The politics of death, part II
by Matt Worley

After ranting about the paparazzi, fiends and other unworldly demons last week, I never thought there would be a reason to talk about more death. I don't really have an obsession about this, but what is going on here? I think I need a little time to reflect. There should be a moratorium on famous people dying so we can let it all sink in a little bit before we have to dive in head first to another.

But dive we did (although, truth be told, everyone knew this was coming for some time), and Mother Teresa is dead. Heart failure, old age, that kind of thing. Yesterday at the newspaper I work at from time to time was our big DEATH issue with about four pages devoted to Princess Diana's funeral and a couple to Mother Teresa. I got the Mother Teresa pages, because our boss ran in from his usual Saturday slumber to do the Princess Di stuff. I'm not sure if it had anything to do with trust--our boss loves to win awards. If there is a topic that will spark the interest in the netherworlds of newspaper awards a few months from now, Princess Diana's death is sure to be one of them. Long live bonuses and comp time.

One popular theory around the newsroom is that the Pope is the next big one to go. Yes, we are taking up a pool for the next famous dead person. And just to prove that some of us who work in the media are just a little bit strange, one big Diana story was about how her wedding and funeral were defining points in a reporter's life. And I thought remembering the last strike out of the Philadelphia Phillies beating the Kansas City Royals in the 1980 World Series was a little obsessive on my part.

I have nothing against Princess Diana, but she never really meant much in my life at all. I never had fantasies about meeting anyone in the Royal Family (we're Americans, aren't we?). I vaguely remember the wedding--mostly a long shot of Diana walking down the aisle with a train the size of a blue whale. I thought the Divorce was messy and had the trappings of cheap psycho therapy in the form of BBC interviews. The car accident was tragic, and (no matter what the final verdict is) I believe the ultimate cause was a chase by idiot photographers rather than any other mitigating circumstances. The point being that a slightly drunk man can drive a two lane major street easily without problems, but a slightly drunk man being chased by crap-heads on bikes probably couldn't negotiate his own staircase because of the stress and speed.

The thing is (the Thing being some kind of simple pronoun for a larger symptom of human events plus a bit of philosophy), we haven't really learned a damn thing from this tragedy. Yes, I'm saying this only a week later. Sure, supermarkets all over the States have decided not to display any tabloids that exploit Diana's death (although many will sell them behind the counter if asked specifically for them--as if they're snuff porno mags), but only for a week or two. This action happens once or twice a year anyway. Public outrage forces the tabloids to go into hiding for a bit, but they're back a week or two later just as strong.

Considering the amount of press this death has been given (much more than Mother Teresa--who is more deserving of praise and accolades than anyone on the planet), the so-called legitimate press seems to have gone for a methadone approach to fixing the issue of personal rights. If we only show pretty pictures of large churches, describe the tears of the young Princes (because there weren't any cameras allowed inside the church), and masses of flowers decaying in the dim light of sunless London--well, everything will be fine and dandy.

Forget the daily stories of developments in the accident investigation (many ran the same photo of the wrecked car a few days in a row just to explain the "enormously tragic" aspect of the accident). Forget the daily crucifixion of the British Monarchy for not publicly expressing their grief to the world. And forget all of those "personal" stories of Diana from millions of people who knew nothing personal about her. If that isn't exactly what the tabloids do (minus the blurry pictures and bloodstains), I guess I'm a kangaroo with a four-month-old joey in my pouch.

Death is sad--especially if it is unexpected. And, yes, it is tragic that Princess Diana is dead. But this morbid fascination we have for seeing famous people in pain won't change anything.

Mother Teresa had been ailing for quite a while before she died. In and out of hospitals and treatment centers for the last few years. But she still did what she's always been doing, which is bringing to light the people we try to forget about. If the life stories of all of the people Mother Teresa helped or tried to help were printed, there wouldn't be room for any other stories this week. That and nobody cares because it's much easier to leave the poor, hungry and helpless as nameless faces than it is to wonder about what may or may not be going on behind the closed doors of the supremely renowned.

Matt Worley has found, through a bit of investigation and prodding, that most famous people lead boring lives except for the occasional weekend of debauchery. And They don't even remember what happened on those occasions.

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