Heath Ledger and what his death tells us about culture (UPDATED)

Flopping Aces got me to thinking this morning about a number of things and so should be given credit for the provision of fodder for this post.

Once again, an obviously talented individual wastes the opportunities that talent brought before him and once again the media pounces upon the circumstances, exploiting the man's popularity, even in death. 

I think I speak for many when I say that the media's focus on this story is largely the by-product of his playing a homosexual cowboy in Brokeback Mountain.  Had he passed up the role, I'm going to suggest that the media would probably have passed up his death.  Then again, you wonder if the role and the subsequent attention had something to do with his death.  But that's for others to slice and dice.

After first hearing about this story, I remember turning to Mrs. BH and asking aloud if he wasn't the kid who played in Mel Gbson's movie The Patriot.  And indeed he was.  What I found intriguing is that I didn't find that factoid in any of the stories I was reading about his passing.  Of course they mentioned Brokeback and his role in the yet to be released The Dark Knight, the sequel to Batman Begins but I couldn't find anything about his role in Gibson's movie.  I found it strange until I came across the following at Flopping Aces:

Little wonder, after watching that, why The Patriot has received short shrift in the media obituaries.  Everything symbolized in that YouTubed excerpt and certainly everything symbolized more broadly by the movie, is anathema and a stench in the nostrils of the culturally elite.

I don't think it to be a stretch to state that had Heath Ledger starred only in The Patriot, that his death would not have garnered the attention it has wrought from today's progressive media.  Then again, is it a stretch to say that perhaps he would still be alive, not having had to deal with the subsequent focus centered on cultural morays and the pressures I'm sure were placed on him as a result.

I close also with something seen first at Flopping Aces, something I think speaks a thousand words or more against what it is this culture values and what it is that it does not.

UPDATED: Related, in a way, to the above, Michelle brings us to what the elitists think about the whereabouts of a Marine Corp recruitment office at Berkeley:

In response to a Marine Corps recruiting office established in Berkeley last year, local activists are trying to make it more difficult for future recruiting centers to open in the city.

If passed by a majority of Berkeley voters, a proposed initiative would require military recruiting offices and private military companies in Berkeley to first acquire a special use permit.

To obtain this permit, a business must hold public hearings and a public comment period.

If the initiative passes, recruitment offices could not be opened within 600 feet of residential districts, public parks, public health clinics, public libraries, schools or churches.

Currently, a recruiting office is held to the same standards as most other businesses, which do not require a public hearing or have limits on where offices can be established.

The author of the initiative, Berkeley-based lawyer Sharon Adams, modeled the initiative after current zoning law that restricts the location of adult-oriented businesses.

"In the same way that many communities limit the location of pornographic stores, that's the same way we feel about the military recruiting stations," said PhoeBe sorgen, an initiative proponent and a member of the city's Peace and Justice Commission. "Teenagers that really want to find them will be able to seek them out and find them, but we don't want them in our face."

Sick bastards.

Comments

[Tom Osborne]

You've hit the nail on the head, I think, about the media's attention to Heath Ledger's death, and it wasn't because of his portrayal in "the Patriot" (a GREAT movie which happens to be one of my favorites, and the one that really brought Ledger to my admiration, even though he had been in quite a few movies previously). It was ALL because of "Brokeback Mountain".

[Morgan K Freeberg]

In response to a Marine Corps recruiting office established in Berkeley last year, local activists are trying to make it more difficult for future recruiting centers to open in the city.
:
To obtain this permit, a business must hold public hearings and a public comment period.

So you have to allow concerned citizens to freely express their views, prior to allowing students to freely make choices about their own future. This isn't quite so much about freedom for all, as freedom for Group A before even thinking about granting freedom to Group B.

Also, if something is wrong, where is the logic in making it "difficult"? Why not just ban it? I keep hearing about how pro-war guys like me are unwilling to "sacrifice." Looks like it's the anti-war crowd indulging in some psychological projection; they want the recruiting to go ahead and take place somewhere else, so they don't have to be bothered with it.

[tim]

These people have changed my mind about abortion. Clearly, some people don’t deserve to be born. How else can one explain the total ignorance displayed here.

Military recruiting stations equals porn? It “offends” their “public standards”, “it's a detriment”, and “a danger to the public" and their youth need to be protected from it? There’s no need to dignify such drivel with a rebuttal.

One thing though, she may be correct about the porn comparison, the first time I felt the recoil of my M16-A1, ahhh…it’s a feeling that can’t be described.