Good Morning, Citizens
Amy Winehouse’s death is sad, if only in the sense that someone so young has died. There are those of course who have berated the woman and her lifestyle, damning her habits and seemingly cavalier attitude to life.
But the truth is that the wheres and hows and whyfores are not our business and nor should it have to be. Everyone is free to make their own choice and I, for one, made mine – never to buy her records, or willingly contribute to the spectacle that was The Amy Winehouse Trainwreck.
But understand that it was not because I in any way judged her for her lifestyle. It was because I felt that purchasing her records – being her fan – was exploiting her in the same way that her management, her record label , to a lesser extent the press and even her fans did so openly and eagerly.
I refuse to believe that the supposed “elevation and exaltation” of celebrity is tempting enough to corrupt the very basic soul of a person
The choice became about principle: I did not condone the face of her fame – how could I justifiably support it by giving her beneficiaries (the label, the press, the industry!) the money to perpetuate it?
I refuse to believe that Amy Winehouse happily sold her dignity for the sake of a career lived in the headlines. I refuse to believe that the supposed “elevation and exaltation” of celebrity is tempting enough to corrupt the very basic soul of a person – the desire for happiness and warmth and family. (Except, of course, in the cases of Snooki and the Kardashians – not that they have souls, at any rate.)
Party
One could argue that the feeding frenzy of the press was party to Winehouse’s destruction. Crazy pictures and headlines made a clown out of a human being that was obviously unwell. You could also argue – as I do on my worst days – that the public’s hunger for ultimately trite and meaningless icons to validate their existences (Pete Doherty, Lindsay Lohan, Kate Moss, anyone?) egged on the machines of morbidity and vulgarity that go by the names of “Entertainment Culture” and “Tabloid”.
But the real butchers of this sick-chamber are not the press and public. We stand at a distance from Amy Winehouse the person. The REAL culprits in this mess are those that were close enough to her to act when it was required most… and didn’t.
Her managers, friends, family, record label, band – those that knew her personally… you, too had a choice. You could have attempted to intervene, or walked away from what was essentially a public suicide happening right in front of your own eyes.
We’ve made celebrity out of self-destruction and empty notoriety, and in the process forsaken our own dignity and nobility. We suck.
Ok, maybe I’m being too assuming – maybe you did try to do something, we’ll never know. It might have cost you a job or a client or even a cash cow, but ultimately you’d have stepped off that bus with a clear conscience. As it is now, it seems like everyone who surrounded Amy Winehouse is tainted by this tragedy. It seems like you… WE… laughed at the girl with the funny hair because it was amusing and we all made money by selling the video of her falling down.
Our choice as her friends, her fans, the press, her management, whatever, was to watch her dying and revel in it. We’ve made celebrity out of self-destruction and empty notoriety, and in the process forsaken our own dignity and nobility. We suck.
Amy Winehouse often said of herself that she didn’t really go looking for fame “I’m just a musician,” She said. That’s how I will choose to try to remember her.
“And now someone’s on the telephone, desperate in his pain
Someone’s on the bathroom floor doing her cocaine
Someone’s got his finger on the button in some room
No one can convince me we aren’t gluttons for our doom”
– Emily Saliers
Thank you for listening. Carry on as planned…
An aside, from me (dot):
We did celebritise her fucking out. We did it with Brittany, MJ, Blohan … but I don’t think I agree with you that anyone could’ve saved her. Not really.
Sometimes parents and friends don’t know what to do or how. And ultimately no amount of intervention is going to help if the person who’s suffering doesn’t want to wake up (and why would you? sometimes the outside over there where you have to feel real stuff is pretty kak).
Addiction is not a choice.
From what I’ve learnt over the past year, speaking to many, many people who are addicts or are affected by addiction in their family, it is a disease for which the only cure is a LOT of support and therapy and love. Day by day. minute by minute.
I read this on Russell Brand’s site in a piece on Amy Winehouse. It’s an awesome read, not only because of Amy, but because of insights into his own recovery:
[Addicts] have about them the air of elsewhere, that they’re looking through you to somewhere else they’d rather be. And of course they are. The priority of any addict is to anaesthetise the pain of living to ease the passage of the day with some purchased relief.
RIP Amy
I always thought that Ms Winehouse was a talentless hack (the real talent in her music coming from The Budos Band). its sad that she wasn’t able to control her addiction, and ended up killing herself, but addiction does come down to a choice to live or die in the end. you can either choose to take control of your vice and live, or you can let your vice take control of you…and there is only one logical conclusion to giving yourself fully into self destruction.
naturally, this is just my opinion, and one that I’m sure is not a popular one given the current climate of lamenting the loss of a “great artist”
July 26, 2011 at 9:54 am
not sure about the ‘great talent’ bit, but definitely great voice.
nevertheless, i don’t think anyone casually thinks to themselves ‘hey wow i’m an addict, i could possibly kill myself doing this, i really ought to stop’ … whether it’s cigarettes or booze or heroine or cycling … you just kinda keep thinking, just this ONE more time.
my friend ODed and it was a random weekend night in with a mate. nothing manic. just one more time his body couldn’t handle anymore.
July 26, 2011 at 10:00 am
my “great artist” was in inverted commas. sarcasm is difficult to indicate in diction. HTML should really come up with sarcasm tags!
I think we all have a pretty good understanding that some things are bad for us, and if we do too much of it, there will be some kind of consequence to those actions. We’ve all known someone that has struggled with some kind of addiction, and at the end of the day we can do nothing to help them unless they actually want to stop.
sadly, some people just don’t want to stop, or lack the coping mechanism to deal with real life/sobriety. The media machine would prefer the latter, since it creates more scandal and event to feed on
I also find Russell Brand’s statement kinda funny, because there are plenty of news clips of him stating how happy he is to be a functioning drug user, and how unwilling he is to stop.
July 26, 2011 at 11:40 am
i think that was before he went into recovery no?
July 26, 2011 at 1:30 pm
could be. I don’t follow the tabloids much.
July 26, 2011 at 3:34 pm
@ Dorothy. I agree – I’m not saying anyone could have saved her… I agree that no-one can technically save someone except themselves. But I don’t think that absolves us from noticing and acknowledging someone’s dysfuntion…
I’m saying that as a culture we did MORE than simply watch it helplessly. We celebritise it, egg it on, make it some kind of spectacle. At its worst some of us exploit it, others point and laugh and get some weird schadenfreude out of watching others self-destruct.
I’m in entertainment media myself and I feel like I was part of that. Not a good feeling.
July 26, 2011 at 10:08 am
it’s a bit like being a classroom bully really. i don’t think anyone can really know what being media fodder does to your sense of self … especially at a really young age – look at britney, barrymore, lohan et al – it makes us sorta boring to find it amusing and spineless to judge ourselves better …
sadly i freaking LOVE the heat magazine and YOU bible …
July 26, 2011 at 10:22 am
Anton, I could not agree with you more. I also boycotted her cd’s, as much as I was itching to buy one. I felt that supporting the production of her music supported the addiction. Everyone involved in making money from her ‘brand’ is at least partially responsible in one way or another.
I personally never laughed at photos of her self destruction. All that I saw was pain and misery. Was not at all funny to me.
Well written. Expressed how I’ve been feeling about her death perfectly.
July 26, 2011 at 12:25 pm
Thanks Kristin…
I was worried that I was alone in my warped logic.
July 26, 2011 at 12:58 pm
i think her addiction was just obvious. whenever you purchase something you’re supporting someone’s habit somewhere…
July 26, 2011 at 1:30 pm
I think also, though, that sometimes what you;re buying is more than the “music” on the CD. In the commercial sense people buy the music they like, but they also buy the artist they like.
The problem – or the complication for me – is that the “artist” in question – or her public persona – was not someone I wanted to “sponsor”. I wouldn’t consider the popular of Amy to be a desirable one, and I felt that THAT was what was being sold to us.
I had the argument last night about WHY Amy was famous and so well-known worldwide. Her music? I think it’s very debatable.
July 26, 2011 at 2:23 pm
Sorry I meant “the popular face of Amy”….
Case in point: What are we as a culture now discussing about Amy’s death? Drug addiction, not music. What is the popular image of Amy Winehouse – the first image we’ll remember when she comes up in conversation? A drunk, drug-addled, falling-over, constantly in rehab freakshow.
I don’t think that’s an accident, given a major label’s HUGE PR budget and resources. Even if they couldn’t help her physically, they had a lot more control over what was seen and unseen about their artist.
I’m saying it was more than tolerated. It was exploited. By them, by the press, and down the line, by music retail.
That’s the great shame of it.
July 26, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Y’know, sometimes all the love, therapy and support doesn’t do anything. And lots of people have driven themselves to despair trying to provide it, convinced that if only they loved and supported enough, the addict would magically come to their senses and stop.
But it doesn’t always (often?) (usually?) (ever?) work that way. At the end of the day, the most important thing that has to happen is that the addict has to choose to make the necessary effort themselves.
Not saying it’s easy. But without that commitment, no love or therapy or support will help.
(My first comment btw. Love the new blog.)
July 26, 2011 at 12:29 pm
thanks :) glad you like it
i know what you mean about all the love and support not amounting to much if someone is in heavily attached to their addiction. but i don’t think the love and support that is needed comes necessarily from family and friends.
and the choice and commitment to stop? a therapist i know who works with addictions told me once that addicts will only want to change once they have lost everything and the pain of being alone is greater than the pain of leaving their drug of choice.
and that drug of choice doesn’t have to be a substance, mind you. it can be a thing, a person, a drama …
July 26, 2011 at 1:28 pm
Betty white once said “People love to watch pretty people fall”. and this quote has evolved to one where ‘We love to watch anyone at the top fall’. Love her or indifferent, the fact is everyone just watched as her emaciated body decayed before or very eyes. But the girl still did it to herself.
July 27, 2011 at 11:58 am
was thinking about addiction today after a question we did on 5, and the fact that any substance can be abused as an addiction if you’re that way inclined, but even if you’re not there are just some substances that don’t give you a whole lot of choice… (love your site by the way and was fabulous meeting you xx)
July 28, 2011 at 12:17 pm
that she was an artist with a promising future, is a no-brainer. and i sometimes wonder whether managers and music execs dont push the living shit out of artists, to get the most out of them before their star fades/they grow old/music tastes change. and by pushing them, seemingly, drugs are par for the course. ‘i’m tired, i cant perform tonight’ ‘here hon, have a line, you’ll feel better’.
and if they fall into a drink and drug haze, it’s cool too. the more tabloid cover pages, the better for record sales.
what boggles me though, is, why cant an artists’ family intervene, and say, have her put in a hospital, against her will if need be, untill she is sober/received counceling? it sounds harsh, but i think sometimes addicts are so deep into it, that they cant see the wood from the trees.
can’t help thinking that money talks, and as long as the money is flowing, nobobdy can be much bothered.
i look at the pic of her above, in earlier years, she was a very pretty woman, healthy and curvy. later on, she looked terrible. what happened? or rather, who happened? the music moguls? her lame husband old blakey? friends?
July 28, 2011 at 12:31 pm
i always think of it like that scene in trainspotting where his folks lock him in the room and keep him there … but i’m not sure how realistic that is unless you have shit loads of money to hire nurses (depending what drug it is coming clean can kill you) etc … no one can force you to stay in rehab and once you leave (and sometimes even if you’re there) you have the blakes to deal with
July 28, 2011 at 1:46 pm