Meg rants about Heath Ledger's death!

For my younger readers:

There has been sadness in this house today. At least three of us are Heath Ledger fans and he is dead. A bright light has gone out. You may have noticed that on my profile, I list two of my favourite films as ‘A Knight’s Tale’ and ‘Brokeback Mountain.’ Leave ‘Brokeback Mountain’ for now. It is very moving but you may find it disturbing. But do watch ‘A Knight’s Tale’ if you haven’t seen it. It is funny, quirky, slightly off-the-wall and like no other film I have seen. It has a great and completely inappropriate sound-track – and that’s one of the things that’s so delightfully odd about it. And Heath Ledger plays the leading role. Another of his that you may enjoy is ’10 things I hate about you’ which as an updated version of Shakespeare’s ‘The Taming of the Shrew’, set in a high school.

The cause of his death has not been identified yet – but he has recently had a history of drug abuse and has been in rehab. You will have been told this again and again but I’ll say it to you too. Don’t go there. Just say ‘No!’

For my more wrinkly readers:

I’m a Heath Ledger fan. I was going to write about something completely different tonight but I want to pay my respects. He was a very fine and talented actor. I didn’t know he was only 28 – I’m not a groupie – I just admire his work and, let’s not deny it, he was what my daughters would call ‘a hottie’! His astonishingly sensitive performance in ‘Brokeback Mountain’ suggested he was at least into his thirties to me. It seems to me quite beyond the normal reach of a 28 year old to turn in a performance of such perception and maturity.

But that, perhaps, is the point. That, perhaps, is why he was vulnerable to the lure of drugs. It’s a cliché that there isn’t much to divide genius and madness. I’m not suggesting that Heath was mad. Madness is a derogatory and not very helpful word – it conjures up images that are not representative of real mental health problems, the most common of which in this day and age appear to be depression and stress-related illnesses. One in six of us will suffer from depression at some time in our lives. One in ten children has a mental health problem.

Who knows what was going on inside for Heath? What we do know is that he felt pressurized by the paparazzi and detested living his life under the public gaze. His relationship with the mother of his daughter lasted only a couple of years. We have a picture of a young man of towering talent who put in some excellent work on some quality movies, was catapulted into stardom and all that that involves - and then crumpled. How often do we hear that story? There is a killing contradiction going on here. We claim to value our celebrities so much – and yet what we do is destroy them through media pressure, invasion of their privacy and paying them far too much money. In fact, we have no respect for them, we are simply deeply selfish in our attitude. There is a voracious appetite for magazines such as ‘Heat’ and ‘Hello’ and so our stars are hounded. We are not satisfied by the display of their work; we want the display of their private lives too. And we could not do it to more vulnerable people. It seems to me, to be a fine actor, there has to be high intelligence and an abnormally sensitive nature, both of which, in my view, are also likely to make someone at risk of becoming mentally unstable. To an extent, I’ve been there myself. As a teenager I was very aware of and almost overwhelmed by images coming out of the Biafran war. At school we studied war poetry. It was the time of the Cold War. Apocalypse was on our minds. There were endless bomb scares with the troubles in Northern Ireland at a peak. I am not extremely intelligent or over-sensitive but I definitely began to have mental health problems. Our actors ‘live’ some of the most distressing scenarios our world can throw at us for our edification and entertainment – and live in the same world as us, with its continual bombardment of pain. How must it feel to deal with all that – with a heightened intelligence and sensitivity too? Given the money to indulge, the temptation to ‘drown sorrow’ or find a chemical escape must be hard to resist.

Yet instead of caring for our young talents, be they actors, musicians, footballers or sportspeople, our society hounds them. Their privacy is destroyed and they have no place to go. How attractive a drug-induced space might appear!

The felony is compounded by the amount they are paid. I don’t know how you solve this one. The situation is obscenely out of hand and I don’t know how you turn the clock back. But I am convinced that, psychologically, it is deeply unhealthy to be paid as we know some footballers and film stars are paid. We are telling them that they are special, way out and beyond the scope of any human specialness. Buoyed up to believe that you are Superman or Woman, how does it then feel when things aren’t going so well? Or when you’re faced with the ordinary day to day tetchiness of living with other people? Or when, despite your specialness, your toddler won’t sleep or throws a tantrum that you simply cannot deal with? And you have all this money, this mark of your specialness – and it is no help whatsoever. Is it surprising that again and again, we see these young people crash hard and often fatally?

What are we up to? Why can we not offer affirmation rather than adoration, respect rather than ruthlessness? Is it jealousy? Is there a streak in society which wants to prove that these people are not so special after all? They may be brilliant – but that doesn’t mean they will survive. Is it just a bigger and nastier version of what happens in schools the world over – the clever kids get picked on until they crumple? We claim to admire ability – but really we can’t bear it or those who have it?

Let’s roll out a cliché. What a tragic waste! Obviously, Heath had issues. He was in turmoil. His inner life is implicated in his death. But so is his public life. Our society – we – should take a share of the responsibility for ‘tragic waste’ happening again and again and again.

I don’t buy women’s magazines – I made that decision a long time ago for other reasons. Maybe I’ll write a blog about that! Life is better without them. Our stars lives would be better without them. Take a small step. Don’t buy them. Don’t even read them at the dentist’s! The supply of invasive material about celebrities’ private lives will only dry up when there is no demand. So don’t demand it – please! And maybe our shining talents will be allowed to live in peace. Or just live.

Now watch Heath Ledger’s films! That’s the best mark of respect.