George and I were hanging out at the dumpsters Monday. George lives here. He manages the garbage. He's a little older than I am. He looks like a lawn jockey, actual size. He's more old school than I am and that's why he was, in our conversation, dismayed by Ms. Winehouse's sudden legendary status.
"Didn't she have only one album?
"Yeah, but it was more than that. She was about something different. In a world of Beyonce she was going her own way, and that was the point. What do you want, another acceptable, easy, just-like-everyone-else, polished media image? "
George was unconvinced and I spent the week irritated at the world, irritated, specifically, at the whole 'it's no surprise' sentiment everyone is so easily offering and now that I'm watching Inoffensive and Palatable Beyonce on The View, I've got it.
Because it's smug. It's smug and it's entirely dismissive in a smug way to say about Amy Winehouse's death, "Well, it was to be expected." "Well, we knew it was coming." "Well, it's no surprise." It's smug and dismissive and easy and shallow.
Then I decided we need a new Seven Deadly Sins. Smugness, Entitlement, Shallowness, Inability to take responsibility for your actions, Inability to apologize for your transgressions, Egocentrism, and Judgmental (as in Sanctimonious). I'm still working out the details.
Amy Winhouse was different and interesting and I was not expecting her to die, and I'm deeply sorry that she did. The world is harder for some people, it is unforgiving and not everyone has the skin for it, and if you're not a Good Beyonce they judge you and dismiss you while picking leftovers from their teeth. And then they bury you with a glib shrug.
fyi, you can get Inoffensive and Palatable Beyonce at Toys-R-Us, right next to Generations of Dreams Barbie.
