Hey everybody, bad news. According to Kathleen Parker we, the American Public (possibly the world) killed Whitney Houston. You know how she knows this? By studying the game tape of the red carpet event Whitney Houston attended before her death. Supposedly Ms. Parker watched this video “over and over” and is now a certified body language expert. Among the myriad of questions I have about this article, the chief one is: “Why is Kathleen Parker a paid columnist?” She writes TWO columns per week, that’s over one-hundred vapid inert culture laden turds a year! The proverbial toilet HAS to be clogged by now, and it’s still being filled bi-weekly. I don’t understand it!
Kathleen Parker surmises that Whitney Houston was self-medicating because we as a public were suffocating her. This kind of smacks in the face of reality, wherein Whitney Houston hasn’t done anything of note musically for her career in over a decade. Now, her public life, that’s a whole other ball of wax. She’s been on countless interviews where she reaffirmed her faith, obtained sobriety…a few times, and somehow attempted to defend anything Bobby Brown does. Most of time however, she’s appeared and possibly was in fact, high…on something.
This kind of celebrity entertainment world business is supposedly in Kathleen Parker’s wheelhouse. Honestly, she’s mildly better at writing about it than 98% of her political musings; but her take on the whole Whitney Houston tragedy is, again, a bit at odds with reality. Which is pretty much in line with most of what Kathleen Parker writes about. For instance the opening sentence of the article:
“The heartbreak of Whitney Houston’s death does not seems to be primarily a story of drug or alcohol abuses, as it is currently unfolding.” At the time of publishing there wasn’t a concrete cause of death. In fact, I heard on the radio that it was supposedly “medical” in nature. It’s not much of stretch to assume that the cause of any celebrities death was drug related, there’s plenty of precedence, but I think Ms. Parker was ignorantly hedging her bets so that her article would at least have some legs. Granted, she does need to invent some wiggle room because her column may or may not be printed in the ensuing days of Whitney Houston’s demise, but the holes in this article are apparent if you take in to account that she probably wrote this mere moments after the news of Whitney Houston’s death, and not in the days after. To do so would, again, deflate her admonishment of the celebrity obsessed public.
“Houston looks uncomfortable, but plays her part, smiling into the abyss of the flashing light. […]It is painful to watch. You can see her struggling to cooperate[…]” This is someone who’s high in public, putting on their game face, Ms. Parker. Somehow she translates this as a metaphor for why Whitney Houston self-medicated: because she couldn’t handle the fame. Whitney Houston wasn’t some obscure newcomer to the business of show, who coudln’t handle the pressure of instant stardom and unprecedented lifestyle upheaval, she was a grizzled veteran of almost 30 years and she rode the ups and the downs, high as a kite on something for the most part. How can you honestly say you can interpret what she was thinking, based on videos from the night before her death, where she was probably high as shit? Obviously Ms. Parker has never been fucked up on a drug in public before, or she’d have some sort of understanding as to the alien nature of interacting with the world when you alter your mind with toxic substances.
Oddly enough towards the end of the article Ms. Parker rhetorically shoots herself in the foot with “The final verdict on Houston’s death is yet to come. Toxicology reports could take several weeks.” But she’s already made her point, so there! “[…]the real cause was a deeper one that first struck her soul.” Give me a fucking break. What’s funny is that Ms. Parker pretty much admits to much of what I’ve put forth in my admonishment of her. She relates that many celebrities cruise out of life on an overdose raft, that many self-medicate to deal with the utter isolation of stardom. Yet, she doesn’t blame the irresponsibility on the celebrity, she blames the fans. We didn’t cram cocaine in to their noses, or push the needle in to their arm. We didn’t force them to marry abusive spouses, or make horrid business decisions.
What this boils down to more is that this article is literal filler between “Hey guys seriously, Romney” pieces that she’s been churning out at a good clip as of late. She’s got to write two fresh takes on something a week dontchaknow? The fact that this sort of entertainment stuff is in her wheelhouse and she just whiffs horribly in the attempt at making a cogent argument is nothing new. But it does beg the question that you could probably hire two-to-three new writers with the salary she’s paid and get a much more nuanced take on the culture at large both political and entertainment wise. It also makes the idea that the winning of a Pulitzer prize probably isn’t really that hard at all if you’re floating over a hundred pieces of shit every year. Something’s got to stick eventually right? The need for fresh faces and new blood has never been more clear than now. Newspaper editors of the world, why not? It can’t honestly get much worse than this (and you can save lots of money!).
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