The Scripted End of Anna Nicole
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in In The News, NewsFrom a purely narrative point-of-view, Anna Nicole Smith has suffered the perfect end. A tabloid death to punctuate a tabloid life. Cue the music for True Hollywood Stories, we have a great American tale here.
More so than any other modern celebrity, Anna Nicole epitomized the commoditization of fame. With no discernable talent, man-made D-cups and a moderately attractive face, Anna Nicole was famous simply because our culture demands more celebrity than the genuinely talented can provide. By being the right type at the right places and making the right choices (and the right mistakes), Anna Nicole became famous. An inflatable celebrity product.
What makes the Anna Nicole variety of celebrity so fascinating is their endless quest for attention. Unlike those who have talent and will continue to garner attention for that talent, Anna Nicole celebs catch the spotlight because of their fame and maintain their fame by staying in the spotlight. Only through ballsy acts of gold-digging matrimony, high-level court cases, humiliating reality television and bizarre paternity disputes could a woman of Anna Nicole’s limited appeal stay on the covers, or at least on the insets, of so many major magazines.
So, what better way to secure her endless celebrity than by meeting an untimely end? No fading into obscurity for Anna Nicole. No, she will now live on as a member of the died-too-young club that fittingly includes Jayne Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe, the two bombshells on which Anna Nicole’s handlers originally modeled her upon.
For those who knew the real Anna Nicole Smith and certainly for her newborn child, her death is a tragic loss. But for the rest of us, there is something entirely unsurprising, something bizarrely preordained about this event. Our celebrity culture lives for these moments of sudden death just as it feeds on turbulent lives of the world’s Anna Nicoles – an endless parade of unremarkable humans become shallow distractions become paper icons.
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February 9th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
How dare you sir put Anna Nicole Smith in “the same club” as Jane Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe!
What the bloody hell…that is like comparing…”Casa Blanca” with some low budget porn. As Vincent said in Pulp Fiction, “ain’t the same fuckin’ ballpark, it ain’t the same league, it ain’t even the same fuckin’ sport.”
Jane and Marilyn were icons, godesses, talented, classy, legends – they were masters of their divine feminine attributes and used it with a cunning stylistic genius, putting a stamp on popular cultural forever. They were both very intelligent and lived shining, if at times difficult, lives. They were in fact, remarkable. Their deaths were perhaps predictable as a shooting star burns up in the sky.
Anna was not remarkable. She was (rest her soul) a simple Texas whore and there is no indication that she was brighter than she acted. Her death is sad, but not as sad as her life. Her death was predictable also, but not because of the brightness of her star, but rather the pathetic trajectory of her life which orbited exploitation and catastrophe at all times.
To elevate her to the same “club” as Jane Mansfield and Maryln Monroe does a disservice to women, the culture, history and all that is good and right.
Yes, Jane and Marilyn ultimately died young. Jane leaving her head in Mississippi en route to Louisiana and Marilyn, of course, going the way of a drug overdose. It is their lives that should be compared, not their deaths and they should never be considered part of the same club.
Shame on you Mr. Carl.
February 9th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
I think you’re overreacting a bit, DosPeros. Mansfield and and Monroe have the charm of distance, now, but they Monroe at least has more in common with Smith than you’d probably like to admit. Let us not forget that Monroe broke into the film business by getting on her knees–and I don’t mean she was begging.
True, Smith was a talentless gold-digger, whereas Monroe porked JFK. But there are perfectly valid reasons to compare the two.
February 9th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Heliologue – indeed Monroe did pork JFK (and Robert, too) and Joe DiMaggio and Aurthor Miller. Now that is a class, man. There is a difference between promiscuity and slutty whorishness, that being the Caliber of the Man. (I fancy she would have given it up to DosPeros if fate had brought us together for martinees at the Cocoa Cabana on that hot sultry night…nevermind.)
Who did Ms. Smith screw? No one of import or class. Her sexual exploits were merely her own objectification. Even worse, th men that did her were probably thinking of Jane Mansfield or Maryln Monroe while they sadistically pounded into her artificial domes.
February 9th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Dos,
Perhaps it’s all part of the decline of America. Like our presidents, our prematurely dead blonde bombshells just aren’t what they once were.
February 9th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
To read about the back story surrounding the Anna Nicole Smith tragedy and her battle with long-time adversary, E. Pierce Marshall…link here:
http://www.thoughttheater.com
February 10th, 2007 at 2:40 am
[...] No, she will now live on as a member of the died-too-young club that fittingly includes Jayne Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe, the two bombshells on which Anna … Source http://donklephant.com/2007/02/09/the-scripted-end-of-anna-niccole/ [...]
March 6th, 2007 at 12:34 am
Way too many questions surrounding this thing.
Why doesn’t or couldn’t Anna’s mysterious ‘nurse’ call 911 him/herself
(no cell phone, room phones don’t allow 911 calls), but Anna’s
bodyguard’s wife (the nurse?) could/did call her husband?
Who was in Anna’s suite before her death and when did any one last
look in on Anna after whoever else was in the suite might have left
Anna last or how long did the nurse leave Anna alone after illness and
the accompanying head injury?
What was Anna’s ‘nurse’ doing before apparently only checking on Anna midday and after Anna had earlier suffered a head injury in a bathtub fall (left alone to bath) when Anna seemingly needed and hired a nurse?
Is this nurse actually a nurse?
Was Anna’s bodyguard’s wife this nurse and if not since his wife
called Mo who then drove across town, arrived, administered more CPR, why was it that ‘Mrs. Mo’ phoned Mo and not 9-1-1 (reportedly after having said to Mo on her ‘cell’ phone that she couldn’t call 911)?
What possible good reason was there that Mo’s wife needed Mo there
instead of calling 9-1-1 and apparently she only called way after Mo
arrived (having stopped his wife’s giving CPR), took over CPR ‘on the
bed’, then failing at that, only then was Anna properly placed Anna on
the floor to receive CPR?
And since apparently Mo’s wife was the ‘nurse’, how is it that she
failed to properly act on so many things (i.e.; leaving Anna alone for
how long, not recognizing the need to and calling a Doctor, ‘refusing’
to call 911, and seems fairly incompetent at performing CPR) and what other ‘duties’ did the ‘nurse’ perform?
Why hasn’t the autopsy at least disclosed the actual indicated time of
death as it is obvious Anna died before paramedics arrived (how long
was she dead before the ‘nurse’ did anything)? Isn’t that one of the
first things usually determined?
Has the nurse been tested for drugs and what is this nurse’s history
of drug abuse him/her self?
How is it that Stern or anybody else assure Anna was being cared for
by competent people when she was obviously so ill that she’d then hit
her head in a bath tub fall?
Why didn’t someone, anyone help this woman as there are laws about being incompetent and she was so overtly and nearly always drugged and/or drunken so as to support someone/anyone committing her so as to get her help. There was certainly enough money to be ‘watched over’ for her.
Who or what kind of person do you need to be before these questions
are asked?
The whole thing stinks.