Mourning in LA
Brittany Murphy died Sunday morning. We would have talked about it on ‘Cast but we wrapped tape before we knew. In fact I only found out because I noticed a ‘RIP Brittany Murphy’ as a trending topic on Twitter. Immediately there was an outpouring of tweets and forum comments and Facebook messages about how she was such an immense talent and she will sorely be missed. Really?
Name one movie she did in the last five years WITHOUT using IMDB. You probably can’t. That god awful Ashton Kutcher vehicle was in 2003. That surprised me, actually, I thought it was more recent. I actually liked Brittany Murphy, more in the abstract, sure, but I liked her. She was cute and charming and somehow interesting to watch on screen even though she was lacking the chops. But I take issue with the fact that an actor dies and all of a sudden Earth sheds a tear and there’s one too many angels in heaven. I’m not implying that her death is not unfortunate because she was a C-list actress, I’m saying her death is equally as unfortunate as Bernie the cab driver’s death.
I’ll never understand our fascination with celebrity. I’ll also never understand why we absolve the dead of their sins. Michael Jackson died and all of a sudden the music world was suffering a tragic loss. How so? MJ hadn’t done anything worth a damn in twenty years. Michael Jackson was a talent beyond anything we’ll probably see in a very long time but his talent died at least a decade before he did. Remember the video he did with Chris Tucker? Neither does anyone else. You know what I do remember? He probably touched little boys. The fact that he died doesn’t change that.
Brittany Murphy’s family is claiming she was ill for a few days prior to her death. Maybe she was, maybe she wasn’t. But nothing that’s come out thus far has swayed me from my initial thought for cause of death – she was a known cocaine user, and she went in to cardiac arrest. Occam’s Razor and all that.
