Heath Ledger - News Accounts

[Marge_Innavera]

I don't know what Heath got up to in his private life and it makes no difference to me, his films remain for me to cherish. But the sheer idiocy and improbability of these ugly gossip tales still has me up in arms despite myself.

The problem with the assumption that truth will just crowd out lies is that for the most part it doesn't.  The positive tributes to Heath are wonderful, but that isn't all that's going to appear in the mass media, and it would be so unfortunate if his fans let this go unchallenged.  That's a major reason why truth doesn't always crowd out lies.

[BBM-Cat]

The problem with the assumption that truth will just crowd out lies is that for the most part it doesn't.  The positive tributes to Heath are wonderful, but that isn't all that's going to appear in the mass media, and it would be so unfortunate if his fans let this go unchallenged.  That's a major reason why truth doesn't always crowd out lies.

You're right Marge, and while terribly sad and outrageus since he is not here to defend these allegations, maybe we can all try to keep a more balanced view of things - certainly trashy articles of this nature are going to surface. There are too many positive and beautiful tributes, as well as our own memories of Heath (as an actor), that outweigh them. Truly, even if there is a grain of truth to some of these circulating rumors, I doubt that many people's perspectives and feelings about Heath would be permanently altered.

[Marge_Innavera]

Again, I don't think the positive tributes will outweigh the negative stuff if the latter goes unchallenged on the assumption that it doesn't matter; as the negative stuff is going to get a lot of circulation and tap into the popular appetite for gossip. The opinions of people who already loved Heath won't be changed; but others who had only heard of him but didn't have an opinion previously is another matter.

Or put it this way:

Two nights ago, at work, I was just walking out of the workroom on a break when I heard a guy who gets most of his news from FOX talking to a group of young women in another work group. He was saying somethiing like "yeah, he did kill himself and of course, all those people take a lot of drugs."  One of the women answered with "I never heard of him."

I don't know if they were talking about Heath. But you can bet the farm they'll see that Us article and take it for fact.

[serious crayons]

Well, hopefully the toxicology reports will help squelch the rumors.

My thinking is, Heath may well have used some drugs but if they were seriously interfering with his life then Christopher Nolan wouldn't have cast him. Nolan seems very professional and intent on making good movies, and I don't think he'd hand the fate of his big-budget movie over to a messed-up junkie.

Of course, you're right Marge, the average Joe doesn't even know who Christopher Nolan is, won't see his tribute piece, won't think things through to that extent. But screw the average Joe.

[MaineWriter]

Yes, there have been a number of beautiful tributes but this magazine is going to be on just about every checkout stand in the U.S. and most of the tributes aren't going to be. IMO, there needs to be a lot of rebuttal or it's a kind of consent via silence.

How can it be a "consent via silence" if they don't even know I've read it?

My "rebuttal" will be to NOT buy the magazine. I don't buy it anyway but I won't give them a blip in their sales by buying it now.

At any rate, I've left a comment; and if anyone disapproves of that, too bad; they'll just have to live with it.

I don't disapprove and in fact I think it's fine that you did. I just choose not to.

L

[Verona]

Oh, for f**k's sake. I'm sick of these jackals. Even if it IS true... my God, his body's not even in the ground yet. Is it at all possible to show a modicum of respect for not only his memory, but for his loved ones?

[LauraGigs]

Jake Is Taking Heath's Death 'Harder Than Most'  (Well, duh.) 
A short and somewhat guilty read.   

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20174820,00.html

[yb]

If the readers chose to believe those articles instead of taking the time to learn more about Heath the actor and the person, then my feeling is they don't deserve Heath and I won't waste my time trying to change their minds, it's their loss not ours.  In fact, I doubt our rebuttals would change their mind at all.

[nakymaton]

About US and the other tabloids:

Those bottom-feeders didn't get enough scandal from Heath in his life, so now they're feeding off our grief.

May the tabloid writers be rewarded by spending eternity with Fred Phelps.

[serious crayons]

I'm not a big reader even of People except at the dentist's office (when I always make a beeline for it). But my impression is that US is a few rungs down from there.

I read once that Angelina Jolie had refused to give US an interview or something, so US was retailiating by running lots of negative stories about her. I don't know if that's true, but I did notice in the checkout lines that the US covers DID feature a lot of negative stories about Angelina.

So even though its pages are glossy, it seems much more on the level of the National Enquirer or even worse ones than that.