http://movies.yahoo.com/photos/collections/gallery/2441/corey-haim-obit-%20gallery/fp#photo0
I would like to share a couple hypotheses that have been rolling around in my brain for the last year or so, in the wake of a number of celebrity deaths, as well as real world afflications for my age and peer group:
1. The 30s are the new 20s - In the real sense that adolescence now seems to run on ad nauseum, no matter what one's ostensible responsibilities are: parenthood, career, et al. I feel, with certain exceptions, that my generation has taken "Peter Pan" syndrome to the next level - creating feelings of entitlement and invincibility. When drugs enter into that picture, as they did for Heath Ledger, Brittany Murphy, and Corey Haim - all people old enough to know better than to mix medications - the results are carelessly deadly. Instead of a 23 year-old River Phoenix collapsing in front of the Viper Room after a coke binge, in the 21st century, we see delayed Hollywood hedonists going to sleep in their own beds and never waking up.
2. Simultaneously, and somewhat paradoxically, the 30s and are also the new 40s. - Though Peter Pan may never want to grow up, there does come a time when self-awareness creeps in, no matter how long one has fought against it. If one if 38 years old, living with his mother, as Haim was, and a Hollywood hasbeen with a pill problem, he must occasionally experience twin realizations: what has been lost as well as what will never be again. I would argue that nothing is more soul deadening than the combination of youth and failure, a sense that you have years in front of you, only to remember what you've already missed. No wonder so many of these sad individuals turn to the easy coping strategy of self-medication. For them, the cliche midlife crisis comes a decade early.
Lindsay Lohan would seem to be a candidate for succumbing to the combination of an ever unencumbered adulthood, and the knowledge that she has already seen her professional peak. At only 23, she is ramping up the new Hollywood breakdown cycle.
However, I think my hypotheses are applicable to 30-somethings outside of Hollywood as well. On a much smaller scale, I am not immune to waffling between the idea that I am not fully formed, yet should have accomplished something bigger by now. But what I have, that I fear Heath, Brittany and Corey did not, is a proper support network, people who genuinely care about me. For my sister, husband, family and friends, there would be no fear or enabling if I went off track. They would try to pull me back, because their own fortunes are not tied to my professional solvency (I am talking to you Simon Monjack!). Money and selflessness are two words rarely viewed in the same sentence.
I started this post with the intention of waxing nostalgic about Corey Haim's memorable performances - Lucas, The Lost Boys, License to Drive and other staples of the 1980s. However, there are plenty of web and TV tributes of that sort already.
I like to think this spate of young celebrity overdoses presents a learning opportunity. A platform for discussing how we, as a society, can help reverse the trend of avoidable prescription drug deaths amongst young people, both famous and not. Deaths that I postulate are brought about in part by a combination of being told as a child that you will own the world (I think generations before were taught to think a bit smaller), then realizing well into your adulthood that you might just be a regular person. Why is that so tough to accept in the media age? There is no pill you can pop which cures normalcy.
I would like to share a couple hypotheses that have been rolling around in my brain for the last year or so, in the wake of a number of celebrity deaths, as well as real world afflications for my age and peer group:
1. The 30s are the new 20s - In the real sense that adolescence now seems to run on ad nauseum, no matter what one's ostensible responsibilities are: parenthood, career, et al. I feel, with certain exceptions, that my generation has taken "Peter Pan" syndrome to the next level - creating feelings of entitlement and invincibility. When drugs enter into that picture, as they did for Heath Ledger, Brittany Murphy, and Corey Haim - all people old enough to know better than to mix medications - the results are carelessly deadly. Instead of a 23 year-old River Phoenix collapsing in front of the Viper Room after a coke binge, in the 21st century, we see delayed Hollywood hedonists going to sleep in their own beds and never waking up.
2. Simultaneously, and somewhat paradoxically, the 30s and are also the new 40s. - Though Peter Pan may never want to grow up, there does come a time when self-awareness creeps in, no matter how long one has fought against it. If one if 38 years old, living with his mother, as Haim was, and a Hollywood hasbeen with a pill problem, he must occasionally experience twin realizations: what has been lost as well as what will never be again. I would argue that nothing is more soul deadening than the combination of youth and failure, a sense that you have years in front of you, only to remember what you've already missed. No wonder so many of these sad individuals turn to the easy coping strategy of self-medication. For them, the cliche midlife crisis comes a decade early.
Lindsay Lohan would seem to be a candidate for succumbing to the combination of an ever unencumbered adulthood, and the knowledge that she has already seen her professional peak. At only 23, she is ramping up the new Hollywood breakdown cycle.
However, I think my hypotheses are applicable to 30-somethings outside of Hollywood as well. On a much smaller scale, I am not immune to waffling between the idea that I am not fully formed, yet should have accomplished something bigger by now. But what I have, that I fear Heath, Brittany and Corey did not, is a proper support network, people who genuinely care about me. For my sister, husband, family and friends, there would be no fear or enabling if I went off track. They would try to pull me back, because their own fortunes are not tied to my professional solvency (I am talking to you Simon Monjack!). Money and selflessness are two words rarely viewed in the same sentence.
I started this post with the intention of waxing nostalgic about Corey Haim's memorable performances - Lucas, The Lost Boys, License to Drive and other staples of the 1980s. However, there are plenty of web and TV tributes of that sort already.
I like to think this spate of young celebrity overdoses presents a learning opportunity. A platform for discussing how we, as a society, can help reverse the trend of avoidable prescription drug deaths amongst young people, both famous and not. Deaths that I postulate are brought about in part by a combination of being told as a child that you will own the world (I think generations before were taught to think a bit smaller), then realizing well into your adulthood that you might just be a regular person. Why is that so tough to accept in the media age? There is no pill you can pop which cures normalcy.
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I think your point in the last paragraph is well taken. Not only are kids told they will own the world, they come to expect much of it will be handed to them. Not a big surprise this jackass didn't live to see 40. Remind me next time I see you to tell you my Corey Haim story told to me by a friend who used to be a movie editor in L.A.
ReplyDelete-Mr. A
If you believe the reports out today, we may all be in for surprise. Seems he may have had an unknown heart defect??? Also, it turned out Brittany Murphy's cause of death was not drug related. But people like these two make it hard to believe otherwise when everything publicized about them is drug-filled. They cheat themselves out of an less sensastionalized death by going down that road in the first place. They have made it so they can't even die in peace. Shame.
ReplyDeleteI beg to differ. Brittany Murphy's death was most certainly drug related. She became weak and sick because of her repeated prescription drug abuses. Then continuing to take drugs while ill (and not getting medical attention) finished her off. No one dies at 32 from "natural causes."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tmz.com/2010/02/04/brittany-murphys-cause-of-death/
Please see bolded line in the link above that mentions "multiple drug intoxication." Of course her greasy husband would like to proclaim otherwise because he was her enabler.
Likewise with Corey Haim, 20 years of hard core drug abuse, because it was coke and "real" stuff before it was pills, were the cause of this supposed heart condition. I will again refer you to our old friend Grover, who had 5 heart attacks before the age of 50. Famous cokehead in the 80s. Or old hippie pal Bano, who had a heart attack and a stroke - another famous Coke lover.
I am no one to judge. I have loved, and continue to love some of the illicit substances myself. However, these tragedies are the result of young people poisoning and punishing their own bodies, because they think they are invincible, and because they have a hard time dealing with reality. It makes me angry. Because especially in Heath Ledger's case, but others as well, we were cheated out of a lifetime of art.