Requiem for a Dream: My Thoughts on Tragedies in Hollywood

As I sit here this evening, with the news of another young entertainer dead from questionable means, I feel that now is finally the time to say something.  Brittany Murphy was only 32 years old, and she was found dead in the shower of a cardiac arrest.  A beautiful, talented young lady, who appeared to be in good health, does not just drop dead of a heart attack at 32 years old.  They said she had a history of diabetes, which can cause stroke or heart attack.   Others are speculating drugs, or a heart attack caused by anorexia, as it was apparently known she was fighting the eating disorder.  My take? It was unfortunately a likely combination of all the above.  But I don't want to speculate, even though the writing seems to be on the wall.  I enjoyed Brittany's work, but I am not gonna lie and say I was a huge fan.  But she was a fine actress, very entertaining.  I'd take her over a Megan Fox or Kristen Stewart any day of the week.  But damn...

I get to thinking about what it must be like to be famous.  To be in that fishbowl, of constant even scrutiny.  Whether you are a superstar like Tom Cruise or Will Smith, all the way down to douchebags like Jon Gosselin or Kourtney Kardashian's baby daddy, the papparazzi and media are watching.  Scrutinizing.  Waiting, watching, for anything to tear you down.  Sometimes it's their own doing...fuck, look what happened to Tiger Woods.  But now due to the insatiable hunger for gossip and dirt, a situation that should have been personal and handled behind closed doors has tore Tiger Woods from his pedestal and smashed him to pieces.  This is the world we live in: build people up, tear them down.  Judge them.  Worship them.  The piss on their ashes when the fire swallows them whole.  We are a sick, twisted species that revels in the misery of others, and thrives in the selfishness of our own behaviors.

Seems as if the ghosts of Heath Ledger, River Phoenix, Chris Farley or Kurt Cobain don't hang over the heads of much of Hollywood, or the world for that matter.  We glorify trainwrecks like Lindsay Lohan and Amy Winehouse, snickering and pointing fingers as their lives fly off the tracks.  Instead of ignoring, and wishing they get help, we laugh at the sideshow.  Brittany Murphy, for whatever reason, seemed to be under the pressure of the Hollywood machine.  Whether it was drugs, or the rumored anorexia, the pressure the entertainment biz puts on women to look a certain way, and the standard of beauty the world as a whole uses, she didn't have a fucking chance.  You got murderers and rapists roaming the streets, we have people in poverty and babies dying of AIDS, yet, all we as a society seem to focus on is who's in the tabloids, who's nipple slipped out, who forgot to wear panties, who's fucking who, and which actor is on a coke binge this week. 

Fame must be a lonely place.  Long seperated from your real friends, surrounded by lackeys and yes-men, all after a piece of your spotlight or the loose change in your pocket.  The loneliness and shallowness of it all could probably swallow you whole.  It's no wonder these stars turn to drugs or alcohol and piss their lives away.  As a recovering addict myself, all those things do is amplify the pain and suffering even more, except it just makes it harder for you to see it.  I don't know for sure what did Brittany Murphy in, but I hope now she is finally free from this shallow, disgusting world we live in.  Anything is better than here.

The players may be different, but the story remains the same, the ending never changes.  Instead of wondering what we can do to change...all we are gonna wonder is who's next?  And that's a crying shame.

R.I.P Brittany Murphy