EVERYONE LOVES A GOOD TRAIN WRECK...

CHICAGO the Musical, much like Maurine Dallas Watkins' CHICAGO is - in no small part - an indictment of the media and their role in creating celebrities out of people who don't really deserve to be celebrities.  But the media would argue that they simply give the public what it clamors for:

                                        Got the bubbleheaded bleach-blonde, comes on at five
                                        She can tell you 'bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye.
                                        It's interesting when people die - give us dirty laundry
                                                                                                                               Don Henley - Dirty Laundry

For some, it was seeing Louisville's point guard Kevin Ware who fell and broke his leg in two places - on national TV.  The networks had to stop showing the gruesome injury, but YouTube exploded with traffic as the curious watched the scene over and over.

For others, it was the 9/11 coverage.  Who could be torn away from the TV that day as the networks played the horrific footage of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers?

For me - and I may be showing my age here - it was that God forsaken slow speed chase with OJ Simpson and AC Cowlings.  It was my birthday, and friends wanted to take me out to dinner, but I declined, citing an illness.  In reality, I was glued to my TV set watching a white Ford Bronco moving up Interstate 405 in my hometown of Los Angeles.  Maybe it was because I felt like I knew OJ - I really didn't - or maybe it was because I couldn't conceive someone being able to drive on the 405 at 5pm and not hit gridlock.  Whatever the reason, I was fixated.


I'm reading a book now from a Wake Forest English professor,  Eric Wilson called Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck: Why We Can’t Look Away. He interviews such subjects as a man who sold the art of serial killers and an obituary collector. he follows what he calls the “dark tourism industry” that exists in places like the 9th Ward of New Orleans, destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

“There’s actually a lot of reasons, ranging from expressions of what is worst in us to what is best in us,” he said.  “Our heart rate goes up, our body releases chemicals. We really do get a sick thrill, a cheap titillation,”

But often, the thrill is closely followed by the not-so-moral reasons: relief it wasn’t you in a car accident or a feeling you are better than Charlie Sheen, Lindsey Lohan or one of the Kardashians.

“I think it kind of makes us feel a little better about ourselves when the mighty fall down,” he said.

As we move forward with CHICAGO, think about the dynamic between the media and the public; its almost a Chicken and the Egg conundrum.

Do they cover what we care about, or do we care about what they cover?  The characters in CHICAGO play the media to varying degree of success; consider where you fit into the world...