An Unexpected Response

I have a few favorite blogs that I read regularly. One belongs to Alexandra Billings, an actress who got her start in Chicago and who is currently pursuing her dream in Hollywood. She has grit and moxy and charm: all the things I don't have to be a big, big star. After I wrote my eulogy to Anna Nicole Smith below, Alex posted a comment. I've approved the comment for posting here, but for some reason it doesn't want to come through.

Alex's comment was actually a response to my comment that I posted on her blog, linking my eulogy to hers. We had very different views. However when I posted it, I assumed it would be taken in the spirit in which it was intended: you've shown me yours, I'll show you mine. Since she responded to my comment on her blog as well, I'll link to it here. If you're a blog fan, you should check Alex's out. It's one of the best.

Apparently I still have a lot to learn about writing. I tried to post my clarification to Alex's website, but as should have been expected it was too long. I post my response here:

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Yipes. I did not mean to give offense in anyway. I'm actually a fan of yours: seen your work on stage and television and have heard you sing many times and always enjoyed it immensely. More than once I've watched you and wished I could do a tenth of what you have done. Even though I don't know you personally, I know enough about you to feel like you are a whole, real person who functions in world similar to mine.

I guess the point I was trying to make with my blog post is that I can't mourn the loss of a celebrity image -- a tabloid character -- and to me that's what ANS was/is. Much like I didn't mourn the loss of Kevin Dillon's character in Poseidon. The ending was expected, the timing was not.

I didn't know the woman, Vickie Lynn Hogan, so I have no idea whether she personally was a waste of space or not. However, in my opinion, her public persona was a toxic diversion from very real issues: like cotton candy before dinner, entertaining but of no nutritional value and too much makes you queasy. My intended point, which obviously failed miserably, was that her public persona -- the tabloid character, ANS, -- overpowered her humanity. I should feel some respect for the loss of the woman, but because of the public character I don't, and frankly I don't think many people actually do, all public hand wringing notwithstanding. It's not that I couldn't respect Vickie Lynn's background or her history or anything I've read in a tabloid about her. I watched her reality show and enjoyed it; always aware that I was supposed to look at the character of ANS and chuckle at what a train wreck she was, to think, "There but for the grace of God..." I've never for a second thought that what I was seeing on a television screen was supposed to be real.

The only thing that I would I hold Vickie Lynn accountable for is the waste of a life, and arguably three lives. She was very young when she died, witnessed her son's drug-induced death, and left a baby in a horrible circumstance. If that isn't waste, I don't know what is. If the woman was crushed by the character of ANS and its relationship with the American public, at the very least Vickie Lynn was not an innocent victim of the relationship. Based on what I've read from you, I think you would agree with at least that point. And if our fascination with the demise of a media character allows us to be distracted from the disintegration of American society as happened on the day of her death, (how much news coverage was given to the Scooter Libby trial that day?) then yes, Anna Nicole Smith was a toxic waste of space. I'm not saying the woman got what she deserved. I am saying that the character fulfilled the public's expectation and gave yet another excuse for the delay of taking responsibility for cleaning up some serious issues; the point of my post being to examine my own reaction, which surprised me, and to rail for a moment against my own tendency to allow myself to be distracted by such things. I was surprised that I responded like a Roman watching the death of a gladiator, not being able to relate to the person behind the shield. And I was honest and horrified that I really wanted to cheer.

But honestly, I think that on some level I'm supposed to want to cheer -- that the media character was created as a modern morality play with this inevitable end, all along intended to make me want to say "good riddance" at the final curtain -- and I'm appalled that part of me actually has bought into that. And, finally, if Vickie Lynn's death does not receive the respect it deserves because the circus of ANS's end overshadows it, Vickie Lynn shares some of that responsibility.

While you seem to draw some sort of parallel between your life and hers, that similarity honestly didn't occur to me when I posted the link to my blog. However as I think about it, I realize why those aspects of her life might resonate with you. But because I've seen you perform a variety of roles and read your blog regularly, much like your very young friend watching you play a wicked queen on stage, I feel like you're something of a real person in my world. If you have a media character you play on your blog and in your cabaret act, it is far more real to me than ANS was, and I buy it more completely.

To be clear: I wouldn't try to insult you by inferring that because you might have shared a similar beginning I think you deserve her fate, or --God forbid-- are a waste of space. I don't, mainly because if there is a similarity between the two of you it ends at the point where you identified behaviors you felt were destructive, took responsibility for them, and changed them. We have no way of knowing if the woman, Vickie Lynn Hogan, ever felt the same way and was in the process of making those changes, but we do know that the character ANS did not.

And as for my reason for posting it on your blog, it's quite simple: I enjoy reading it and I simply wanted to share mine with you. I think you have an amazing self-awareness that is incredibly rare in the real world, let alone the world of entertainment, and I greatly, greatly admire that. That admiration is only compounded by your willingness to publicly be self examined without being self absorbed, and you're often funny while doing it. Such dichotomies are rare. (Another distinction, by the way between you and Anna Nicole Smith.)

If I did give offense, I am deeply sorry. That was not my intention.