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?

i am not someone who is ever going to publicly grieve over a sleb, i'm just not caught up in their lives. there are some people who love all the drama, who are constantly looking for the next emotional outpouringcos they are very emotional themselves, but i would think that they are a minority.

however, when john peel died, i did feel quite sad, i had listened to his shows for so long, they were kind of part of my cultural background. to have that suddenly removed felt very odd, and did affect my life in a very minor way. i didn't feel the need to 'go public' with that, but soemone more emotional than me may have wanted to.

with diana, a friend of mine had been in the closet almost his whole life (he was in his 40s), but the way that she acted with AIDS victims, which made quite a difference to the media view of homosexuals, really altered his life in a very profound way. when she died he was scared. he thought things would return to the bad old days of being an outcast, so for him it really was a genuinely emotional time.

however much we agree with it, people in the news who become a rallying point over an issue like that, do kind of 'enter' our lives, how we respond to that will vary according to our personalities.

but, yes, being a 'stiff upper lip' kind of person, i do sigh a little when some (a minority) appear to be jumping on the bandwagon, in a kind of 'look at me, i'm soooo upset' sort of way. but that by no means covers the full range of responses.

Seeker as your name suggest is just another way of Seeking Attention - Maybe thats why you feel the way you do about Jade as she wanted attention and she got it and it also made her a millionaire. You are seeking, aint getting any and now u just bitter.
I am and never was a Jade Fan. She reminds me too much of majority of the British girls that I see about when going out. They are all vulgar they have no respect for themselves. But Jade in a clever way used that and whilst everyone thought she was "thick" she showed them she wasnt that thick. Like I said I am not a Jade Fan but I feel as a mom to a young daughter and also my brother dying of cancer being 28 himself leaving behind a 2 month old and 2 year old girls. I wouldnt wish that on anyone. It doesnt mean I am gonna turn around and idol her but I feel for her kids. No matter what those are 2 boys like many others that are left behind, so young. And if no one can feel a little for that then you dont have a heart. You can hate her all you want but keep your opinions to yourself as one day those kids would come across this and what if that was your kids,

mrsgarybarlow get a life. Would you kick someone when they down? and how would you feel if someone kicked you when you down

don't be a hater, eva.

I don't get this public outpouring of grief either and knowing that people are going to line the streets during the funeral processon on 4th April is ing tbh
this isn't the same as Princess Di who was a member of our Royal family and who's death was of public interest, my parents don't watch any reality television and had no idea of who Jade Goody was until suddenly her death is announced on the BBC 10 O'clock news. To them it isn't the same as Jane Tomlinson's death who campaigned for charity during her battle for cancer. Jade's funeral is going to be watched by people who didn't know her outside the church, no doubt by crowds of people, to me that is truly bizarre. It is not the same as expressing sadness that a 27 year old mother has died, it is actively joining in with the grief of that person and her family.

[baffled] by Eva's post.

I see no hate, this thread is dicussing 'Famous people dying and how the public 'grieve'

But compo we're supposed to, that's what it's all about isn't it? Joining in with Jade's death - and so people do. And why not?

It's cathartic, all that fear and all the tears. the drama.

I don't understand why Eva was so mean about seeker though? What had she done? She just feels differently to you Eva - you don't own death, you don't own one response to it, there's no need to be nasty to people who react differently to you. You have your experience, I have mine. I wouldn't call you an attention seeker because of your posts. Was very rude and uncalled for.

Sorry maybe the word hate was a strong word to be used but couldnt find the appropriate word.

My reaction to Seeker is not just about her post on here but more about her post on other threads and also all the other people that felt in necessary to post comments that was uncalled for

But when I want catharsis, I will read or watch something fictional. I think latching on to other peoples' tragedy is cheap and easy and unfair to the truly bereaved.

But Eva this thread is 'Famous people dying and how the public 'grieve' ' not diss the posters that have pissed you off elsewhere

why on earth are we supposed to?

Excatly, BALD.
If you have grieviances, then take them up on the relevant threads.

Yes, I understand that but then again you have to accept that people might view Jade's death and all the 'I'm so desperately upset' posts and the 'I am devastated, I am hugging my children a little closer tonight' posts - differently to you.

The fact they do see it differently, doesn't mean they are bad or horrid. There isn't just ONE way. There's always going to be a difference of response to something like this isn't there?

I do, personally, find it a bit on the mawkish side, but I think I understand that mawkishness too, or at least am trying to.

Because someone doesn't feel the same way you do - it doesn't make them horrible or attention seeking or ignorant or any of the other things you said.

Yes Nicky, I think you're right but I think Jade is half-fictional you see. I think that's what celebrity is, like reality television. Half reality and half a fiction - I completely understand why people fix on to it.

eve - please explain to me in words of one syllable what I have done to piss you off so much.

Compo - I think we're supposed to because she chose to die in public. She chose to live her life in public, or she just did. So we're supposed to because it's all done in the glare of the spotlight. I don't mean that we SHOULD, I mean that I think everyone was encouraged to have mass grief and hair renting and OK! magazine special editions etc, because it was all part of the Jade Circus, which was her life. Dignity had nothing to do with any part of that.

Celebrity?...

Only half fictional though.
Do it through fiction and you need never feel mawkish! And you can let the genuinely bereaved get on with things.

I do entirely see what you are saying though.

that's exactly it, 100x and nicky. it's catharsis, completely, and i'd have more respect if people acknowledged that. Jade's a cartoon character, a creation of the media and herself and her staff.

Oh god I so agree! It is tacky, but it's interesting too. The victorians were quite mawkish and tacky about death too, I think.

I don't feel like this about it personally btw. But I do have a ghoulish fascination with the whole business.

I am baffled by the outpouring of grief, but then I didn't 'get' the Diana thing either. Was wondering whether I'm just callous but I did feel sad and angry about the police officer shot dead in NI.

I think the Jade coverage was very emotionally manipulative and I was deeply uncomfortable with it. I have not read any of the stories or watched any of the TV shows about her death. Although I see the kids have been wheeled out for yet another photo op for The Sun.

I feel sorry for her in a way becuse I feel the coverage probably became some kind of juggernaut that would not stop. She seemed very alone, it's telling that her bridesmaid was a producer making the 'documentary' about her death.

I can't help feeling there was something very wrong about the way Jade's death was handled.

By the way I don't hate Jade ( for the umpteenth time)

This is something that I've thought about from time to time. I wonder if part of it is to do with how 'real' celebrities have been made - by which I mean that the media can bring these people into our homes so much, and we can know so many details about their lives, that it can seem as if we really know them - they become 'real' to us - and it's this feeling of 'knowing' a celebrity that can make someone feel genuine sadness when they die.

I also think that we can be very out of touch with death - it is removed to hospitals and hospices, and isn't a first-hand experience for many people, so the media coverage of a celebrity death can be far more than people hear about the deaths of ordinary folk.

I was shocked when Diana died - as someone else said, she'd seemed untouchable - and for me it was certainly one of those historical landmark days - like the shooting of Kennedy is for many americans. I will always remember where I was when I first heard the news. I got the same sense of shock from the 9/11 bombings, even though I knew (or'knew') no-one involved.

I do feel that it was wrong of some people to speak so unkindly on the tribute/sadness threads for Jade. We are all different, and react differently to events, and that doesn't make some of us better than others.

If I joined a group of people to find that they were speaking of their sadness at someone's death, and I didn't agree with them or feel the same way, I wouldn't say so there because it wouldn't seem kind to me. I might go away and discuss it elsewhere with others who felt as I did - but the unkindness of a number of mumsnetters did dismay me.

She's interesting Jade though isn't she, I've always found her interesting. She had this hard, harsh start in life, she created herself, she was voluble, badly-educated, noisy, rather brilliant and feisty and vulnerable.

People always want dignity and quiet restraint in death - I sort of admire how vulgar and full-on and unashamed she was.

But then again, I do agree with you too smalloranges.

but I feel compassion for her about her life, as well as her death, but I don't think she'd have given a toss for my compassion somehow.

I was not remotely sad when Diana died as her life felt quite irrelevant to mine.

I have found myself very sad at Jade Goody's death because of her dreadful upbringing and the very sudden progress of her cancer.

It feels to me like she had only started to really live in the last 7 years and to have that cut short feels a terrible waste.

I am constantly shocked at how little empathy people show each other every day (on here and in rl). Today my next door neighbour came round and said "Your chicken is dead on my lawn, I will let you in the gate so you can clear up the feathers".

I went round with her to pick up the body to find it not there and she said "well, I watched a cat rip it's head off so it must be there".

The cat had clearly taken it away. I was shocked that she expressed no other words even though she had heard dd and I playing with the chicken every day for five years.

Not one word of kindness or sorrow for dd _ who will be so upset when I tell her after school.

someone on here proposed that she needed to be filmed, given the way she'd lived her adult life, and that if anything the cameras leaving would signal to her that the gig was up. i thought that was pretty insightful, actually, and have some sympathy with Jade feeling that way. it's the fact that we/society/the PM fgs all joined her so willingly in that fucked-up headspace that i find fascinating.

re the photo of her boys. there's one in the DM i noticed. the elder appears to want to punch the lights out of the photographer, i was surprised they went ahead and published it, it seems rather damning of the whole thing. (although i may be projecting...)