National Enquirer Is National Disgrace With Photo Of Whitney Houston In Casket
Several days ago I was standing in line at the checkout counter and saw a fake model had been used to give a photographic front page image of what Whitney Houston may have looked like on the floor of the Hilton Hotel where she died. I should have been stunned at the use of a tragedy to spur sales of the tabloid rag, National Enquirer, but I was not. After all the National Enquirer has never been anything more than a national embarrassment. That there are enough saps who buy this publication speaks to the dumbing down of society that never ceases to amaze me.
So I thought as I stood in line at the store the worst that the National Enquirer could do with the death of Houston had been done.
But no!
This week the sleazy, tawdry, and completely soulless National Enquirer published a photo of Whitney Houston in her casket, with a long shot of the way she was displayed for family and friends to be viewed.
It was one of the most disrespectful and despicable photos and covers that I have seen and heard about since the image of Elvis Presley in his casket was also shamelessly marketed.
Who are the dolts who buy this crap at nearly $4.00 an issue, and therefore continue a market for this most base of publications? What is so lacking in their lives that they need to purchase a rag-sheet such as the National Enquirer?
Meanwhile I have to ask does the editor of the National Enquirer need sedatives to sleep at night after being such a whore for money all day long?
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Mr. H,
There is an old saying about digging a hole, and when you are losing ground fast, you need to quit digging. The more you try to defend your indefensible position, the deeper you dig…. Time to quit digging and pick a new subject………
Mr. H. – You are very confusing. On one hand you tell me that dead celebrities have rights because the law says so. On the other, you say that gay marriage is a right despite the law denying such.
Just because the heirs/executors of the estate of a dead celebrity can use their wealth and influence to mold intellectual property laws doesn’t mean that corpses have rights or that such laws are right or good or whatever. It simply means that some people are able to leverage their wealth and influence to make more money.
Regarding the second point…
“When I was a kid (and I really am not that old!) classrooms were places where the classics were still read, and reports were given at the front of the class. Treasure Island. Works by Dickens. In my high school “A Tale of Two Cities” was read in one lit class.”
Thanks for the laugh. I knew that you’d romanticize the era of your youth as being the apex of all that is good and holy in the world. You may not be particularly old chronologically speaking but you are near ancient when it comes to your attitude. Typical old fart – “Everything was better in my day! What’s wrong with kids these days?!” Do you yell at neighborhood kids to get off your lawn too?
I did reports in front of the class (and I’m not as old as you!) as does my 12-year old stepson. Exactly how does giving a report in front of your class equate to not being dumbed down?
Why is it that reading old novels written by white men that have been given the imprimatur of “classic” by a small coterie of other white men is the apex of learning and culture for you? This comment is incredibly parochial and, to my mind, borders on racist. So what if people don’t read the same select few white male authors you did as a student? That doesn’t mean things have been dumbed down. It simply means that students are reading some different books. And I don’t buy it that the “classics” have been banished from the classroom either. Why is your educational experience the ne plus ultra of educational experiences? Why is yours the only one that doesn’t involve “dumbing down”?
“In my high school “A Tale of Two Cities” was read in one lit class.”
So what? Is reading that particular book the sine qua non of the intellectual? Does that make you smarter than someone who reads Ngugi, Gabriel García Márquez, or Maya Angelou in high school? “Moby Dick” was not well-received by critics and didn’t sell very well when it was originally published yet today it is considered a “classic”. So would someone who read it at that time have been “dumbed down” because the book wasn’t on this nebulous list of approved classics handed down ex cathedra by English professors while someone who reads it today is, by your argument, not “dumbed down” because the book is on the list? Medieval vernacular literature had to overcome the perceptions of its time yet Dante is now on that venerable list of classics.
“Have you been reading where our state reading scores are for public education? There was a time when John Adams who set out for the Constitutional Convention placed (for enjoyment!) works by Cicero into his bags. TR read all the time and loved to do so with books that were not in his native tongue. If memory serve me right he spoke FIVE languages. I am not sure when we lost our way—but we sadly have.”
So let me get this straight – you’re comparing wealthy, well-educated men from the 18th century to 21st century high school students? Why? People still read today and there are still polyglots out there. Just because select individuals like John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, et al were erudite doesn’t mean that there are no erudite people around today or that culture has been dumbed down. You can look at other places and times and find exceptionally smart individuals as well – both before and after our Revolutionary period. That doesn’t prove anything beyond your ability to find anecdotes you like.
“Now talk with any college professor and ask if the average freshman college student can even construct basic paragraphs. If you have a chance to read what students offer in college for papers—–it is often dreadful to think they passed out of high school!”
The college students with whom I work can most certainly construct basic paragraphs.
“A guy down the street who works at a state agency…”
So you were told a story by some guy down the street ergo our culture is dumbed down. Yes, wonderful logic there. Why is an inability to read a certain individual’s handwriting a sign of dumbing down? Have you ever seen this guy’s handwriting? I am imagining you back in the year 1000 decrying how dumb people are because they can’t read gothic script – only the newfangled Carolingian miniscule.
Getting back to sensationalism, I look back and see that the Fatty Arbuckle scandle made a pretty penny for newspapers. Ditto for Leopold and Loeb. The public, as a whole, loves celebrity and scandal. This is nothing new. I’d bet a dollar to a doughnut that people have felt this way and have been gossiping about famous people for thousands of years.
I am curious: is reading “A Tale of Two Cities” as an e-book a dumbed down experience?
Do you think of yourself as being dumbed down viz a viz your love of country music which is traditionally the music of the Southern working class as opposed to, say, classical music?
In addition to coming across as a Mrs. Grundy, you also appear to be stuck in the mire of sentimentality, as if the pieties of your childhood somehow constitute a shangri-la. Times moves on and things change. That doesn’t mean we can’t make qualitative distinctions over time but I don’t think your arguments hold water.
It seems that you look around and see how things have changed and pronounce those changes inferior by virtue of them simply being different.
I look around and see great changes but much that has stayed the same. There have always been TV show and movies, for example, that appeal to the lowest common denominator and that remains true today. However, there are probably more “serious” films and shows around today and, arguably, stylstic elements such as narrative complexity are more, well, complex today than at any time in the past. Plus, despite all the yabbering about shrinking attention spans, the average running time of movies have increased over the years to the point now where the average running time today is longer than it has ever been.
Last year Mark Twain was on the NYT best seller list as was the latest by cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker. Neuroscientist Sam Harris saw his book The Moral Landscape hit the best seller lists too. As did one of your favorites, Erik Larson. Umberto Eco’s fiction books do well yet they are extremely complicated. Same for Neal Stephenson. Next to these tomes were self-help guides, celebrity biographies, etc.
My 12-year old stepson plays video games. Some require him to shoot zombies while others have the object of building structures and exercising his creativity.
Culture is and always has been a mix of high and low. Things have certainly changed over the years and surely some of these changes are for the worse. But that doesn’t mean that our culture as a whole is being “dumbed down”.
Have a good weekend.
One of my favorite movies is still The Bodyguard. I love Whitney! RIP.
Skip,
Dead celebrities do have rights.
And those rights are growing, and being placed into state statutes around the nation.
This year alone there is legislation in Indiana, which already has a law that allows dead celebrities (through their estates) to protect images and voice, and even quirky mannerisms. Now the legislature is working to extend that law to more celebrities based on the year they were born. This topic was something covered on WGN earlier this year so all the specifics are not on the tip of my fingers as I type. But you get the point.
To your second point.
When I was a kid (and I really am not that old!) classrooms were places where the classics were still read, and reports were given at the front of the class. Treasure Island. Works by Dickens. In my high school “A Tale of Two Cities” was read in one lit class. Have you been reading where our state reading scores are for public education? There was a time when John Adams who set out for the Constitutional Convention placed (for enjoyment!) works by Cicero into his bags. TR read all the time and loved to do so with books that were not in his native tongue. If memory serve me right he spoke FIVE languages. I am not sure when we lost our way—but we sadly have.
Now talk with any college professor and ask if the average freshman college student can even construct basic paragraphs. If you have a chance to read what students offer in college for papers—–it is often dreadful to think they passed out of high school!
A guy down the street who works at a state agency had some stimulus dollars for a project, and hired a college grad. One of the tasks was to take a large pile of hand-written notes and make them into a narrative on the computer. Shortly after the assignment was given the young man entered my friend’s office and said he could not start the project as the notes were in a foreign language.
Now I am not kidding about this at all…but the strange language was merely cursive writing. The college grad could not read it!
So yes, I loathe where the country is headed when it comes to what I consider some very basic foundations.
Smokey,
First off, there was no reason for me to respond to your initial comment, since you drew a most illogical conclusion from the post.
There was nothing in my post to in any way suggest that the NE did not have a First Amendment right to publish. What I took exception to by the actions from NE was the poor taste of the cover of their latest edition, and doing it for the all the wrong reasons. (Profits at the cost of good taste.) I also said that those who feel a need to purchase such a publication are dolts, and are lacking something in their own life that they have to satisfy with such material.
That we are even debating the merits of my post is most amusing.
You are kidding me about case law, right? There is an every growing set of laws concerning celebrities, which covers everyone from Einstein to Fred Astaire. There are limits to what can be sold, used, and distributed. Try starting up an EP product and not get a license from EP Enterprises and see what you get served with rather quickly.
Why don’t you ask a divorced man with an axe to grind to publish some naked pics of the ex-wife and see what her attorney will send back as a response. You must be aware that possession of the picture has nothing to do with it, but that consent must be given.
You seem to think I have never been to a funeral, and am not aware of visitations. That is not the point, and you are well aware of it. Someone took a picture of a private visitation of a celebrity and sold it to a rag publication. If that is your definition of acting honorably and with sensitivity to the situation then let me be the first to say what divides us is much more than being liberal or conservative.
It is a separation of basic old-fashioned decency.
Dekerivers,
To what length, and how much convoluted rational and wasted effort will you put forth in order to be right (in your own mind only), even when you know full well you are blathering nonsense? Your”case” sucks! Oh, and I’d like to see some case law to support your argument as well. No, it doesn’t surprise me you picked Scott Walker as an example.
Most corpses are put on public display, in churches and funeral homes across America… so what’s your point? And, when you hold yourself open to the public… you and your life and death become public…. What’s the difference between using a picture of a live start vs. a dead one – other than death?
Shakespeare forever………….
Actually I don’t know why I am writing this. You didn’t respond to my earlier post, and you certainly didn’t shoot any holes in Skips response… Have a great day!
Mr. H – the general public was (presumably) not invited to the health club at any point for the explicit purpose of witnessing Scott Walker emerge from the shower whereas the public was invited to Graceland(?) for the explicit purpose of seeing Elvis’ corpse so I fail to see how you’re analogy holds.
Dead people have no rights whatsoever while the living do. The dead have no volition and are unable to suffer harm if a right was to be violated. Indeed, the dead are unable to be cognizant of any right bestowed upon them.
“That there are enough saps who buy this publication speaks to the dumbing down of society that never ceases to amaze me.”
If society is being dumbed down, this implies that there was a time when society was, shall we say, less dumb. When did this dumbing down process start? I fail to see how the continued existence of the National Enquirer speaks to a process of dumbing down. How does that work? Sensationalism and the public’s appetite for it are not new so why is society being dumbed down by the NE?
Skip,
Thanks for the comment.
First, you are correct about Elvis having a public viewing at Graceland in 1977. But that does not give license for a publication to use a photo of the deceased star.
Let me make a case for my point of view.
If I were a member of an athletic club and Scott Walker was coming out of the showers naked would I have a right to use my cell phone to take a photo and place it on my blog? Would I have the right to sell it to a publication that wanted to print it? Could that publication print it?
The law would suggest no on all counts.
So why does a dead person have less rights than a naked live person? I suggest the law would argue they in fact do not have less rights over their image.
Second, I am at a loss as to the connection between reading Shakespeare and buying the National Enquirer. I never suggested that people should read anything in my post, but only that the continual purchase of such a disrespectful publication such as the NE will only allow for more of the same to be created.
Thanks again for your comment.
When was this golden era when everyone was erudite and read Shakespeare? And why is a photo of a celebrity’s body in a casket disgraceful? Elvis’ corpse was put on public display, correct?
It’s all “News”… or at least that’s what the media (of any kind) say when they hide behind the First Amendment to print whatever the print… although I’m sure you have never had to make that claim.
I’m not sure why you have your knickers in a knot over a picture of someone in a casket… the dead are regularly viewed at funerals by all kinds of people… what makes it any different from looking at a picture…even if the picture is in a rag like the NE… Drug addict celebrities have no more rights than the average citizen….wait a minute, I might want to rethink that…I guess I should have said “shouldn’t have more rights….”, and that applies equally to Elvis and Whitney…