Molly, We Hardly Knew Ye


Molly IvinsMolly Ivins is dead.
Molly Ivins, the acerbic-witted thorn in the side of every dirty political pimp, playa and ho is dead.
Molly Ivins, the conscience of Texas politics, who followed the man she called “Shrub” from Austin to Washington, never letting him fart in a broom closet without calling him on it, is dead.
Molly Ivins, the loving, idealistic, quixotic, justice-minded, freedom-loving angel of the printed word is dead.
Molly Ivins, whose marriage of fact and opinion, impeccable turn of phrase, mastery of glad repartee; whose candor, easy style and sharp wit gave blogging a Chicago Austin Manual of Style is dead.

Dead, dead, dead. Last Wednesday, 530pm Austin time.

Great obits in papers everywhere. But it all boils down to yet-another woman taken by a cancer that was practically unknown a generation ago.

I will miss her as much as one who has never known her could. The way our mothers and grandmothers miss Elvis and Johnny Ray.

But I really didn’t start this post with the intention of writing about Molly Ivins. I wanted to write about Anna Nicole Smith.

Because, in case you haven’t been hit in the face by a snowball with this fact written on it, Anna Nicole Smith is dead.

CNN.com, Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS, are all leading with the Anna Nicole story as though it actually matters one iota to the public discourse.

Are we so mind-numbingly apathetic that bbc.co.uk’s headline: Palestinian rivals in unity deal
doesn’t matter?

When the passing of a voice that put bread on the table of our daily lives garners less than a minute in the feeble minds of the credit card-swiping herd, and at the same time are utterly saturated with news of the passing of someone who was more like a bedsore on the ass of the Great Society, we are in trouble.

Anna Nicole Smith represented everything that was wrong with this society, our culture and our media. It’s sad that anybody cares about a washed up B-lister whose greatest contribution to anything public was her decision to get implants - again.

A trillion dollars pissed away in Iraq, signing statements, Patriot Act, Bankruptcy Law, inflation, deflation, conflagration, immolation, desperation, capitulation.

Molly can’t be replaced. Anna can.

Autopsy results at 11.

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February 8th, 2007
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Viewing 38 Comments

    • ^
    • v
    So, Brendan -- how do you really feel?

    Kidding. I was heartbroken when I heard Molly Ivins died. A quick inhale, shock to the system. She was so great. I felt that same sadness when I heard Paul Wellstone died. That's already been five years ago.

    I do have to say though -- when I saw that Anna Nicole Smith died when I opened up yahoo today, I was stunned. And not because I cared that much for her. I actually disliked her a lot. I watched that show of hers once and my God, what an embarrassment. It stunned me from the standpoint -- of Oh my God, you can just drop dead at any moment kind of stunned.

    Oh well. Happens to everyone.
    • ^
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    Forgot to add the word "Dammit" at the end there...
    • ^
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    I hope that when I die my implants get me on the index.html of yahoo!
    • ^
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    B, I have a friend who said once that when he dies he's so insignificant that he won't even get ...

    Man died today.

    He wouldn't even rate a generic headline. That always made me laugh.
    • ^
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    Thanks for this. It is brutally phrased, but it needed to be said. At the message board where I occasionally hang out, which is a pretty good cross-section of American women, people were discussing this as though it was some sort of national tragedy. Plenty of Marilyn Monroe comparisons, and even (god help us) Jean Harlow. Anyone pointing out that ANS was hardly a loss to the cinematic arts, national dialogue or even to reality TV ran the risk of being shouted down as heartless.

    Now mind you, I kinda liked old Anna Nicole. She reminded me of the golddigging showgirls in the Busby Berkeley movies I loved. But even a mild call for a teensy bit of perspective was greeted with remarks like "Some people feel the need to let us all know how superior they are, how they care about 'real
    issues.'" "Life is wonderful on my high horse." "Why do poeple insist on doing the 'Well, this death is worse than that death' thing?"

    So aside from thinking I won't be posting there much in future, I am thinking something is seriously, seriously messed up here. In the end, your post makes me wonder which came first, the appalling skewed priorities of the American public, or the ludicrous trivialization of the media, especially the news channels. Or are we all merrily going to hell in the same handbasket?
    • ^
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    I can't believe I forgot to add this, knowing how much our Dear Editor loves top 10 lists. One of my all-time favorite lists is Molly Ivins' Top 3 Most Overrated Things:
    Young pussy, Mack trucks and the FBI.

    Every word that woman uttered was memorable. Nobody could skewer a worshiped institution like she could, with so few words!

    What a loss.

    And Anna Nicole is all over the papers today. "The Scandalous Life of Anna Nicole Smith" "TV Personality Dies" etc. >>
    • ^
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    I loaned "Shrub" to a friend a few years ago and never got it back. Bummer. I'd love to re-read it now.

    I've been avoiding TV all week, so I haven't seen all the Anna hoopla. It's all just easier. That's all. Easier to talk about, easier to understand, easier to listen to. Just easier. It's lazy entertainment. I wouldn't want to live my life like she did and be remembered for what she's going to be remembered for -- but, there are all kinds.
    • ^
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    "Some people feel the need to let us all know how superior they are, how they care about ‘real
    issues.’” “Life is wonderful on my high horse.”

    Yep, you're seen as a Self-Righteous Wet Blanket if you say anything at all. It's sad.
    • ^
    • v
    Molly was a keen observer and a great writer.
    The point about ANS to me is that one dead Marine in Baghdad is worth 20 of ANS. And we cover 3,000 of their deaths like footnotes.
    • ^
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    SSS - you make a really good point about the dearth of culture in our culture. I think about the commoditization of "news" and the saturation of parent-company-serving advertorials as grounded in two important events that happened in the recent past. Obviously the deregulation of the media by Reagan was important, but also the power shift in the studios was huge. When the heads went from creatives to lawyers, the quality of product out of hollywood went down the drain. There were pure business-side executives making creative decisions based on actuarial projections that I have no doubt were "points-driven". Like "A-lister MFN = 10 points" "B-lister MFN = 5" "A-lister female nudity = 10" "Mass killing = 10" "Pet rabbit in boiling water = 10" and so on. When the points were added up in a spreadsheet, the project got done or killed depending.
    We're paying the price for it now with reality TV and Anna Nicole.
    • ^
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    Tom - not to mention the 130 Iraqis who died Saturday for, in essence, daring to go outside. That news story didn't even make it to Sunday afternoon.

    And I don't buy that we care about ANS because she was closer to us or more like us or whatever. You can't care about people who remain all but invisible on our screens. Show some grieving people for more than a 10-second pullback shot, go back to their house and interview them a year later, people will care. You have to see something for longer than the length of an explosion in a video game in order to feel.

    But who is willing to do that? As Brendan points out in his comment, the idea that news serves any sort of public-spirited function is today regarded as quaint.
    • ^
    • v
    So if Anna Nicole Smith decided to be all that she could be and signed up to go fight in Iraq and kill all the perpetrators of 9/11 would that have given her life any meaning in your eyes?
    • ^
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    Absolutely, because right or wrong it would have been in service to something other than self.
    • ^
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    This is a "star" who sold pictures of her dead 20-year-old son to the tabloids...the only talent she had was attracting attention. She was nothing like Monroe, who had a real screen presence and a gift for humor.
    • ^
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    The Unabomber was serving us all by trying to save us from a horrible world full of technology. Right or wrong. I hope you don't disparage his life like you did Smith.

    I agree that the news is skewed. The media's priorities are twisted. What does that say about us? But what does it say about you that you need to make your point by trashing Smith. A woman nobody has accused of being mean or of harming anyone. You are being just as sensational in your critique of the news as you accuse them of being.

    From the few episodes of her show I saw she struck me as a very troubled but kind person. And that can be said of many, many around us. And not all of us make great sacrifices for humanity. And they/we/you/I are not all bedsores because of it.

    Smith's death doesn't really effect me. But I felt sad for her and the tragedies leading up to her death and I therefore felt the need to defend her.
    • ^
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    Come on Tom W. ANS has more in common with Monroe than differences.
    • ^
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    The Unabomber, David Koresh, eric Rudolph - all examples of people who sacrificed themselves for what they thought was the betterment of our society. But my point was twofold, to praise molly and bury anna nicole.
    Look, as you said, there are good, nice, kind people all around us. The difference between them and ANS is that she was given everything she could ever have imaginably needed, and she used it to become a dumb-blonde-joke.

    It is indeed a sickness in our society that we completely ignore the things that matter (like the war) and instead endlessly consume titillating nonsense that makes no contribution to the betterment of mankind in any way, and doesn't even pretend to.

    If my comments seemed mean, so be it, but she was symbolic of the *problem* our society is stuck in, as long as there are Anna Nicoles and Paris Hiltons to keep us distracted, the hole we are in just gets deeper and deeper.
    • ^
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    I understand your anger and/or frustration but is it really the fault of Smith and Hilton? I think they are a symptom, not the cause. If the world didn't want dumb blond jokes, they wouldn't exist.
    • ^
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    Nah, slappy. they don't live in a vacuum and these are not stupid people. They know what they're doing, they know what they represent and they think it's all okey dokey. So they are both symptom and cause.
    But I'm not mad at Anna Nicole, per se, it's society's fault that she became what she became.
    • ^
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    No way Slapster - Marilyn actually left behind product, she had talent, she did stuff. Smith did nothing. Then she became foolish.
    And no way is she a pure victim, a mere product of a bitter society - no one is. In part, she made herself who she was - too pride in it, self-promoted herself, sold pictures of her still-warm dead son.
    • ^
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    Tom W:
    Blond bombshell who first made a name for themselves taking off their clothes.
    Married for money/power/fame.
    Enjoyed the spotlight.
    Extremely famous.
    Drug problems.
    Involved with scandal.
    Died young.

    How many Americans fit this description? They are very similar. Monroe was probably smarter and handled her career better. A more successful career no doubt and a better actress but from every account I have seen, Monroe was the most difficult and frustrating actress to work with. Her costars hated her for her unprofessionalism.

    I am no Monroe biographer but they appear to me to be quite similar. Years ago stars were expected to be multi talented. (How many movie stars today can tap dance like Cagney?) Today stars are more one dimensional. This might set them apart as Monroe also recorded music and such but they basically filled the same position in their own respective eras.

    I feel silly even discussing this.
    • ^
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    Slap - ANS actually did nothing. Monroe did. ANS wasn't a real star, she was a celebrity - huge difference. And here's the clincher: Monroe = remembered 40 years later. ANS = forgotten by August.
    • ^
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    I'm fairly certain ANS's memory will live on as long as the sure-to-be endless litigation surrounding everything she ever became involved in. Tom W is right though, she was not a "star".
    • ^
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    Slappy, ok, there's a few biographical similarities, although I would argue Monroe married for love, and was the worse for doing so. But the comparison still won't stand. Anna Nicole didn't give a standout performance in All About Eve, The Asphalt Jungle, Some Like It Hot or The Misfits. Hell, Anna didn't even make Gentleman Prefer Blondes or How to Marry a Millionaire, though she seems to have taken the latter title to heart, if not the love-conquers-all theme. I sincerely believe that if Monroe hadn't made movies that remain eminently watchable forty years after her death, she would be a vaguely remembered pop-culture trivia question, like Jayne Mansfield.
    • ^
    • v
    Monroe certainly is/was more famous. And will be remembered long from now. Monroe's face will sell t-shirts long after we have all forgotten ANS. I wont argue that.

    I was not around during Monroe's days but did they not both provide the same service to the general public? Blonde bombshell. Every generation has to have one. We are lucky enough to have two. The other even more talented: Pamela Anderson ;)

    Monroe married for love? She loved both DiMaggio and Miller? Was she also in love with JFK? I suppose its possible.
    • ^
    • v
    Well, at least Pam Anderson did Baywatch. Love it or hate it, it was a long running series and also starred the inestimable D. Hasselhoff.

    Baywatch will live on in syndication and a whole new generation of pubescent boys will pantingly marvel at Pam's substantial assets.
    • ^
    • v
    The Siren has it - bombshell blondes are fine, even laudable, but really just celebrity footnotes. Bombshell blondes with real talent? An entirely different formula.

    By the way, Rita Cosby just promo'd an exclusive tour of the autopsy room where Anna was examined. Closeups of the instruments. "Fascinating," says Rita.

    Digusting, says me.
    • ^
    • v
    I loved Molly Ivins more than anyone I have never met, the fact that I am mentioning a truly significant human being and ANS in the same comment bothers me quite a bit, but here goes...
    I sat in Applebee's last night captive to a TV on every wall tuned to MSNBC droning on for over an hour (slow service at the bar in Aplebee's) about ANS as though it was a huge tragedy that a bimbo succumbs to her life style... ho hum. No one is happy she is dead, except perhaps Ryan O'Neal (bumps him off the front page) and the various in-sundry victims of her law suits, but damn, it was Not tragic, it was Not momentous and it was not even particularly surprising.

    PS. Comparing ANS to Monroe is sacrilege.
    • ^
    • v
    It says something really sad when, at a blog ostensibly about art and criticism, the words Marilyn Monroe and talent are used in the same sentence. Sheesh.

    She's known now because she fucked the Kennedys. I laugh whenever I hear people who knew her, esp. men, claim she was smart, or talented (perhaps with her tongue). Have you ever watched her movies? She was not Lucille Ball, nor even Doris Day. And, as far as sex appeal, MM was white trash. Grace Kelly beat her in every way. As did Audrey Hepburn.

    ANS was no winner, but their similarities are astounding. Their biggest difference was that ANS was even dumber. She fucked losers like that Kato Kaelin look alike- not exactly RFK, JFK, Art Miller, or Joe D. So, MM was a higher class whore. Great. How about some philosophy?
    • ^
    • v
    PS. Comparing ANS to Monroe is sacrilege.

    It's a purely superficial comparison. Just about their looks. When they both looked their best, they were the best looking, most gorgeous women I've ever seen. They just had a lot in common because of their beauty. Especially in photos. Gorgeous when the camera caught them just right.

    I would say that Anna Nicole Smith was to Marilyn Monroe like Whitney Houston was to Barbara Streisand.

    With an important difference, of course. Whitney Houston had a tremendous talent that she just let go right down the drain.

    Maybe ANS had talent but rose to the occasion of her audience. Obviously, *they* didn't expect much. It's too bad.
    • ^
    • v
    Not a problem, I see what you are saying... though my comparison would be, ANS is to MM as Kermit the Frog is to Clint Eastwood... grin.
    • ^
    • v
    Kermit the Frog is to Clint Eastwood

    :)
    • ^
    • v
    It's hard being green.
    • ^
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    Yeah, Monroe had no talent - dream on.
    Anyway, Jon Swift best captures the grief in the wake of the death of America's Lady Di.
    • ^
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    Tom- MM could not sing, could not act. What talent did she have? Unless she penned some of Miller's later plays, which might explain his decline.
    • ^
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    Oh wait, I forgot about her Oscar winning moment on the subway grate. Nonpareil talent.
    • ^
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    So she was sexy - that rules out talent? In Some Like It Hot, can you imagine any "bimbo" carrying that part the way she did - I can't. Let's say this - she's at least as talented as, say, James Dean or Tony Curtis or a bunch of pretty-boy actors who were her contemporaries.
    • ^
    • v
    Well, Tony Curtis was always goofy, and I never got the JD thing, but it has nohing to do w talent. Granted, you can think she's sexy, but she could not sing, and her acting was atrocious. Yes, she was sensitive. So was ANS- but bimbos both. The reason Marilyn is known is her two marriages and the two Kennedys. Without that she's Jayne Mansfield or Mamie Van Doren.

    Now, Grace Kelly had looks and could act. While I think Hitchcock is overrated, can you imagine MM butchering Kelly's noted roles? MM in Breakfast At Tiffany's? C'mon. But, if comparing her in talent to ANS is your yardstick, then she's only good looking in comparison top Roseanne Barr, or Oprah Winfrey. Setting a low bar is not a ringing endorsement.

    Dying was a good career move for both women.
 

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