SmArts

January 25-31, 2016

On public mourning

By Molly Rector

Last week, after his death, I wrote about David Bowie. It seems to have been a bad week for the arts community. Several other celebrated artists and actors died, including beloved film actor Alan Rickman, as well as two very important poets: C. D. Wright of Mountain Home, Ark., and Francisco X. Alarcón. Of course, very few poets gain the kind of acclaim actors and musicians do, so I won’t be surprised if many readers haven’t heard of these last two, but I’ve got a very poetry-oriented circle of friends. And it’s my friends who have me thinking this week.

I learned about all of these events from a veritable flood of social media posts – in-the-moment reactions, ringing of shock and disappointment. It’s understandable: social media creates a pressure to make statements (“updates”) about significant events in our lives. So, for people who are very publicly fans of the Harry Potter movies (and books), the public nature of the fandom means it would feel strange not to make some sort of statement commemorating Alan Rickman as Professor Snape.

Leaving aside how strange (and interesting and kind of beautiful) a phenomenon it is that we are so moved by the deaths of strangers, I think this puts us into a strange bind in which people are expected to mourn publicly what they have publically celebrated, once it’s gone.

While I don’t think this is always true, I do think this has the potential to turn grief into a sort of public relations campaign, especially when we apply the same kind of reasoning to events happening on the more personal scale – something I, myself, am guilty of.

I don’t generally post public reactions to celebrity deaths, but I do very much understand this pressure – the pressure not only to respond to events, but to very visibly feel about them, to digest and articulate those feelings, and to make clear, identifiable statements about them.

I don’t know what I think about this. In one sense, it’s kind of beautiful that each of these artists gets many thousands of tributes. And in another, I think the written nature of social media is important for helping people articulate emotions (something we’re not always good at). But, as always, I’ve got questions about depth, and range, and the value to the person sharing.

Molly Rector is a staff writer for the Daily Record. Contact her at molly@dailydata.com.