Famous people dying and how the public 'grieve' - a thread for discussion

[PollyFilla]

People were very upset when Princess Diana died but many felt the outpouring of grief was strange given that most of us didn't know her.

Ditto Jade Goody. Most people posting about her death didn't know her.

And likewise Natasha Richardson's sad death this week has moved a lot of people.

So this is a thread to talk about public grief and why people feel the way they do and whether it is completely normal and proper and appropriate or whether it is a symptom of how our press operates in the UK: it gives us all a lot of information on celebrities and so we feel we know them even though we don't.

I think the whole area is interesting. What do you feel in terms of grief for famous people who die and why?

Riven - don't know what to say. But suspect there's nowt selfish about it, just a bit close to home.

I think it depends on the person.
Some people are more emmotional than others.
I felt great sadness when i dp told me about Jades death this morning. I didn't cry but i was upset.

I have cried at Titanic, The note book, and many other films. i also cried recently when i saw a programme on Witch Chilren in Africa. People would probably say i'm stupid to get so emmtionally invested in something that doesn't relate to me but that's just how i am.

If people want to show their sadness and support over a death of someone in the public eye, then i think that's up to them. If they want to do it in the form of leaving flowers then i think that is lovely. Especially for the family to be able to see the support, all be it from strangers. the kindess of strangers and that.

herbietea I agree with you. Mumsnet is a forum for mums (and dads) - families. Lots of people that dont have kids or young kids would never have heard of Mumsnet. I read a lot of posts but always think twice of posting as people on here and yes (other mums) are so bitchy and feel the need to make Nasty comments on threads, they cant just leave it alone. Then they bring the whole class issue in. We are in 2009 and F...k class. no matter how Middle class or whatever you wanna call yourself is you are immediately regarded as the lower of the lowest class when making horrible comments when u either dont feel a touch of sadness for the fact that a young mother died leaving her 2 sons and not only will they never be able to see her or celebrate another mothers day but the fact that she died on that day as well.

In May this year it will be 4 years since my brother died of Leukemia. It was so sudden and so quick that my mom makde it just in time. I am not English and in South Africa Mothers Day gets celebrated in May and he died that Mothers day. He is my brother and I love him too bits but to see my mom go through that losing a son. She had 8 kids and he was her 2nd born yet nothing prepared her for that. Last year to give her some happiness I flew out to her with her new grandchild hoping that it will ease the pain a little, but it doesnt. Even though she tried to put up a brave face. He was only 28 years old. His daughters were 2 years old and 2 months old. His kids will never see him ever. That same day the media broadcasted Kylie Minogues Cancer and followed her through until she got better. Firstly I cant recall people being so heartless about her (yes she didnt die) and secondly for few years I didnt wanna see Kylie on TV or Radio. I was never a fan of her but listened to some of her music. But for me was the anger directed towards her because she got better and my brother died within a day of being diagnosed. But I finally came to terms with my brother death and realise its just the media that blows everything out of proportion. Therefore some celebrities dying sometimes means a lot to people as they can relate to similar cirumstances and either went through a similar thing or someone close did.

So please Mumsnetters, if you have nothing to say read and dont comment or unsubscribe and dont post.

I have not felt true grief , the same as I have felt at the loss of family members etc, but I have felt sadness, dismay and perhaps even some shock at deaths of well known people.

I thikn we are in a culture where the media has a hold over us like never before and the internet is such a powerful and massive way for information to be made known worldwide instantly. we have access to information about people that we would never have had before, we have magazines full of papped and posed pictures, with every little detail of sleb's lives laid bare.

so we feel as though we know them

we can dress like them , eat like them, excercise like them etc etc , they are one of us

so when one dies , we feel as though we have lost a friend.

also, slebs on some level are untouchable , living charmed lives, so when tragedy strikes, it seems harder to fathom. we have to remind ourselves that slebs are normal people, in the respect that they get ill, have accidents, can die.

but that bears no relation to teh glossy lives we see in the magazines

i think that feeling sad, and moved by a death such as Jade's is good,to have compassion for her family and children is good. TO go and lay flowers, well, taht would be a step too far for me. I would not presume to do such a personal thing for someone i did not know

i think that people who do lay flowers, and truly grieve and mourn for a person they have never met, need to ask why they feel so connected to that person

it is interesting, i suppose it is the biggest death since Princess Diana. and these two women were at opposite ends of the spectrum in so many respects. both captured the public imagination

I think it is normal to feel sad or empathy when you hear someone has died, even if you do not know them. I thought it sad when John Thaw died as I liked him as an actor.

I thought it was sad when princess Diana died as she was a young mum, the same with Jade, young mother leaving her children, it is sad

I do feel sad when someone dies, even if I don't know them. I feel sad for those left behind and I think this is especially the case when the person who has died is young and has a young family. It is just a sad sitiuation all round when someone goes to soon and there are little children left without mummy or daddy.

Similarly when MNetters have had loved ones die I have felt the same kind of sadness. I might not know that peson, and I don't even know them through celebraity status, but I can feel sadness and certainly empathy where a sitiation warrants it.

I do think on MN some people get a bit het up over the word grieve. TBH it really doesn;t matter on what word is used. And I thinkt he actual dictionary definition includes something like "to feel sorrow for" - ie to feel sad - so can't see why everyone is so worked up.

More than anything else at such times as this I just feel greatful for what I have, and the fact that my DD is healthy and well, both DH and I are healthy and well and that we all have one another.

i'm not 'grieving' for jade, but i do feel so very sorry for her sons/mum etc - i feel very sad for liam neeson and his family, i felt sorry for the princes when they talk of their mother,i did have a few tears last week when the lastest photos of young men killed in afganistan were shown on the news, i hope i have enough humanity to feel empathy for anyone who is suffering gut wrenching, terrible loss.

i don't like overt public dispalys of emotion, just not my way.

i did feel quite embaressed when i cried when steve irwin died - i felt he was quite inspirational and an all round good egg.

Bump for kingprawnjalfrezi, Seeker and other people who want to discuss the media surrounding Jade and who don't want to piss people off in the thread where people are expressing sympathies to Jade's family

I was horrified to see the fromt page of the sun today(man in the shop showed it to me) why on earth would they put a picture of one of her children on there!!!!!

What I want to know is why people don't take the horrid cellophane off the flowers when they leave them at the 'shrines'? Why make lovely flowers look like rubbish?

abraid...I have twice taken flowers to a 'shrine'.

The first was after the death of the Queen Mother we took my elderly grandmother to Glamis Castle to sign the book of remembrance there. (Glamis Castle being local to me in Scotland and the Queen Mothers family home). There was a little sign up saying that some of the flowers would be taken to local hospitals/nursing homes so we left the cellophane wrapping on them. I took my son with me as I thought that it would be something that he would remember when older.

The second 'shrine' was at our local football stadium after the team chairman died of cancer. My son asked to go and he picked some flowers to take along with his old football scarf. On arriving I was struck dumb at the size and extent of the tributes there...from men, women, children, local businesses and other football teams. And the total silence despite the scores of people there moving around the display - the flapping of the cellophane wrappers and cards will stay in my memory. Again we signed the book of condolence that was in the foyer.

For me...taking my son to Glamis Castle was a way to help him make sense of a moment in history that he was possibly to young to make sense of at that point in time. I also always take him to the local square on Remberance Sunday for the silences and encourage him to watch state events on television and things like funerals of
The Pope and also the inaguaration of Obama. These are historical events that will shape his future and someday possibly his own children might ask him about.

So will people be upset if I post on this thread how I feel about Jade's life and death and how people react to it? Because one poster has already said "So please Mumsnetters, if you have nothing to say read and dont comment or unsubscribe and dont post."

I was living in London when Diana died, and I have to say I thought a lot of it was emotional masturbation.

A man really laid into me and a friend because we were walking through Green Park one day in that pre-funeral week laughing hysterically at something completely unrelated. He wanted to know how dare we laugh on such a day.

I was too shocked to answer him, but I did think look, I didn't know her, I didn't care about her, and if everybody felt the same level of apathy as I do she'd still be alive today because it certainly wasn't me who was buying the News of the World for the paparazzi photos.

Seeker - wasn't it you who was suggesting it was all a hoax on another thread the other day?
Maybe keeping your opinions to yourself would be a good idea now she has actually died and proved you wrong.

What ninedragons just said makes sense to me.
I always feel a little sad when anyone dies, I think that is natural, but I do not in any way, shape or form 'grieve' for them. I have no need to lay flowers or weep. I find it a bit distasteful and self serving tbh. It has baffled me since the carry on when Diana died.

No it wasn't, mrsgarybarlow. Perhaps you could get your facts straight before accusing people.

Obviously there is no place for anyone who doesn't subscribe to the "people's princess from the other side of the tracks" school of thought.

And there was me thinking this thread might allow a bit of intelligent debate. Good thing I checked first.

I find it all very distasteful tbh. A few years ago nobody had a good word to say about Jade, especially during the Shilpa Shetty Big Brother row, she was a racist, a bigot and so many awful things were said about her.
Now she has died, she is suddenly almost a saint! Where are all the people who hated her back then?
The British Public (and the press) are fickle and two faced hypocrites.

People die, death is all around us, except we've got somehow removed from it in a way earlier generations weren't or couldn't be. Either their sons/brothers/fathers died at war, or mothers died in childbirth, or people died in factories or died young.

So for this generation, death is removed, and we're fearful of it, and the majority in this country don't even use religion to think about death any more.

Hence the response when people in public life die - especially those that people identify with in some way. I think it's a way of trying to understand death, or to acknowledge it at least.

I have always thought dying is an excellent career move for a fading sleb but I take my hat off to Jade Goody. How the fuck is the next z-lister with ambitions going to top this performance?

seeker your ok on thei thread, as you can see it was bumped especially

Good point ahundredtimes.

We are very removed from death and we are a very media-centric society these days, so those two factors together might go some way to explaining this fascination some people have with famous people dying.

solidgoldbrass brilliant

bentneckwine1--my use of 'shrine' wasn't meant in any perjorative sense, it's just an interesting use of a word normally associated with some kind of supernatural belief, that's all. So far as I'm concerned, flowers are always good news.

But I do still hate the cellophane. A young lad was knocked off his bike and killed locally. Flowers have been left for him ever since. Trouble is, nobody regularly clears up (it's on a dangerous bit of road) so it just looks like someone's done some fly-tipping, which is quite upsetting, really.

Abraid: I loathe those cellophane-covered compost dumps as well. They stink after a few days, bits of them blow about the pavement and make it slippery, they look yucky very fast and they are utterly, utterly pointless. Why can't people just put flowers on graves, where the gravediggers or whoever shift them when they get a bit messy?

a lad was killed locally, his family planted daffodils at the spot