“Lou Reed is dead.” I proclaimed from the top of the staircase, looking down at my family and raising an eyebrow as I anticipated their response. My father adjusted himself in his leather recliner and said “Oh, right.”, while my mother and sister remained glued to the television screen. Mother piped up – “Who’s dead?” With a small eye roll I flapped my arms. “Lou Reed -” I began ” he sang ‘Perfect Day’? He was in ‘The Velvet Underground’?” While I searched the recesses of my mind for any other tidbits or facts, I gauged the reaction. The consensus among the room was that nobody was particularly fazed by this new information. Sighing, I stole away to my room in an indulgent moment of stroppy teen dramatics (because sometimes screaming “You’re tearing me apart!” and running off to ensconce oneself in various social media is deeply satisfying).
I had no association with him, so I wasn’t exactly driven to distraction by the revelation of his death
For a second I was frustrated that my family failed to appreciate the kind of music that I did, and by extension, failed to appreciate the gravity of the news. This was at least until I thought about what I was doing. Lou Reed had suffered a bout of ill health leading up to his death, and I wasn’t exactly on tenterhooks during this period – to be blunt, I didn’t know the man. On a personal level, I had no association with him, so I wasn’t exactly driven to distraction by the revelation of his death. The closest thing to grief it inspired within me was the urge to play ‘Perfect Day’ and recount how effective it was as the soundtrack to a strung out Ewan McGregor being pushed out of a car in that scene in ‘Trainspotting’. What I was doing was, frankly, ridiculous. The only real reason I’d bothered to mention him that day was because I’d been swept up in the current of everyone else feeling the need to mention him.
People ranging from Salman Rushdie to Simon Cowell were chomping at the bit to pay their respects via Twitter and Facebook, and it’s things like this that draw people in to the bizarre phenomenon of public, celebrity mourning. When things are framed correctly, it is amazing what one can be convinced of – if enough people say that the passing of a musician is deeply saddening and significant, you’ll eventually believe it. I was convinced to the point of putting a status up on Facebook – frowny face and all, for it was a very serious affair. Honestly, I can’t help but wonder how entitled I am – or anyone who only knew Reed in the public sphere for that matter – to claim and experience his death as if it had an impact on me.
That’s not to say Lou Reed is the only celebrity whose death has been received with much sadness and grief, and he won’t be the last, but the amount of media attention surrounding it is almost bizarre. On UK radios, the death bulletin was being reported on the half hour, a frequency that is both rare and perhaps a little unnecessary. People were quick to express how deeply disturbed they were by the news, and probably only a fraction had ever had an actual conversation with this person who apparently had left a huge gaping hole in their lives.
How can I say that Lou Reed has died when in a way Lou Reed was never, to me, alive? Never alive in that I had no living relationship with him.
So what, I have to ask, are we mourning? Most people only knew Lou Reed through his public persona – his celebrity, his music and his appearances. We haven’t lost any of this – that side of him is preserved on a CD or in the annals of history, and if we want to re-experience it, it’s just a matter of doing a Google search. How can I say that Lou Reed has died when in a way Lou Reed was never, to me, alive? Never alive in that I had no living relationship with him. For although the relationship between celebrity and public can at times seem very special, it can hardly be characterised as a relationship. Relationship implies some form of reciprocation, when in reality the shiny, limelight drenched people of the tabloids and news aren’t even aware of my existence. Equally, I probably am not that aware of theirs – how faithfully can someone portray themselves with cameras pointed at them? How could I possibly compare the postured, made-up, nipped and tucked person that I as a member of a public am allowed to see versus who they are when they arrive home, remove their fancy attire and speak freely?
Is it mourning the loss of potential? Perhaps.
if enough people say that the passing of a musician is deeply saddening and significant, you’ll eventually believe it
Though Reed himself hadn’t been especially active over the past few years, this could explain why society reacts the way it does to the death of a musician or an author or anyone with a particular talent. The renowned ’28 theory’ – a theory that catalogues the odd amount of instances of musicians and actors dying at the tender age of twenty eight – is probably especially poignant in this respect, as the young age implies a potential long and successful career dashed before it fully took flight. Arguably, however, this is a selfish complaint on our part. We’re upset because we enjoyed someone’s music or artwork or poetry and now said person can’t produce the content we like. Again, it has very little to do with them personally.
Everywhere, there were ostentatious displays of people mourning a cultural icon, a parade of grief so to speak, which all probably seemed bitter and hollow when compared to the very real grief of losing an immediate family member.
Despite this, people have a tendency to get caught up in the strange rigmarole of a famous death, the song and dance of a celebrity’s passing. I think there’s a degree of catharsis in play here; in an odd way, mourning is enjoyable, in the same way people can enjoy watching a sad film or reading a sad book. One can invest themselves in the story and allow themselves to feel intense emotions without having any real personal tie to what’s happening, then they can put down the story and wash themselves of the whole experience. This can be done with death too – people can sob over the passing of a celebrity, but then move on pretty quickly, for they have ultimately lost very little.
Maybe we should leave the mourning to the individuals that actually knew Lou Reed
I know someone whose granddad died the same day as Michael Jackson. Everywhere, there were ostentatious displays of people mourning a cultural icon, a parade of grief so to speak, which all probably seemed bitter and hollow when compared to the very real grief of losing an immediate family member. This is what concerns me about the celebrity death phenomenon; I wonder whether it isn’t undermining death itself. In a world of voyeurism and an obsession with public life, I can’t help but think that this culture of turning a death into a trending topic on Twitter isn’t one fatal step away from something the likes of a reality funeral – it may seem like a stretch (a dark, horrible stretch), but you can’t underestimate people.
Maybe we should leave the mourning to the individuals that actually knew Lou Reed. We should pay our respects, maybe reflect on his past successes, but after that let things lie. Anything more may be but a superficial dance, a charade done solely for our own morbid enjoyment, and of no help to anyone actually hurt and upset by the news.
