Posted on 01/18/2016 9:59:21 AM PST by rey
Not a Fan
by Theodore Dalrymple
January 16, 2016
One should not speak ill of the dead, of course, especially of the recently dead, but it does not follow that one should speak well of them, or speak of them at all. Personally I was astonished at the amount of coverage given to the death of David Bowie. One might have thought he was really a figure of world historical importance such as David Beckham or Leonard DiCaprio.
On the day after his death, the supposedly serious newspaper that I take most often when I am in Britain, The Guardian, ran a special 12-page supplement on his life and activity, as well as five pages in its normal section. There have been articles about him on the two subsequent days. I wait patiently for the tide to turn.
(Excerpt) Read more at takimag.com ...
Good assessment. Cultural and moral relativism is our bane.
That was from the article. I listened to a lot of Bowie when I was young...even some now on my hand-held device. I remember reading that he was a very good business person, as opposed to many rock & rollers that blew their money on drugs, sex and booze.
Oh, the good old days...
Oh, do they? That must be really entertaining to gun folks here who keep up with the Daily Mail. I, myself, enjoy reading dumb remarks about our geography.
If an entertainer died and I wasn’t a fan, I’d ignore his death and find something interesting to write about.
Instead, this guy gives Bowie more attention.
Strange obsession.
I’m not a fan of Bowie either, though I like a few on his songs OK.
I use Zone Alarm and SuperAntiSpyware ... so far no problems.
And then bringing up the 4 million mourners brings any celebrity worship criticism crashing to the ground.
You know, he didn’t make that up, right? It was a saying long before that song.
Mozart's funeral was attended by a handful of people -- does that mean he wasn't a "genuinely great popular" composer?
Dalrymple also criticizes Bowie's lyrics. But what songwriting credits does Kulthum have? The writer's apples and oranges comparisons are silly.
It wasn’t Bowie’s lyrics, it was the way Bowie sang them, he had a very unique style of phrasing, which is difficult to imitate.
If you were never a weirdo you’ll never understand the Bowie fan. Through all of his various incarnations, with varying levels of artistic success, the one true message of Bowie was that the freaks and the outcasts were OK in his book. Bowie was a constant inspiration to the weirdos of the world that it could indeed all work out, that they weren’t doomed to life as outsiders, that they could build a happy life, and while they might never be understood, that’s OK too.
As for why a “respectable” news organ would devote so much space to covering him in his death, just who do you think GOES to journalism school? And really, the guy’s influence on popular culture is difficult to over estimate, especially in this day and age where nerd culture IS pop culture. The people who were going to San Diego Comicon 25 years ago, before it became the place to promote your tent-pole movie, were dorks and Bowie fans, and were laying the building blocks for the billion dollar movie franchises of today. In this day when the nerds are triumphant, that means the Bowie fans are triumphant, and when the people making most of today’s have a sad it going to be big news.
He was obviously being facetious with the DiCaprio and Beckham references. Perhaps he should have put “figure of world historical importance” in quotes, but it ought to be self-evident.
On the other hand he legitimized the notion that going tranny was ok, and look where THAT’s gotten us.
American teens knew about weird sex stuff long before Bowie. If anything they might have introduced it to Bowie, they didn’t call it The Riot House for nothing.
I don’t know if he legitimized it, but he at least wasn’t worried about it. It takes a much larger chunk of culture than even David Bowie could sway to legitimize something. Legitimizing trans dressing probably starts with Milton Berle, that whole school of comedy put more people in drag on more American TVs than Bowie ever did.
I do not think that appealing to weirdos should earn you reverence. Do we revere Larry Flint?
As someone noted earlier, he legitimizes aberrant behavior, as does mainstream culture in general. That is not necessarily a good thing.
Different kind of weirdo. Bowie’s weirdo group was the nerds, dorks, dweebs, and social misfits that made the computer you’re using even happen.
He did not legitimize aberrant behavior. That person was wrong, and repeating dumb doesn’t make it smart. he legitimized not fitting in. Vastly different.
Him and Jagger made androgyny ‘hot.’
The author prefers the baroque stylings of his own farts, not the music of plebes.
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