◦ Suzy says:
February 26, 2014 at 2:10 pm
Thank you for writing this Martyn. As someone who knows about the hate of anonymous bullies online and offline, due to being on TV and also left NZ because of anxiety due to the scrutiny I received.
I was mortified to read Deborah’s article.
How can anyone know what another human being is feeling.
If it wasn’t for my family…I wouldn’t be here, life got pretty dark.
Charlotte was an inspiration to me and now she is gone.
Please leave her alone if you have nothing nice to say.
I have my own mantra ‘ It is hard enough to SURVIVE in this life let alone SUCEED….so please be kind!!
Writng this makes me feel hugely anxious as I hate blogs…but I need to do it for Charlotte.
To shine in this dark world….is becoming very very hard
Rating: +13 (from 13 votes)
3.
Frank Macskasy says:
February 25, 2014 at 10:14 am
Insightful, Martyn.
Rating: +15 (from 17 votes)
4.
Rahderah says:
February 25, 2014 at 10:24 am
Yeah, well said. She’s pushed the movement backwards on understanding Mental Health and suicide prevention.
Not only that, she admits she didn’t know her and yet assumes vanity caused Charlotte to kill herself, not depression.
I’d suggest that Miss Dawson had far more playing on her mind for a very very long time.
DHC has scored her own “controversial opinion” goal, proving why CD said she’d left NZ’s vicious media.
I hope young Lorde has her eyes wide open – I doubt DHC will care the hurt she has caused if she wrote it in the first place.
However – If she had the balls.. she would apologise to Charlotte’s family and friends and also to those suffering mental health issues for trivialising their very real deep and dark pain.
The saddest thing is had CD known DHC’s own battles with depression, she’d have cared and reached out.
Revolting tabloid crap from the writer and shame, shame, on the editor for allowing the publication, less than 48 hours after her passing.
Really, If this is the standard now at the herald, then they no longer have standards in my eyes.
I will not read that publication ever again, let alone part with my money to buy it.
Rating: +46 (from 48 votes)
◦ Barbara says:
February 25, 2014 at 2:50 pm
I agree. This article by DHC, is disgraceful. Nasty. Pointless & cruel.
I too will follow suit & cancel my subscription.
Rating: +25 (from 27 votes)
5.
Tao Wells says:
February 25, 2014 at 10:27 am
I couldn’t disagree with you more. I though the writer was clearly coming from her own perspective and experience with the issues and the fact that she has done so, so personally seems to be her crime. A kind of macho reserved only for men, and only for issues deemed appropriate by Men, the good priests presiding over taste and morality and the expense of an honest heart filled awkward communication. I suggest that if you have to lie, cover up the truth and all it’s splendid colors to have your “dignity in death” you (us) may be more of the problem than appreciated.
Rating: -37 (from 47 votes)
◦ Frank Macskasy says:
February 25, 2014 at 12:40 pm
Tao – Cone may have been “coming from her own perspective and experience” – but she was clearly using the death of another human human to make whatever point she was trying to make.
I found Cone’s piece revolting and whatever message she was trying to convey was lost in her cynicism and judgementalism.
Rating: +33 (from 39 votes)
◦ Tao Wells says:
February 25, 2014 at 12:51 pm
I guess there are just a few people like myself who view capitalism as a major factor in the creation and maintenance of depression. And that celebrities be it All Blacks or Super Models are at best poor spokespersons for this, precisely because of how they represent such a narrow definition of what it is to be ‘successful” in the first place. i understand that Deborah Hill article is upsetting, I just don’t feel you are up set about what is upsetting. Capitalism sucks.
Rating: -7 (from 19 votes)
▪ Catherine says:
February 25, 2014 at 10:13 pm
I have to disagree with you Tao Wells about celebrities being poor spokespeople for depression. Having suffered from it myself, mental illness has a huge stigma to it. Had I seen John Kirwan’s advert about depression when I went through it I probably would have sought help earlier, instead of wanting to keep it to myself. It was incredibly humbling to realise that depression can affect anyone, anytime, at any age.
Lack of “success” or aging was not the basis for my depression and I believe Martyn’s point is we cannot assume what Charlotte was going through. Ms Cone’s article was arrogant and as Jennifer said, “full of guesswork”.
Rating: +14 (from 16 votes)
▪ Tao Wells says:
February 26, 2014 at 9:27 pm
in my opinion she wrote directly to this public idea of CD, and about the limited social roles older woman face as a woman aging herself.
The role media and celebrity have in this is secondary, as in if we as a community celebrated older woman, for qualities other than their looks and not necessarily their smarts (the big two on offer) then perhaps “stars” would follow. But this is unlikely to happen.
I’m glad a lack of capitalism’s “success” was not a factor in your depression, I wonder what the national stats on that are? How many people have depression, because for some part they don’t share the values espoused by the dominating culture. What are the rates for mental health issues with indigenous people any way?
Rating: +1 (from 5 votes)
◦ Jennifer says:
February 25, 2014 at 1:03 pm
Tao Wells – I think the problem is not that Ms Cone Hill didn’t “cover up the truth”, it’s that she wrote an opinion piece, full of guesswork and innuendo, about a woman she never met, who can no longer reply on her own behalf. Poor “journalism”, poor ethics, poor humanity. THAT’s what’s got so many people upset.
The issue of women feeling invisible as they age is a valid one, but a. we don’t know if that was a factor here and b. Ms Cone Hill has addressed it dismally, at best.
Rating: +37 (from 41 votes)
▪ Jennifer says:
February 25, 2014 at 1:35 pm
And yes, I realise I got her surnames the wrong way round. Not deliberate!
Rating: +5 (from 7 votes)
▪ Tao Wells says:
February 26, 2014 at 9:38 pm
I agree that there were many lines that were in bad taste, but I could also recognize that as a piece of writing those lines were to me, a way to prepare the more difficult, harder things for herself to say, about the role of older woman in society, a role that I felt she was occupying herself. yes I think we all see that the writer is capable of being nasty, has been before. But critical about capitalism, and the doctrine of the free market society, I think that was very very hard to admit.
Rating: -1 (from 5 votes)
◦ Lowana Koroibola says:
February 26, 2014 at 3:37 am
There are no truths or “splendid colours” in labeling a dead woman who can no longer defend herself an ageing beauty who couldn’t handle no longer being in the spotlight. To write “she’s dead and I’m alive” shows a trite arrogance, as though Charlotte’s death was a victory for Deborah. Deborah Hill Cone has just taken mental health awareness back 10 years and I cannot believe the NZ Herald ran this article.
Rating: +10 (from 12 votes)
◦ Ross Forbes says:
February 26, 2014 at 6:36 pm
Thanks Tao….we are on the same page on this one….although we may be a minority of two judging from the number of negative replies I received elsewhere on facebook when i said something similar to you. I wrote as someone who has had a personal experience of suicide as my then partner of 8 years took her life totally unexpectedly one christmas day. I did not find Cones remarks disrespectful of the victim at all….she bought up some very interesting points about women and the “brutality” of aging. The point of her article was that women who have relied on their sexual capital…[or from a feminist perspective have been denied access to a self that isn't an object of mens sexual desire]…have to devise a strategy for the transition to middleage. She cynically describes how some women may seek this in the arts by becoming writers or artists and thus replace their sexual status with a cultural status. Although this is a cynical position it does ring true to me. Men and women are status seeking beings…I do not think her article bolsters or supports a culture that devalues women….I just think she is articulating the everyday thoughts of many women in their forties and she should be encouraged to do so…..not attacked by people who mistake personal commentary on a celebrity’s death for self agrandisment
Rating: +2 (from 8 votes)
▪ Tao Wells says:
February 26, 2014 at 9:09 pm
thanks Ross Forbes, I appreciate your words. I think it is clear that there is an enormous pool of grief that is being tapped here, and being the flip side some what of anger, there is enormous potential for a mob like mentality to be lead further down the garden path. I ‘m not sure, but initial reports on the new anti bullying law being promoted in CD’s memory is exactly the kind of mass manipulation of public misery that capitalism’s leaders are more that prepared to take advantage of. In the name of internet “security” watch internet “freedom” disappear. Bullying however will continue unaddressed. As to do that, you’d have to start at the top. Where bully’s are collectively rewarded, by us. Bit of a pickle. hence the grief.
Rating: +3 (from 5 votes)
see more article at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/02/25/a-brief-word-on-deborah-hill-cone-charlotte-dawson/
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