General Evans Above Archive for Feb 10, 2007

An overdose of Anna Nicole Smith

Feb 10, 2007 – permalink

The news media is in a tizzy over the death of Anna Nicole Smith. Yes, it’s a sad story because a young baby has been left without her mother and even the identity of her father remains a riddle.

But c’mon, the entertainment news media, using their frequent flyer points to send crews to Hollywood, Florida, are really dishing up a healthy dose of saccharine hyperbole.

Watching shows like The Insider, ET and Access Hollywood last night, I learned that was someone “the world was mourning” and we should stay tuned to learn more about the death of a “woman everyone loved.”

I love it when newscasts make generalizations like that.

The world was mourning? Really? Surely that explains why Fatah and Hamas signed a pact to settle their differences and try and form a unity government. The news coming out of Hollywood, Florida made those leaders realize what life is really about. Somewhere in Afghanistan, a farmer burnt his poppy field, because he figured he didn’t want to add to any more suffering.

And poor Marilyn Monroe must be rolling over in her grave with all the comparisons people are making, one news story even using Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind” as a lead-in. I admit to only seeing a few minutes of Monroe’s films, but the perception of her as an iconic sex symbol is something that’s hard to avoid. Anna Nicole may have been a Playboy Playmate of the Year and Guess? Jeans model, but after that she slid pretty rapidly into being a second-rate punchline.

The 24-hour news cycle makes things worse too. Do we really need to segue from Larry King interviewing people who knew her to Anderson Cooper talking to experts speculating on what caused her death and who the father of Dannielyn might be? Remember when a story happened and you just got the facts?

I wonder what Walter Cronkite thinks at moments like this?