The battle of who could care less
ISSUE: 02/28/07 > opinion > The battle of who could care less
 |
|
I couldn’t believe it…I just couldn’t believe it.
This was my initial reaction when I heard of Anna Nicole’s Smith’s demise, but not for the reasons you might think.
Was I shocked that a woman like her could die so young, that her behavioral pattern shouldn’t have led to such a scenario? No. Was I distraught and saddened, unwilling to accept that a media darling like her would no longer grace American society with her daily soap opera antics? No. In fact, I felt an immediate sense of relief for that.
I couldn’t believe Anna Nicole Smith’s death because it was the predictable punchline to a bad joke, the ham-fisted ending to a third-rate Lifetime movie. Up until this point, Smith’s embarrassing public life had been a joke to everyone but reality show junkies who bought her trite claim to being a good ‘ol country girl at heart.
Perhaps at one time, Houston-born Vickie Lynn Marshall did yearn to romp once again across familiar Texas pastures, but Smith – her stage name – earned her legacy as a high school dropout who was married first at 17 and later to billionaire oil magnate J. Howard Marshall, a man 63 years her senior who she met while working at a strip club and whom she reportedly never lived with while the two were betrothed.
Because of Smith’s stature as an international pinup (1992 Playmate of the Year) and the Supreme Court battle (Marshall v. Marshall) that ensued for her late husband’s estate in 1995, Smith was a tabloid favorite and, thus, a natural reality TV subject (The Anna Nicole Show received high ratings on E! from 2002 to 2004).
More recently, Smith’s fall had been an awkward mix of tragic and comical. Around the same time her reality show fizzled out, she became a spokesperson for dietary supplement TrimSpa. While the product helped Smith lose a reported 69 pounds, her monosyllabic delivery of half-baked catchphrases such as “Like my body?” and “TrimSpa, baby!” became infamous late-night comic material.
Smith’s only son, 20-year-old Daniel, died while visiting Anna Nicole in her hospital room three days after she gave birth on Sep. 7 to her only other offspring, a daughter of questionable paternity. Daniel’s death was later reported to be due to a drug overdose involving methadone. Almost five months later, Anna Nicole herself met an equally puzzling end.
With autopsy results pending and a media circus surrounding the Broward County, Fla., legal battle for Smith’s burial rights, Anna Nicole’s whirlwind life and death has become water-cooler talk around the country. At Belmont in particular, it has become hot Facebook talk as a group titled “Anna, you will be missed,” has attracted more than 50 members.
“She redefined the term “Gold Digger”, and we love her for it. Sorry Kanye, Anna beat you to it,” creator Grace Wilson wrote in the group description. “She single-handedly changed the face of diet pills (her idea of TrimSpa was obviously cocaine).”
The group has received some criticism on its Facebook “wall” (message board) for allegedly making light of Smith’s death. While Wilson admits to creating the group to make Anna’s death a “lighter” subject, most wall posters rejected the notion that anyone wished Anna ill or the claim that the group’s intentions were inherently un-Christian.
“I took the references to her being a role model and the fact that her death is a tragic loss … not so much as insincerity towards Anna Nicole, but as a mockery of our society, which places worthless, undeserving individuals on a pedestal to be glorified,” junior Casey Savell posted Feb. 9.
“I mean, seriously, what did she contribute to make the world a better place?”
It is a question that will keep being asked as new generations of girls are being brought up with a steady diet of women like Smith, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton: rich, wild socialites who live the good life without really having to break a sweat for it.
Sometimes I feel for these women. Spears was once a young, seemingly innocent southern girl who was rumored to be enrolled at nearby Franklin Road Academy for a time, although no one I know has ever been able to comfirm that. Nearly a decade later, her stardom and sanity have spiraled down through shotgun weddings, baby-caring faux pas and revolving door rehab stints. We’re all human, and I’m sure if I was constantly under the tabloid freak show microscope, I might go nuts and shave on both sides of the equator, too.
Then again, if we as a society don’t want our children to emulate the bad behavior patterns of the Lindsay Lohans and Nicole Richies, we must step up in our responsibility to ignore them and avoid Entertainment Tonight, lest we fuel their riches.
And if we truly can’t resist that voyeuristic instinct, we help put more flameouts like Smith and Spears at risk. Can’t we just rest, as Ben Folds once said, fighting the battle of who could care less?
Photos&Videos
