Letters to the Editor
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Journalism for Dummies
"So maybe that's all I want: for the mainstream press to save Whitney from the tabloid and reality-TV haze that seems to have enveloped and obscured everything about who she was before. The tragedy here -- in addition to the loss of a talent and the apparent illness of a once-healthy woman -- is the way that loss and illness have sucked dry our well of respect for someone who made an artistic and social impact. Maybe in an extremely twisted way, MTV's obituary B-roll is the right idea. What we need to be doing is not laughing, or looking away. What we need to be doing is mourning."
R. Traister
Look, you want to write a bitchy diatribe puff piece and pass it off as soul-searching journalism, knock yourself out. But have the integrity to stick to the pronoun "me" instead of slickly switching to "our" and "we" as if you even speak for anyone other than yourself, and possibly your hack editor.
The only thing this piece was missing was another blatant plug for Salon's latest book about parenting.
By the way, if you can conveniently dismiss what you called the sexism and racism that played such a large role in her downfall, then I'm waiting for you and the rest of the staff at Salon to do the same regarding all other issues. Are you seriously considering a massive shift from victimhood to personal responsibility? Or were you just piling on Whitney because you had a deadline?
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Is this really about race?
I have to question the assertions in this article regarding the degree to which the media and the public are on some level reveling in the downfall of Whitney because she is African-American. There are an abundance of examples on any given day in the tabloids of similar stories involving non African-Americans - take your pick. The media, and the public, love the story of any former superstar (regardless of skin color) plummeting into the depths of depravity and failure, for a variety of reasons. I won't indulge in any pop psychology to elaborate on that here, but just because someone is African-American, and goes from the heights of stardom to sad, pathetic behavior doesn't mean that it necessarily has anything to do with their ethnicity, any more than people who slow down to gawk at a car accident do so because of what the make of car happens to be...
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watching whitney
I was appalled to find myself riveted to the cyber trail of whitney houston's horrifying and lurid decline.
what was so compelling? disbelief, grief, perverse fascination?
i appreciate traister's effort to restore a humane angle to our ambivalent gaze. if margo jefferson can write a treatise on the cultural ramifications of michael jackson (another tragic public spectacle), maybe someone should grapple with ms. houston's plight.
i suspect a major psychological fault line opened under the pressure of her sexual confusion.
and -if so- it would not be race that sabotaged her,nor bobby brown, but the glorious but immobilizing influence of the church on her sense of who she could be.
she seemed to sentence herself to bobby brown and a self-defacing, near suicidal sassy sort of giving up.
her hopeless bind is heart-breaking and-now- grotesque. i root for recovery - not death.
but it is a doomed trajectory rarely survived...lest we forget lenny bruce, jimi hendrix, janis joplin, john belushi, river phoenix,, curt cobain et al with their own secret, poignant torment.
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Looking for a victim
Its un-American to have such a sordid story without a victim.
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Who's to "blame?" Hint: It's always the addict.
You can whine about the pitfalls of celebrity or the fact that your mama didn't love you or you were abused by that jerk of a boyfriend etc. etc. The bottom line is that any addict who recovers does so only by accepting responsibility for his or her decisions.
I remember those first few albums. I was old enough (in college) to recognize that they were over-produced, vocal-candy. But damn, they were good candy. I went to a concert with a friend in the '80s. Whitney showed -- sort of. Her performance was perfunctory and uninspired -- as if the enormous audience were a bunch of unwelcome guests she had to endure because it was her job. That's when I knew she was in trouble. Because before Bobby and all the other problems, she was a young woman at the height of her career and she seemed unable to enjoy the adulation of 20,000 people.
I hope she gets better. I hope she comes to terms with whatever her demons are. But rich, poor or in-between, drugs destroy lives. You just don't see the poor folks in magazines. I'm sad for her and for her family. But like every other addict, she's responsible for her choices. Looking to blame anyone else doesn't help.
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Only one person to blame...
Look, I'm as disappointed as the writer is about Whitney's plunge from stardom, but at the end of the day, no matter who you are, you have to take responsibility for your own actions and face the consequences of your choices. The only person to blame for Whitney's current situation is Whitney. Stop trying to make excuses for her.
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Sigh...
I always wonder why casual drug users get tarred and feathered by peers and the general public. Most of us get by day to day leading fairly normal lives through chemistry
Then you look at Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, and realize that, yes, Drug Abusers give drug users a bad name. If possible Houston and company give cocaine an even worse reputation than previously lavished on it.
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Who likes Courtney Love?
"Or Courtney Love, an addled and unwell figure who has been pilloried even more brutally than Houston, but who has managed to retain a claim on some fuzzy corner of our hearts."
Really? I thought she was reviled for having Kurt Cobain killed?
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from "I will always love you" to "I have to poo poo"
When I first heard that Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown were getting a reality show, I thought: "How can anyone think this is funny??". I was also a fan of Whitney Houston when I was younger, I've been trying to avoid reading about her tragic downfall. I'm glad this article was written, I didn't want to hear the sensationalized version of events. It's unfortunately true that Whitney is responsible for most of what has happened to her. I hope the efforts of her sister will make a difference, and she realizes what's at stake, I would feel terrible for her daughter if MTV did have to run that B roll.