OT:RIP Steve Erwin

[Shadowphile]

He died doing something he loved.  It's likely small comfort to his family but I'm glad he went quickly.

[ulthar]

Just Plain Horse Wrote:
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>
> I personally think it's a tad bit ghoulish to seek
> out such images of "real" death, especially of
> those whom you like, just to satisfy your
> curiousity. Death is... niether good or bad, it
> just is... I refuse to trivialize it because the
> media is more than happy to use it for their own
> ends.

I agree.  Death is not entertainment.

In movies it is different because you know it is not real.  But when really happens, a real person felt pain, a real spouse is grieving and real children will never know their parent, etc.

In this case, I have no interest in watching that video.  His last moments are private - or they should be.

[Just Plain Horse]

ulthar Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> I agree.  Death is not entertainment.
>
> In movies it is different because you know it is
> not real.  But when really happens, a real person
> felt pain, a real spouse is grieving and real
> children will never know their parent, etc.
>
> In this case, I have no interest in watching that
> video.  His last moments are private - or they
> should be.

I think the important difference in a movie is, a movie is a story- sometimes a death of a character occurs as the story develops... how the other characters deal with that loss helps the storyteller make a point.

Sometimes to keep one's humanity, one must feel. Making death an abstraction for entertainment cheapens the lives of both the living and the dead.

[Yaddo 42]

I've seen real deaths on TV, like the Vietnam War street execution and people falling and jumping to their deaths during the September 11th attacks, and in videos, like the "Faces of Death" films (even though some were faked) during the morbid fascination phase I had in high school and the Kevin Sykes filmed shooting of a wounded Iraqi insurgent who may have been reaching for a weapon (shown briefly uncut in the documentary "Why We Fight") and I'm aware of some of the more notorious ones making the rounds online.

But I don't think I would watch the Irwin death if I had the chance, besides the base morbidity of watching it, I don't see what I have to gain by watching his death. I can only feel worse afterwards, and Irwin isn't someone I dislike enough to derive some gruesome form of schadenfreude (sp?) from seeing him die. Also if footage of my father's death existed I'd always be disgusted and angry that his death was serving as some grotesque entertainment for anyone, especially complete strangers.

[Just Plain Horse]

Yaddo 42 Wrote:
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> But I don't think I would watch the Irwin death if
> I had the chance, besides the base morbidity of
> watching it, I don't see what I have to gain by
> watching his death. I can only feel worse
> afterwards, and Irwin isn't someone I dislike
> enough to derive some gruesome form of
> schadenfreude (sp?) from seeing him die. Also if
> footage of my father's death existed I'd always be
> disgusted and angry that his death was serving as
> some grotesque entertainment for anyone,
> especially complete strangers.

Well said. I always thought Irwin was a little loopy for tackling animals that could be classified as "dangerous", but I kind of liked his general attitude, so while I think it was inevitable that somebody who does what he did- which could basically be boiled down to invading the "personal space" of creatures capable of killing a human a dozen times over- I would never have any desire to watch him die, or even suffer from wounds received in these encounters. Still, one has to die somehow, and at some time... so who's to say what the right time or right way is?

[dean]

It's a sad moment.  Whilst many Aussies probably joked that they wanted him to be eaten by a croc, everyone was proud to call this nutcase one of us.

It's amazing that his death is being compared to that as Princess Di's.  Even I think that's pretty nutty...

Anyway, it seems like Australian personalities are dropping like flies at the moment.  Legendary racer Peter Brock had a fatal car crash this week as well.

What is most interesting about the Steve Irwin case for me is the amount of media attention it's getting, but not the fact that he died, which is shocking in itself, but the amount the Australian media seems to focus on how much foriegn media has been reacting to his death.  It's as if they're surprised that the rest of the world even knows who he was, despite the fact he made it big in the states before here.

As another bad point, the jokes were already spreading not long after Steve and Brock's deaths.  I won't go into detail, since some were pretty lame and just plain wrong.  Shockers really...

But anyways they both will be missed.  I'm just waiting to see who drops next since someone convinced me the other night that these things usually happen in threes...

[Rombles]

Colin Thiele (author of Storm Boy etc) was the other one, Dean..... we just need to think that and then the rest of our celebrities should be safe.

Actually watching Rock Star : Supernova the other night, and when Toby (the Aussie) commented about the death of a prominent Australian, I was sort of hoping that he would mention Mr Thiele,  just to confuse the yanks ;-)

Gotta say, though, that the Peter Brock death upset me a lot more than Steve Irwins.... but being a massive Holden & Motorsport fan, I guess that would make sense.

So, Dean - are any of those jokes worth sharing? Or should we start a new thread for that?


One comment which was going around work the other day was that both these guys died doing what they loved... and that based on that theory we should all be perfectly safe at work!

[dean]

The jokes are pretty terrible actually, like the rumour that 'Sting' is going to perform at Irwin's funeral [one of the really lame ones]

I won't bother with the rest mainly because of how stupid they mostly are.

I didn't realise about Thiele.  Shows how some deaths are overshadowed by others.

Figured you'd be pretty sad Rombles since I know you're a Holden nut.  I gotta say Brock's death had me in more sympathy than Irwin's.  You don't wish it on either, but at least with Irwin, it was almost expected that something bad was going to happen and you kind of mentally prepared as such.

Ah well...

[daveblackeye15]

Oh my god I forgot his wife is my Eugene Oregon, that's where I live!

In fact I believe either she or Steve was once attended by my best friend's mom. He told me that years ago and I was like "Whoa!"

I need to ask him about that.