Natasha Richardson is Dead. Zack Morris doesn't Actually Exist. I Care About Neither. (921 hits)
Category: Movies & TVRating: 0.44 on 29 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Thomas R. Sorrell - sorrelltr.at.hotmail.com (View user info) at 2009-03-19 02:34:10 EDT
Earlier tonight a friend of mine called. We talked about the usual things for a solid fifteen minutes: what sort of shenanigans our mutual friends are up to, what could happen on tonight's episode of LOST, and the absurdity of the idea of an all-seeing, all-knowing (and quite judgemental) God.
If I, as an adult, said publicly that I choo-choo-choose to believe in Santa Claus or aliens or McDonald's selling the McRib year-round, then I would be characterized as a "psychopath" or a "paranoid schizophrenic" or at the very least someone who really, really likes shitty processed meat sandwiches with an insane amount of barbeque sauce. However, if I announced that I decided to believe in some dude sitting up in space deciding what happens on this planet, judging the merits of each person's life and evaluating their relationship with my son (or me, if you want to get technical and even more bizarre), then I'd be characterized as "saved" and/or "enlightened." Right.
Ridiculous.
If you want proof that God doesn't exist just watch the last two minutes of the Cardinals/Steelers Super Bowl. On one side you have Kurt Warner: self-confessed "Jesus Freak" who preaches His word in EVERY SINGLE INTERVIEW HE HAS EVER GIVEN IN THE HISTORY OF EVER. On the other side you have Santonio Holmes, who has something like 27 kids, sells drugs, and uses pages of the bible for toilet paper (this may or may not be true). Who wins the game? Santonio Holmes, of course.
"Have you learned nothing from the book of Job, Thomas?"
Yea, I learned that Job was an idiot and so are you for reading it more than once. Go out and buy a real book. Start with Gatsby. Learn the significance of the green light, figure out what F. Scott is trying to say and most importantly, get a clue. Please. Do it "for the shorties."
ANYWAY, after that discussion, my friend's tone turned somber and he asked me if I had "heard the bad news."
"Fuck yes," I replied. "AIG gets multi-billion dollar bail out, then turns around and gives their executives a cool 165 million in bonuses. That's like me spending all my rent money on drugs, getting a loan from my parents to pay the rent, then turning around and using some of the money they gave me to buy new shoes. I mean, I realize the analogy isn't watertight, but whatever. I'm pissed. What's your take on the situation?"
The next few second passed in silence as he seemed to struggle with how to best approach the topic. I figured his level of annoyance was on par with mine, or perhaps even more so based on the amount of time he was taking to speak. I could not have been more wrong.
"No man," he (seemingly) forced out. "Natasha Richardson died."
Over the next few seconds I silently asked myself several questions:
1. Did I recognize the name of this woman? - No.
2. Did we go to high school together? - I don't think so, but it's possible.
3. Is this someone in his family? - I certainly hope not. I really don't want to dry-clean my suit, take his family a casserole and feign sympathy for the passing of a distant relative. I have basketball to watch.
4. Do we have any more Drumsticks in the freezer? - Hell yes, and I am going to smash one when this phone call ends.
I assume he thought I was so grief-stricken that I was unable to speak, because he appended his statement. "Yea, apparently she fell while skiing and died a few hours later. It's on the news."
"Who was she again?" I asked.
"Liam Neeson's wife," he replied.
These words resulted in more silence from me, as it took me a while to find and clean my left eyeball, which had popped out of my head when my brain exploded. He took it upon himself to fill the void with more chatter regarding the deceased.
"It's really sad," he lamented. "It just shows you how fragile life is."
This sent me over the top, and I unleashed a diatribe of epic proportion.
"Listen, you ass. First, life isn't fragile -- it's fra-gee-lay because it's fucking Italian. Get it right or pay the price (death by monkey rape). Second, it is a statistical fact that people die in this country all the time. People literally every single day. Some old Jewish man in New York probably just spun his last dradle a few seconds ago and I would wager that a soccer mom drove her H2 into a telephone pole within the last 24 hours. Are the deaths of these individuals any less tragic than this one? No. But do they result in me receiving a phone call from you? Fuck no...with cherries on top...and peanuts sprinkled over a chocolate coating on top of vanilla ice cream in a waffle shell. I'm going to hang up this phone now, and you'd better hope that I don't decide to drive over there, kill you in your sleep and drive back home wearing your head as a hat a la Garland Greene. Talk to you next week."
After hanging up the phone I turned on my computer to check my e-mail. My homepage? Yahoo!. The lead story on Yahoo!? The Tragic Death of Natasha Richardson (http://www.yahoo.com/s/1045586). Ugh. As I'm checking my e-mail, the 11:00 news came on ABC here in Toledo, Ohio. I looked up in anticipation. What would the lead-in be? Perhaps the story of more lay-offs from the local GM plant? The AIG fiasco? Any sort of relevant local news that affects the day-to-day lives of people who live in this area? Nah. Natasha Richardson.
I'm apologize in advance for my obvious lack of knowledge regarding the way the media evaluates the importance of information it is about to pass on, but how is the death of the wife of an actor this important? I'm not trying to be callous. I realize that she was a person and people loved her and now she's gone. I get all that. Hell, I even like Liam Neeson. He's Qui-Gon Jinn AND Ra's Al Ghul, for God's sake. What I don't understand is why his wife's death is considered such an important story that it's leading the local news programming in Toledo, God damned, Ohio. Is it more important than the GM layoffs, the AIG bonuses or President Obama's NCAA pool? Ok, bad example.
The point is, I was about to lose my mind. I had no idea why this was on the news. I could not figure out who actually cares about this. Then the answer gave me a wedgie and stuffed me in a locker: Just about everyone. Why? Because nearly everyone in this country seems to think they're still in high school. This is the fault of Zack Morris and the rest of the Saved by the Bell gang.
For those who may not know (read: people who were raised by wolves), Saved by the Bell was a show about high school kids in California. Well, Indiana originally, but that show sucked and basically didn't really happen. Anyway, Saved by the Bell taught us many important life lessons, such as don't drink and drive (or you'll wreck your car but not suffer any sort of injury) and don't do drugs (because caffeine pills will make you flip the fuck out). Most importantly, it taught that there are five distinct categories of high school students:
1. popular boys who are popular because they're good looking/witty/rich/etc. (Zack Morris)
2. popular boys who are popular because they're really good at sports and/or good looking (Albert Clifford Slater)
3. popular girls who are popular because they're attractive/smart (Jessie Spano, Kelly Kapowski, and Lisa Turtle. No, I did not forget Tori. She was an unlikable, leather-clad hosebeast.)
4. hangers-on who aren't really popular, but are seen with the popular kids quite frequently and thus "mattered" in their world (Samuel "Screech" Powers and sadly enough, Principal Richard Belding)
5. everyone else
Note: The popular boys and girls may also perform in bands, a la "Zack Attack" or all-girl dance groups that do their thing to songs like "I'm So Excited! (I'm so excited! I'm so.....SCARED!!!)."
It took about 4.3 seconds for everyone who watched to figure out that these were the only people in the school who mattered. The rest were giants globs of moving Play-Doh inasmuch as they had no defining characteristics other than "student." Granted, there were a few characters whose names we eventually learned, such as "Ox," the dumb jock (one can only assume he dated "Preggers McGee," the buxom blond cheerleader), "Ginger," the ditzy hot girl who was a part-time love interest of Zack, and "Eric," the street-wise step-brother of Jessie who was "from the wrong side of the tracks but turned out to have a heart of gold."
There was also a large collection of "nerds," such as "Franklin," the kid who looked a little like Patrick Dempsey in "Can't Buy me Love and protested the drilling of oil on Bayside's football field so he could spend time chained to a fake oil rig with Jessie and Kelly, and "Maxwell Nerdstrom" (really?), whose finger was turned green by the fake class rings Zack purchased. The thing is, even though we knew these character's names, they were pretty much just Play-Doh that was sent through one of those ringers and given a specific shape. Yea, they're a little different from the rest, but we all know they're still just Play-Doh.
In a way it's not entirely different from any high school around the country. You pretty much have the same groups of people who are popular for the same reasons and the rest of the kids can be classified by outsiders as students. Sure, it can be broken down into individual cliques and groups, but there is always that level of kids who are "popular." There are many people in high schools who care a little too much about what the popular kids are doing, wearing, fucking, etc. Some would suggest that these individuals are obsessed with the lives of others because their own lives are completely devoid of interest. Though this may be the case in some situations, it's more likely that they care because the popular kids' lives seem more interesting/glamorous than their own, even though they may be ridiculously interesting people themselves. The fact remains the popular kids are popular and they are not, so they're at least worth studying on occasion.
Saved by the Bell takes this to the absolute extreme. The antics of the popular kids are the only thing that matter to the vast majority (I'd set the over/under at 80%) of the people in school. As I mentioned before, when Jessie and Kelly protested the oil drilling, Franklin was right there with them. It's not because he believed in or cared about their cause, he just wanted to be near them for a few moments. When Zack needed to participate in a ballet to graduate (really?), the nerds banded together to help him do so. The lives of the general population of Bayside almost totally revolves around the popular kids.
This brings me to the ridiculous celebrity obsession in this country. It seems that the people who (basically) control what we see in the media decided long ago that there was money to be made by playing on this high school dynamic and treating the general population as the students from Bayside. Many people readily accept this role simply because it's one they've been playing their entire life. The media provides constant information about celebrities: actors and actresses (Jessie), sports figures (Slater), musicians (the whole gang), random "hot people" who are famous simply because they're good looking (Zack/Kelly/Lisa) and B, C, or D-list celebrities like those idiots on Fear Factor/The Real World (Screech/Mr. Belding). These are the "popular" people of America High School,
In order to cover them sufficiently, there are television channels that report on their activities 24 hours a day. There are dozens (hundreds?) of magazines devoted to them and what they are doing. There are photo-spreads in said magazines that claim these celebrities are "just like us," so that 300 pound women sitting on their couches elbow deep in Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey can laugh and feel better about themselves when they see that Kate Beckinsale has a zit on her forehead and a rip in her sweatshirt. It's the same dynamic as the nerdy girl laughing it if Kelly Kapowski were to trip in the cafeteria during lunch. "Wow, she really is just like me!!"
User Reviews
Submitted by Mr_Trollope (user info) at 2009-03-23 07:35:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Judgement (user info) at 2009-03-23 07:27:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
No Comment
Submitted by i_can_get_you_a_toe (user info) at 2009-03-22 15:45:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
sure.
Submitted by kitchens_closed (user info) at 2009-03-21 00:59:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
HAHAHAHA BUCKEYES LOSE
The most corrupt university east of USC can't even buy championship success anymore...
Buckeyes lose.
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2009-03-20 13:50:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by BuckeyesTHEGAME (user info) at 2009-03-20 12:34:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
You're still a douche. Good to know some things never change, huh? Consistency and whatnot.
Submitted by kitchens_closed (user info) at 2009-03-20 10:52:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
You're still a hissy-fit-having-headline-skimming-ass hack
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2009-03-20 03:31:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by pandora (user info) at 2009-03-19 22:23:35 GMT (#)
Ranking: 0
I liked Natasha Richardson. She played Mary Shelley (the chick who wrote "Frankenstein") in the movie "Gothic", which was an 80's movie by surrealist filmmaker Ken Russell. That one is fun to watch stoned. Also, I enjoyed her in the movie "A Handmaid's Tale", which is a futuristic movie that will scare the crap out of all women. Check it out!
I'm saddened to hear about her death, but then all accidents like this sadden me. My brother was killed last year when his skull was crushed in a traffic accident, so it's a little fresh.
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Handmaid's Tale is one of my favourite Atwood novels, the guy in the film I imagine you saw, Aiden Quinn, I have met and had a drink with. He is nice.
I am sorry about your brother. That is tough.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2009-03-20 02:27:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
jocks get what they want because they deserve it
Submitted by pandora (user info) at 2009-03-19 18:23:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I liked Natasha Richardson. She played Mary Shelley (the chick who wrote "Frankenstein") in the movie "Gothic", which was an 80's movie by surrealist filmmaker Ken Russell. That one is fun to watch stoned. Also, I enjoyed her in the movie "A Handmaid's Tale", which is a futuristic movie that will scare the crap out of all women. Check it out!
I'm saddened to hear about her death, but then all accidents like this sadden me. My brother was killed last year when his skull was crushed in a traffic accident, so it's a little fresh.
Submitted by Blackberry (user info) at 2009-03-19 14:30:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
What the fuck is this garbage?
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2009-03-19 14:07:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
the only reason i looked her up is because i'm part of a celebrity death pool. i'm waiting for
1. Ted Kennedy
2. Patrick Swayze
3. Mel Brooks
4. Nancy Reagan
5. Betty White
6. Zsa Zsa Gabor
7. Jack LaLanne
8. Barbara Billingsley
9. Fidel Castro
10. Bobby Doerr
to die. i also regret not putting down barbara bush.
Submitted by rorrim (user info) at 2009-03-19 13:53:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by sage104 (user info) at 2009-03-19 13:49:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm with you, chap.
Never heard of her before the ski accident...why should I care now? Yes it's tragic but so are all deaths really.
Submitted by Lib (user info) at 2009-03-19 13:17:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Ok I saw this to and wondered who the hell she was. She died learning to ski on the kiddie hill?
nuff said.
Submitted by Jeanneee (user info) at 2009-03-19 13:10:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I think the lesson we should all take from this is that celebrities shouldn't ski. It's simply too dangerous for them.
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2009-03-19 12:44:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Not sure where you were going with this. There were some funny parts, but yeah, it ended badly.
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2009-03-19 12:43:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I actually agree with you...but lost interest 2/3 of the way through this piece of shit post.
Submitted by mrwolf (user info) at 2009-03-19 12:39:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Much as I found a lack of a point with regard the religious, I really enjoyed the rest of the post.
So much so that I logged in for the first time in about a year to say "well done".
Well done.
-P
Submitted by BuckeyesTHEGAME (user info) at 2009-03-19 12:07:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2009-03-19 06:48:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." - Eleanor Roosevelt
You're discussing people you saw on television.
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I know it. It's amazing that I can even tie my shoes or wipe my ass.
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2009-03-19 10:47:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by MudWhistle (user info) at 2009-03-19 08:24:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
you guys just don't understand....this is little Tommy Sorrell.......he's internet famous, rate highly or you'll rue this day!
Submitted by SgtHartman (user info) at 2009-03-19 09:21:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
selling the McRib year-round...
Only in heaven does this occur my friend.
Submitted by MudWhistle (user info) at 2009-03-19 08:24:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
you guys just don't understand....this is little Tommy Sorrell.......he's internet famous, rate highly or you'll rue this day!
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2009-03-19 08:15:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
I stopped reading after the first paragraph due to failing interest. You sure know how to hook 'em and drag 'em in, killer.
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2009-03-19 06:48:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." - Eleanor Roosevelt
You're discussing people you saw on television.
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2009-03-19 05:15:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
My thoughts today are with Liam Neeson and his family. Stunned to hear about poor Natasha.
Submitted by rob_berg (user info) at 2009-03-19 05:13:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I almost read all of that.
Society needs to be saturated with distraction because without it the people might start paying attention to just how miserably we are failing in so many categories.
...and that's, like, a total bummer, eh.
At least Anoop is safe for another week. THANK GAWD.
Submitted by cheerios (user info) at 2009-03-19 04:58:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by BuckeyesTHEGAME (user info) at 2009-03-19 02:47:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
The ending to this sucks (it just ends), but it's 2:30 in the morning, I'm tired, and my brain still hurts. A person can only recall so many episodes of Saved by the Bell before their head explodes. I am "danger-close" to that point.