Grief or Guilt?

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think it was Anna Nicole's beauty for which she was renowned at any time - even her Guess Jeans days. After all, there are a lot of beautiful women in the world. (as a friend of mine once said, "Show me a supermodel and I'll show you a guy who's sick of fucking her). The truth of the matter is, Anna Nicole Smith was forever on the brink of disaster and THAT'S what she was known for. Slurring, heavy-lidded interviews or careening red carpet moments made up the public life of this woman and for better or worse that's what keeps all of us glued to the tv and computer screen.

Today's LA Times has a blurb about the last film she made and what a difficult time the film maker is having getting the project distributed. This is no surprise. No self-respecting business person would touch this film because it made the mistake of featuring Anna Nicole as its star.

Now that she's gone, there's this weird collective guilt everyone seems to be expressing through elevating her to iconic status. But what we're all afraid to admit to ourselves is that we needed Anna Nicole's train wreck of a life so we could all feel a little bit better about ourselves. It's a shameful fact of our celebrity-obsessed culture: We raise 'em up just so we can watch 'em fall.