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  • From: Rachel Cox <rachel AT hesketh.com>
  • To: "InterNetWorkers" <internetworkers AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Hole in the web
  • Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 12:43:14 -0400


Charming. Obviously we have people here who don't care for
Hole, or Courtney Love, or both, and who figure that's as good
a reason as any to trot out the same tired accusations that I
was already sick of hearing long before that piece of tripe
called a documentary was released. I know I shouldn't respond
to this kind of flamebait, but I'm fed up to my ears with people
blaming the survivors for their loved one's suicide (although,
I'll admit, they rarely go so far as to accuse the survivors
of murder). If you're in no mood for a rant, I'd recommend
you not read further.

At 03:18 PM 6/18/00 -0400, Shea Tisdale wrote:
>Didn't she leave out the part about how you can be talent-less and just kill
>your husband to become rich and famous?

Fie.

Whether or not you like the woman (someone I'd be willing to bet
few of us know) or her music (the value of which is a matter of
taste), that's a hell of an accusation and one that no one I know
of has been able to convincingly support. It's right up there with
"the government killed Elvis" on the believability scale and, IMNSHO,
offensive as hell, on a number of levels.

I know people hate to believe someone as talented as Cobain might
have taken his own life, and I know they want very much to find
some way to excuse it, or make it not true. If *he* was so un-
happy that he wanted to die, then what hope do the rest of us
have, who aren't famous, aren't rich, aren't whatever it is we
think Kurt Cobain was? But blaming Love - whether by accusing
her of his murder or of simply not having been *good* enough -
does no good. It doesn't bring Kurt back, it doesn't educate
people about depression - indeed, by refusing to acknowledge
it, we push it further into the shadows from which sufferers
may find it even harder to seek help - or about the physical
ills that made life simply painful for Cobain, it doesn't
educate about drug or alcohol abuse, or comfort those whose
loved ones have also taken their own lives, and it certainly
doesn't encourage others not to do so. If anything, quite the
opposite. It *does*, however, remind me a great deal of the way
some apologists for their alcoholic or drug addicted loved ones
let the addict off the hook, arguing that it's someone else's
fault they're using, so they can't be expected to stop or be
held accountable for the screwed-up things they do. I wonder
if it betrays an unwholesome eagerness on our parts to also
be held not responsible for the less admirable things we do.

and at 09:43 AM 6/19/00 -0400, K. Jo Garner wrote:
[snip]
>Of course, before you go getting your groove on to Courtney Love, might I
>suggest a look at Nick Broomfield's "Kurt and Courtney" that documented
>(a bit unorthodoxically, I admit) Ms Love's rise to fame on the coattails
>of you-know-who.

"Unorthodox" is a big understatement. Nick Broomfield obviously
has an axe to grind against Love, and most of the people he uses
to support his vision of Courtney As Evil appear to be drunk, on
drugs, crazy, or all three. Only one (apart from Courtney, who -
wisely or not, but understandably - wanted nothing to do with
this exploitative garbage) really knew Kurt during his final
years, and she swears he was suicidal and that she'd expected
him to do it. Broomfield is obviously counting on the Cult of
Kurt (a man who never wanted any such thing and more arguably
was killed by his fans than his wife) to buy into this
canonization of Kurt and vilification of Courtney: everyone
wants someone to blame, and The Wife is the easiest and most
time-honored target. I hate to believe that people are buying
into again, this time on the basis of claims that are as suspect
as a National Enquirer article and a hundred times more exploitative.

As for whether Courtney was "riding the coattails" of "you know
who", well, how does one determine whether the successful wife of
a successful man is riding his coattails? Does she have to become
successful *before* he does? Must she forswear all post-marital
success for fear of accusations that she's a talentless know-
nothing whose every success comes because she happens to be
married to someone whose star rose before hers? What if they're
just dating - are her successes still due only to his? Are we
to judge by using our own frequently subjective estimation of
her talents and where they might have taken her had she been
wise enough to remain single? The film mentioned above documents
nothing but the filmmaker's bias, and to suggest, on the basis
of only it or one's own bias, that Love and Hole owe their
success only to an advantageous marriage is unfair at best,
and at worst, seems like misogyny.

-Rachel

____________________________________________________________________
Rachel Cox | voice: 919.834.2552 x16 | http://www.hesketh.com/




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