The recent overdose death of Philip Seymour Hoffman is provoking the typical gnashing of teeth and rending of hair at the loss of another American institution, the finest actor of our generation, blah, blah, blah. It's a little disgusting, if you think about it.
Let's start with Mr. Hoffman's early life. He was the son of a judge and a Xerox executive. I don't know that that means he grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he certainly didn't grow up poor. He grew up in a suburb of Rochester, New York, which probably isn't the same as the ghetto. His parents divorced when he was about nine, and for some kids parents divorcing at such a young age for the child is a traumatic experience, so perhaps he needed therapy for that. Nevertheless, he attended NYU, not a shabby school by any means.
The year after he began his career as a professional actor, he appeared in Scent of a Woman. Thereafter, he appearedin such movies as Nobody's Fool, Boogie Nights, The Big Lebowski, Patch Adams, Magnolia, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Almost Famous, Punch-Drunk Love, Cold Mountain, Capote, Charlie Wilson's War, Moneyball, The Master and The Hunger Games - Mockingjay. He worked with such luminaries as Paul Newman, Brad Pitt, Tom Hanks, Amy Adams, Nicole Kidman,Renee Zellweger, Julie Robers and Jennifer Lawrence. He won an Oscar for his title role in Capote. Given that he died at age forty-six, it is fair to say that there are actors all over the country who would love to have had the career that Mr. Hoffman did.
Did he live a full life? Probably not. But his life wasn't wracked with disappointment, deprivation or denial of much. He had three children, although it doesn't appear that he ever married the mother of his children, which was probably a personal choice. He lived in New York City, which means he could afford to live there and support his family. By all accounts, he was doing well for himself.
Is it sad that he died? Sure, especially for the kids who will never know their father in so many different phases of their lives. What's more, they'll grow up hearing about the circumstances of their father's death, which was with a syringe still in his arm after he administered heroin to himself. Yes, four people have been arrested in connection with his death, and it may or may not be the case that he bought tainted heroin. But let's get beyond that.
By no means do I understand or know drug culture. But the man had the wherewithal to purchase seventy bags of heroin and use at least twenty of them, since reports indicate that fifty filled and twenty emptied bags of the drug were found at the scene. He also had other prescription medicines around him, one of which was supposed to help him kick the habit.
So while Mr. Hoffman may not have lived a life of privilege, he certainly didn't have a hardscrabble life. He moved among the Hollywood elite, had a decent upbringing and graduated from a very fine school. Again, it might not be a full life, but he did have by all measure a decent and perhaps good life.
Sympathizers will point to his drug and alcohol abuse and claim that he battled demons his entire life. Perhaps that's true. But is that any reason to lionize him, to claim that we've lost a national treasure? We lost an actor, a person who pretended -- well -- to be other people for a living. He won plaudits and accolades and awards. He probably traveled all over the globe to promote his movies. He was paid handsomely for his efforts.
But the man did not cure cancer, he didn't kill Bin Laden, he didn't prevent a natural catastrophe. He was an actor, people! Why should we give his death any more publicity than the poor person in the projects whose demons, being infinitely more real, caused him to spiral down in drug abuse ending with a similar death? Take a person who can't get a job and provide for his family, who's treated unfairly due to his race or her gender, who wasn't born into a cushy suburban family with two competent and present parents. Would anyone begrudge the person his demons? Aren't those demons more real than any Mr. Hoffman may have imagined? That's not to say Mr. Hoffman wasn't entitled to his demons. It's simply that for all his wealth and position, Mr. Hoffman had the infrastructure to overcome them more easily than a person from the projects with no job possibilities and no hope. Mr. Hoffman lacked neither.
Whether it be Amy Winehouse or Philip Seymour Hoffman or Eddie Mercury, what we have are people who have crested their respective professions, earned fame and fortune from them and thrown it all away for the lure of drugs or sex and then become lamented disproportionately with their passing. We don't give a second thought to the poor guy who, in a drunken stupor because he's trying to dull the pain of his joblessness , mistakenly stumbles in front of a passing car at two in the morning. If anything, there's a small blurb about it on the evening news or in the local paper. When someone like Mr. Hoffman dies, we have wall-to-wall coverage examining the great loss it is to society, the nettlesome problems that led to his passing and what a teachable moment we have for our youth. Investigations are launched that wouldn't see the light of day were it Joe Sixpack who died. It's disproportionate and wrong.
I'll miss Mr. Hoffman. I thought he was very good at what he did. But I don't mourn his death more than I would the child in the projects whose life was snuffed out by an errant shot in a gangland shootout. Mr. Hoffman made poor choices and ended his life as a result, whether he intended to or not. He left three children fatherless. The innocent victim caught in the crossfire of a gang feud, the young mother who has to bury that child, or the young Marine who died in a faraway land protecting our freedoms deserve my attention, and consequently my concern, more than a coddled actor who should have known better.
Yes, we are now deprived of future roles in which Mr. Hoffman may have tantalized us. But that young victim might have found the cure for cancer. That young mother, now bereft of hope and saddled with the memory of her innocent child taken too soon, might give up her plans to be a pediatric nurse. The Marine might have turned out to be the best President this country had ever seen.
And not one of them would have been pretending to be someone else for a living.
Rest in peace, Mr. Hoffman. Grab some perspective, America.
(c) 2014 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
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