Death and Dying in Pop Culture

Student: John Good
Course: FSGN RESL 3307
Instructor: Robert Henman
Student Number: g0547644
Date: November 22, 2011
Death in Popular Culture
Introduction
With the advancement of technology and the spread of wireless communication all over the world today, media has become one of the most significant and powerful tools of communication and interaction among people. The consistent and steep growth of media has made it ever domineering and a lot many humans have become addicted to its heavy doses 24X7X365. The spread of media has engulfed the entire globe into its web of information, knowledge, news, sports and entertainment. Today the type of media one uses and is exposed to defines the personality of the individual (Kearl 85).
The media is subtle in its approach and yet so sublime in its execution that today it is the media that decides who is a hero and who is a foe. Because of its speed and interactivity today people use media to give meaning to the world objects and make perceptions about various phenomena. Media has the power of accentuating paltry issues and making them appear ever more significant to the masses. The stark imprints of media penetrate into our minds and shape our thoughts and behaviors and this is ultimately reflected in the society. This entire process along with its affects on the society is known as “popular culture” today (McKenzie 96).
The popular culture in this contemporary world drives our thoughts and perceptions of different concepts in this world. Today we are subjected to movies, news, music, internet, games and a lot more under the banner of media. On the anterior, media is of great help and use for us, but on the posterior, media is driving our opinions and has made our lives materialistic. Consequently, we have become more hedonistic and pleasure loving. For instance, people are least concerned today about the sheer truths and blunt realities of life.
We hardly care about the deaths occurring in Africa of hunger or people dying of natural or human disasters in any part of the world. All we care about is us and the maximization of our pleasures. With this newly form or guise that we as humans have entered, it has managed to distance us from the love of God and the meaning of life. Similarly popular media has also defined death and its meaning to us in the modern age. This will be discussed throughout the length of this paper, in light of the views of different philosophers and thinkers.
Thesis Statement
Popular culture has transformed the meaning of death in the contemporary world, making death appear more materialistic and fascinating than meaningful and sublime.
Kearl’s stance on the subject
Kearl’s work is based on the impact that media has made on the people’s perception of death. Interestingly Kearl was keen enough to identify a certain shift in the media’s dealing with the subject of death after World War II, since the Baby Boom age. Violence, murder and thrill have been the new modes of entertainment used by directors for silver and golden screens. According to Kearl’s research: an average American by the age of 16 have witnessed approximately 18,000 murders over different forms of media. This is where Kearl quantifies the impact of media on the perception of death among humans. Death has been dramatized so frequently and creatively that it has not remain something sedate and imminent. In fact media and media actors have made death appear to be an event, an extraordinary event. This can be understood through the example of fans of Sylvester Stallone: they see him on the big screen so often that when they see him in reality, live, face to face they do not treat him like any other human, in fact he is treated like a super human and hence people 's reaction and behavior changes. Similarly is the treatment of death in today’s society under the influence of media. People hardly know of death’s face value, all they know about this phenomenon is unnatural, unreal and conveyed through media. Since media incorporates internet, TV, print and all forms of communication tools, the concept of death carried by each has its own limitations and meanings. Therefore, death in the modern age has become a fascination rather than a natural phenomenon. Suicidal, murderous and natural deaths have been part of Television Soaps and Cinematic shots on a regular basis, and astonishingly it also become a subject to be addressed by musicians in their works (Kearl 78).
Wilson’s take on Death and Dying
Wilson added more value to the transition that death has been through over the years in terms of reaction of people towards it. Wilson highlights the “bureaucratization” of death. Bureaucratization of death means that even death is subjected to rules, regulations and norms that are to be followed like formal procedures and guidelines in bureaucracy. With advancement in medical sciences a majority of patients spend their last days in the hospital, which has become common practice. Even if the disease is incurable, hospitalization is still a norm that has to be fulfilled. In the case of hospitalization, not only the patient but the relatives are also subjected to the predefined set of laws to be conformed to at all times in terms of attending to the patient and grievances. These guidelines have made the natural phenomenon of death look like a procedure of bureaucracy where acceptance of laws is given more importance than the mourning of family members, or the death of the deceased person. Furthermore, mourning is also defined under socially acceptable standards present in the society (Wilson 52).
Wilson confines his assessment of modern day death to the Canadian society and states that the steps to be followed in the hospital completely separate the dying person from their relatives and friends so much so that these groups of people hardly know the exact state of the patient. Since Canada has a multicultural society, distinct practices and norms are observed in accordance to the ethnic affiliations of the dying person, and such practices usually take place within the hospital, or at least they initiate at the hospital, as the hospital today is marked as the contemporary death bed of modern humans.
McKenzie on Death
In the view of McKenzie, modern day Media is so commercialized that it touts news rather than sharing it for the sake of information dissemination. Today, media sells out news of death and scenes pertaining to it and portray it with fascination and dramatization. This treatment of death by the media has conditioned death as something to be beyond reality and the common dynamics of life. People take death to be a sequence from a daily thriller or suspense movie, and hence they are surprised over its occurrence when they come across it in real life. According to McKenzie, death has replaced pornography over the screen in modern age. The viewers are no more surprised or shocked over sex and nudity in the media, while this was not the case years or decades ago. However, with the camera covering death scenes and showing them commercially as an entertainment genre, the natural element has been snatched from death and this has made death appear more artificial and programmed (McKenzie 96).
Laderman’s Arguments
Laderman accepts the influence of popular media in spreading a subtle concept of death among the audience. Walt Disney’s contribution is extraordinary in this regard. Disney with his world famous works such as Snow White and Pinocchio transmits death as something acceptable and an integral part and reality of life to children. The characterization of good and evil and the ultimate domination and victory of good over evil has helped inject moral values into the American children. The animated sequences in the Disney movies have made children understand and realize the concept of death. With exposure to such movies, children have started accepting death rather than evading it. With the help of his works, Disney has consciously, or unconsciously, communicated the phenomenon of mortality of humans in children. The happy endings in the movies have contributed to the embodiment of death into an imminent end that cannot be avoided but improved by making the right choices in life (Laderman 43).
Conclusion
In a nutshell, with all the views and works discussed throughout the paper in mind, one cannot deny the fact that popular media has had an extra ordinary impact on the minds of audiences with respect to the general conception of death. However, the message transmitted by the media about death varies in its context and meaning. On one hand, some news channels have made death appear to be something novel and cheap, while others have made it appear fantasizing and absurd. As humans we must understand the fact that no matter what the media says, the reality of death and its existence can neither be denied nor avoided.
References
Gary Laderman. The Disney Way of Death. Journal of the Academy of Religion, Volume 68, Number 1 (2000): Pages 27-46
Herbert C. Northcott and Donna Wilson. Death and Dying in Canada. Garamond Press, Ontario, 2001
Michael C. Kearl. Endings, Sociology of Death and Dying. Oxford University Press, 1989
Sarah McKenzie. Death, the New Pornography. Screen Education, Issue 39 (2005): pages 94-97

References: Gary Laderman. The Disney Way of Death. Journal of the Academy of Religion, Volume 68, Number 1 (2000): Pages 27-46 Herbert C. Northcott and Donna Wilson. Death and Dying in Canada. Garamond Press, Ontario, 2001 Michael C. Kearl. Endings, Sociology of Death and Dying. Oxford University Press, 1989 Sarah McKenzie. Death, the New Pornography. Screen Education, Issue 39 (2005): pages 94-97