The Dead Reel

As you may have heard, Heath Ledger perished recently. I'm not going to claim to be a huge fan, but he was good in the movies that I saw him in, and I was looking forward to seeing him in the new Batman movie this summer. I may even have to finally don my cowboy hat, make some pudding, and watch Brokeback Mountain, something I've been unexcited about since the announcement from management that wearing chaps without pants would be met with swift disciplinary action.

Celebrity deaths are fascinating to me. Because a good number of people are familiar with the person who died, we get at least several days of coverage as to what happened, how they spent their lives, who they left behind, etc. If we're lucky, they'll be a conspiracy theory about the death, and it'll go on for years. Heck, you still see specials about Marilyn Monroe and what "really happened" (although I would hope that any death that may have involved a barbiturate enema would at least make the news).

This is in sharp contrast to a standard death, where you get an obituary in the paper, maybe a news report if there was a crime involved, and that's pretty much it. The whole thing is typically over in less than a week. Heck, even if you knew the person well there's a pretty good chance that the celebrity death could be on your mind for a longer period of time just because people will keep talking about it.

The quintessence of the celebrity death, however, is the Dead Reel. Each year, the Oscars includes a short film of all of the people in the movie industry who passed away in the last year, or at least all of the people that they feel are important enough to note. This is interesting because as someone who doesn't regularly read People magazine, sometimes someone passes away whose work I really liked and I don't find out until they run the Dead Reel. A good example was Madeline Kahn, one of the funniest actresses to grace the screen. (If you don't agree with me, rent Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, and Clue and get back to me.)

Unfortunately, the Dead Reel becomes uncomfortable for me because the audience insists on applauding. Now I understand that this is show business, and that applauding is part of the game, but this reduces the Dead Reel to one more opportunity to win or lose a popularity contest. When someone really famous comes up, there's uproarious applause. When some art director, who may have been involved with all sorts of important movies but is not considered a household name, comes up, there's maybe a respectful smattering of applause, but that's it.

Perhaps I'm being oversensitive, but that seems wrong. It seems like they should just do the whole thing in respectful silence instead of dramatic applause when someone's favorite comes up. Of course I don't think that will happen, but it would be nice. Then I don't have to feel bad about the families of the people whose names are met with a thunderous bout of indifference.