Risking It

I know that when someone passes there needs to be a certain level of tact and compassion and respectable grievance, but because this is where I put thoughts down I'm going to risk something here.

News articles and television stories, as they typically do, have begun canonizing the life and career of Heath Ledger.
Now I didn't know Heath, or his daughter or anything about who he was, I just watch movies.

But isn't it a little pretentious to start immortalizing him with comparisons to James Dean, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrixs and other unfortunate famous people who died too early.
The fact of the matter is that Brokeback Mountain was no Giant and 10 Things I Hate About You was no Rebel Without A Cause.
Not to say that Heath wasn't talented or that his death isn't a loss in the acting community. I really do feel for his family and friends and I wish our strange media obsessed world would remove the cameras from their faces and let them grieve in peace.
I don't want to glorify someone just because they did young and/or tragically. I want to honor someone on how they lived.


I guess I'm just annoyed that when I received a rare communication, via text message, from my sister (which is fine because she's a college student and that's what I expect of college students), it was to inform me of the passing of someone we've never met and had little to no influence in our lives.