As everyone already knows, he died a couple of days ago in his apt in NYC.
Seems to be an accidental overdose of sleeping pills brought on by a young star busily burning the candle at both ends. I guess this is big news, since he was still quite young (28) and a rising movie star. Personally, I didn't have any reaction other than, "Bummer." but I don't mean that in a callous way; I just didn't have any connection to the man, and at this point, who is all that surprised when another celebrity drops dead?
I saw the headline on my home page (Yahoo news), but didn't read the article since the name didn't really ring a bell. I knew he was an actor, but nothing he's been in stuck in my mind. It wasn't until a few minutes later that I thought, "Wait, wasn't he one of the guys in
Brokeback Mountain? Oh, the heartless cultural conservatives are going to be all over this one with tasteless, unfunny, 'He must have caught movie AIDS!' jokes." (Who knew how
right I was?)
A few minutes after that I had another belated realization. "Wait... wasn't he playing the Joker in the new Batman movie?" I was correct again, belatedly, and at that point I felt some regret. I'm looking forward to that film, and expecting him to be good in the role. It's still a one-off, though. I mean I'm assuming Batman will triumph in the end and kill the Joker in the process, so it's not like this will screw up the sequel. Good thing they didn't cast Heath as Robin, though. Not that there is a Robin, or any other unnecessary and annoying sidekick, I sincerely hope.
I finally got around
to checking his resume tonight, and nope, I've never seen Heath in anything. I saw a few bits of that postmodern knight in shining armor movie he did years ago, when he was a teen heartthrob. And I was of course aware of Brokeback Mountain, but I never saw it and can't imagine that I ever will. I wasn't opposed to it, but Malaya saw it with her mom, and I haven't cared enough about a film to go see it solo in years.
That I had no interest in that movie, other than making easy and obvious "
will they be eating pudding?" jokes pre-release, and I think it's because I'm whatever the opposite of homophobic is. Lots of gay people saw Brokeback because it spoke to their experience, and lots of curious straight people saw it because they were titillated by the gender twist, and lots of other people saw it because they enjoy love stories with strong acting performances. I fit into none of those groups.
I've been around gay people for decades, my mom always had gay friends, and while I think the subject of human sexuality and mate preferences is a fascinating one (as evidenced by my endless, ongoing discourse on
The Evolution of Desire, I'm so over caring if someone is gay or not that I didn't have any interest in that film. Besides, my movie tastes aren't real high brow; if there'd been some kung fu and car chases, I might have been drawn in, but I don't have much interest in weepy, sentimental love stories, no matter what gender the weepy lovers are.
Thankfully,
the Batman movie is already finished, so come this July I'll get to see my first, and last, Heath Ledger film.
Labels: batman, celebs, death
