Last Updated on February 19, 2022
The day after the body of legendary comedian Robin Williams was found, a televised press conference went into detail about the manner of his death.
Fans of Robin Williams were left reeling by his sudden death, which was announced late Monday afternoon.
The death, which has been determined to be the result of suicide, has opened an uncomfortable, if sometimes necessary, dialog about suicide and depression. Suicide, unfortunately, remains one of society’s biggest elephants that no one wants to mention, it seems. That’s a shame, because we keep losing people who, in the wrong frame of mind, interpret that silence as a lack of concern from those around them.
Predictably, the death brought out some complaints about the media’s handling of the death and the aftermath.
Some of it was justified.
ABC apologized for streaming live aerials of Williams’ home from a helicopter flying over the area after Williams’ death was announced. When someone has died without there being some sort of active police situation, that can only feel like an intrusion, but at least they recognized their mistake and acknowledged it:
“When we realized there was no news value to the live stream, we took it down immediately,” ABC News said in a statement.”Our intention was not to be insensitive to his family, friends and fans, and for that we apologize.”
Then there were complaints about the press conference from the Marin County Sheriff’s Office and the county’s medical examiner, in which information about the preliminary investigation was released.
Naturally, for some, it was too much information. I understand that complaint. But I don’t understand the complaint when it’s preceded by a statement that the angry viewer watched the press conference.
That is to say, it’s one thing to not want to hear the specific details of someone’s death within a news report after the coroner has ruled on a cause of death, or even a “likely” cause of death. It’s something completely different to complain about “TMI” when one intentionally watches a coroner’s press conference.
If you don’t want a forensic interpretation of the death, a coroner or a medical examiner is the last person one should listen to.
What did these people think they were going to talk about? Did they believe county officials were just going to step up to the mic and reminisce about their favorite Robin Williams performances?
The details weren’t pretty. They weren’t wrapped up in shiny paper with nice ribbons. And no matter how much we think we know about Williams, his personal life and his demons, they don’t make sense given his success and his ability to find reasons to laugh despite sadness.
But a lack of common sense doesn’t make those details any easier to bear.
Part of me wishes I didn’t know how Williams died. But we live in a society which has been obsessed with celebrities long before the internet was even dreamed of, and there was no way we were going to lose someone as well known as Williams was without wanting to know the most basic of questions: Why?
Once you have those answers — at least as close as we’re likely to get to them, you can’t “unring” that bell: you can’t “forget” what you’ve heard.
The key, however, is to simply shift the focus. There’s nothing we can do about the manner of death. All we can do is focus on the person who died and in sending any positive thoughts we have to his family.
And then watch Robin Williams’ performances and remember what he seemed to want most: to make us all laugh. As long as we can keep that foremost in our minds, we’re all doing the best we can.
I have never understood people’s fascination with every detail of the lives (and deaths) of celebrities. I’m so very sad Robin’s live ended the way it did, but I made a point of not watching coverage because I did not want to know details. There is nothing to be gained by knowing the details of how he chose to end his life. I see no reason for that information to be released, but it is certainly easy enough to avoid. People just need to use the the off switch to express their disgust for that type of coverage.
Well said! And I only read the summation of the press conference.
One quibble: “…they don’t make sense given his success and his ability to find reasons to laugh despite sadness.” I have found that this is precisely how a lot of people deal with depression: by masking, vamping, faking it, and otherwise distracting others from asking deep and disquieting questions.
Unless by “they” you mean the details given in the coroner’s description, in which case, nevermind because I didn’t watch/listen/read. Too fresh, too much information, too painful, for me.