In the wake of Whitney Houston’s death the familiar cries on Facebook came out again. “Why are you celebrating the life of a crackhead?” “How about honoring our fallen soldiers?” “Why is Whitney Houston getting all this media coverage and nobody says anything about our brave servicemen who died in the line of duty?”
I fully support the troops. It makes me very sad whenever I hear about a soldier being killed. My husband’s best friend was killed in Iraq. I know what that loss feels like. I get it. But allow me to explain why the media focuses on celebrities like Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston when they die. And trust me, it’s not because the death of a soldier is any less important than the death of a celebrity.
Our country is fully immersed in pop culture. The songs you hear as a child become a part of your growing up experience. Movies you watch as a teenager become like old friends as you get older. As you age, you relate the times in your life to the music that was popular, the television shows you watched and the movies you loved during that time period.
So it is only natural, that when a piece of that personal history dies, you feel a loss. Maybe you’re not mourning the celebrity as a person so much, because, after all, most of us aren’t close friends with celebrities. What you’re mourning is the time in your life that the singer or actor represents. When Michael Jackson died, his death caused many of us to reflect back on the time when his music was popular. For me, it made me remember the first record I ever owned. It happened to be Jackson’s You Wanna Be Startin’ Something. Memories of that time period in my life came flooding back. Regardless of how you actually felt about Michael Jackson as a person, the death of this pop culture icon was a harsh reminder that those days you remember so fondly are really, truly gone.
Whitney Houston’s passing triggered the same emotional reactions in many people. She was undeniably another pop culture icon who reminded us of our own days gone by and the good (and maybe bad) times in our life so far.
Unfortunately, a soldier’s death is not going to trigger that same emotional response for the majority of the nation. It doesn’t make the death any less tragic or any less important, it just means most of us can’t relate to a soldier we did not personally know. I’m pretty sure most of us realize the sacrifice our soldiers make for our country and we respect and honor their service. But we just can’t emotionally connect to the news of a soldier’s death in the way we do when someone familiar to us passes away.
So while I absolutely do mourn the loss of any of our soldiers, I still want to see the media coverage of the people I grew up watching on television or listening to on the radio. It allows me to reflect on my own past and I suspect I am not alone. To expect the media not to cover a celebrity death is simply unrealistic.
