So, Anna Nicole.
I must confess, I wasn’t a fan. I thought she was a bimbo, actually, a grotesque and idiotic caricature of feminity, and an example of everything that’s wrong with the American worship of fame for fame’s sake.
Nevertheless, I find that I actually feel bad about her sudden death. She always seemed like such a helpless creature, and she has had a heavy ration of crap handed to her recently: the death of her 20-year-old son, the paternity battle over her infant son daughter, the on-going inheritance battle, and a newly minted class-action suit that named her, specifically, as a co-defendant. I have a hunch we’re going to find out she died of an overdose, either accidental or deliberate. I find it very easy to imagine her washing down pills with a glass of vodka while blubbering that we wouldn’t have Anna Nicole to kick around anymore. That’s a terribly sad ending for any human being, even one whose only apparent goal in life was to “be famous.”
I guess she managed that, though, didn’t she? She’ll now be enshrined alongside all those other starlets who met untimely and pathetic ends. Maybe that’s what she’s really wanted all the way along…
I must admit that I shed a tear, too, but for a very different reason.
When I first moved to L.A. and was still waiting to hear about the job I really wanted, I took a job as a researcher on a TV show called “Hollywood & Crime.” I spent six miserable weeks watching raw paparazzi footage of Anna Nicole Smith, drunk, pandering to the cameras outside various sleezy night clubs. It was the lowest point in my life. Still, you can’t go through such an experience without forming an intense emotional response (in this case, disgust).
So goodnight, you sleezy ho, and thanks for the memories.
Robert, I didn’t know about that experience with Hollywood & Crime. You’ll have to tell me some war stories sometime.
I had absolutely zero respect for Anna Nicole, didn’t even think she was attractive (your average porn actress is usually more appealing than the overly made-up inflatable doll that Anna turned into), but I still feel sorry for her.
I guess I’m basically just a big ol’ bleeding heart.
I feel sorry for her too, but that opinion was formed well before she died.
I don’t know her, and I tend to discount “media personas” (no offense to Robert, who has a better sense of who she really was), but regardless of what kind of person she was when the cameras were off, she let her life get way, way out of control.
In the end, her life ended exactly the way any of us would have predicted it would end, if asked a week ago. The only surprising thing was how soon it happened…
Complete agreement, Brian.
No offense at all, Brian. I have no idea (or desire to know) who she really was. But watching all that paparazzi footage, I often wondered who was manipulating whom.
Speaking of utter scumbags, let’s not overlook the paparazzi. Carrion fowl, every one. In the raw footage I saw many instances of the cameramen (always men) baiting the celebrities, whether to get them mad or, in the case of drunk Anna Nicole Smith, to get them to unbutton their shirts, sing “My Heart Belongs to Daddy,” and fall into the gutter.
Charming. Talk about some worthless bastards…