes that celebrities; who meet their demises at the hands of their own irresponsibility, deserve the attention they get when there are a thousand other newsworthy things that are more deserving of our attention.
If anybody were keeping up with the real news, a lot of important events have happened since Whitney Houston kicked the bucket. Russia came within an inch of blowing itself up via a nuclear submarine fire, Iran has been steadily making technological increases in their nuclear programs as well as encouraging all Arab nations to either wipe out Israel, or embargo the United States. It should also be noted that on the same exact day of Whitney Houston’s death, eight marines were killed in action, fighting for our right to cry over a washed up diva who’s last years alive were spent in and out of rehab. The messed up part is, who do you think got the hero’s farewell? Gov. Chris Christie just recently ordered the state of New Jersey to fly all flags at half-staff, for Whitney Houston’s death. I don’t remember Lt. Michael Murphy of the U.S. Navy Seals, recipient of the Medal of Honor, receiving such an honor when he made the ultimate sacrifice in 2005 in order to defend our country.
I’m a tad bit confused as to which issue drives my anger more: the media focusing on a celebrity’s death over clearly more important national issues, or society pretending to care. Oh, Whitney Houston died? Please tell me how you were such a big fan! Look on the bright side, she’s been sober for over a week now. When Michael Jackson died, he went down as a pop genre martyr, but when he was alive, virtually everybody was enticed with the fact that he acted inappropriately towards children.
The only Amy Winehouse song I know is “Rehab”, where her chorus line is “they trying to take me back to rehab, and I said no, no no…” Yeah, look where that gother. And last but not least, Ryan Dunn, costar of everyone’s favorite excuse to watch Bam Margera experimenting with his sexuality, the hit movie and TV show “Jackass”. The only line he had to memorize in the series was “Hi, I’m Ryan Dunn, and this is (name of stunt here).” Ironically enough, his last stunt ended with “Hi, I’m Ryan Dunn, and this is…Drunk Driving…” Awwwww, too soon?
You can tell me that I need to be more sensitive if you want. I understand that it’s a human life, but under no circumstances will my opinion change. If these people didn’t care enough about their lives to do the right thing, then why should we? If you’re actually emotionally distraught over the deaths of these people to the point where you can’t focus on what really matters in the rest of the world, then my condolences, but to the rest of us, it’s time to put a foot down and say: “Get over it!” Did anyone really not see it coming?
