Emmy Awards' Cory Monteith Tribute Is Brutally Honest About His Death

maandag 23 september 2013

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
by Jeanne Sager 7 hours ago

The Emmy Awards tribute to Cory Monteith had created a surprising amount of controversy before the awards show even aired. Some, like Jack Klugman's son Adam, accused the ceremony's producers of glorifying someone who died at his own hands. And then, Jane Lynch got up onstage and told it like it is: her Glee co-star wasn't perfect. He was a drug addict who died because of his addiction.

It wasn't your typical tribute. Memorials tends to speak in glowing terms of the deceased.

But in telling the truth about how Cory Monteith died, Lynch did something better.

She made the tribute to Cory mean something more to the world than just a chance to remember a good actor.

As Lynch said:

Cory was a beautiful soul. He was not perfect, which many of us here tonight can relate to. His death is a tragic reminder of the rapacious, senseless destruction that is brought on by addiction.

Tonight we remember Cory for all he was and mourn the loss of all he could have been.

And there it is, folks: why mourning Cory Monteith in front of a world's audience made sense.

Klugman's son had accused the ceremony's producers of playing to a "youth-centric culture that has an extremely short attention span and panders to only a very narrow demographic."

Lynch's tribute to her Glee co-star was the very opposite. It was a warning to the youth of America, an arrow straight to their hearts: life is short; don't screw around.

Monteith's death wasn't part of the natural course of things. He wasn't an elderly man who'd contributed decades of work to the entertainment industry, only to die peacefully of something related to his age. Is he someone today's youth can relate to better than someone who hasn't graced a television screen in years? Perhaps, but that's all the more reason why the Emmy's tribute worked. There was a stark difference between the tribute to Monteith and those to Jonathan Winters and Jean Stapleton that preceded it.

Winters and Stapleton had done much, gotten far.

They were old.

And their tributes were uncomplicated by talk of "imperfection" and "addiction."

Cory Monteith died before he got to do most of what he could have done. His youth, his superstardom, was not enough to save him.

And to cement just what it was we lost, Lynch offered a reminder that there was more to Monteith than just the drugs:

All that warmth and that charm, that open-hearted quality that we loved in Cory was no act. This gifted and wonderful young man was worthy of your love.

If you were lucky enough to know Cory as we did and witness firsthand Cory's goofy, breezy sense of humor, his natural instinct for inclusiveness and his unbridled sense of generosity day in and day out, I promise, you'd have loved him even more.

What did you think of the tribute to Cory? Was it appropriate?

Image via Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Click the "Like" button below if you're a Gleek! ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jeanne Sager

writes articles for The Stir by day, slays closet monsters and bounds through bedtime stories with her elementary schooler by night. The Phineas and Ferb soundtrack reverberates through her brain.

More
?

reacties | | Read More...

'Petrified' School Bus Driver Watches as Teen Is Brutally Beaten By Classmates (VIDEO)

dinsdag 6 augustus 2013

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
by Emily Abbate 14 hours ago

As a parent, you want your child to do the right thing. Unfortunately, doing the "right thing" got one 13-year-old from Florida beaten senseless by three of his classmates. I'm sure he had no idea what would happen when he got on the bus that July afternoon. But when three boys attacked him, bullied him to the ground, and beat him to a pulp in between two bus seats -- I bet he (and his parents) wish he never did.

The results? Two black eyes and a broken arm, all because he "ratted" out one of the assailants for trying to sell him drugs to school officials. The hardest part of it all? The bus driver, John Moody, wanted to help. He called dispatchers, told the attackers to leave the boy alone, but he was too petrified to step in himself.

Technically, Moody didn't do anything wrong. He did what he was required to by law. But if I was this brutally beaten teen's mom, that would be one VERY hard pill to swallow.

First things first, let's watch the horrifying fight:

It's not Moody's fault that the scene escalated so quickly. It's not his fault that he was scared that stepping in would endanger his life. I know that. But it pains me to think that there was an adult on the scene who couldn't do anything to stop the horrible beating that was going on.

I have to wonder, are school bus altercations becoming such an issue throughout our nation that we have to reevaluate the way they run? Would it be wise to have someone who was more capable of aiding in such an event instead of that oh-so-common sweet older man behind the wheel?

It's hard. I remember my bus driver from back in elementary school, an older woman who we all loved for her kind spirit, great smile, and awesome taste in sweaters. I loved seeing her at the beginning and end of my day, but then again, frightening fights like this weren't a commonality like they are now.

There's no doubt that in my mind that for my parents, my safety would trump keeping that sweet bus driver on our weekly route. It'll be interesting to see, as back-to-school season starts, if this is the kind of conversation more and more school districts are having, too.

My heart goes out to that poor bullied teen and his parents.

Do you think school bus drivers should be able to step in if there's an altercation? What would you have done in that situation?

Image via bsabarnowl/Flickr

?

reacties | | Read More...

'Petrified' School Bus Driver Watches as Teen Is Brutally Beaten By Classmates (VIDEO)

maandag 5 augustus 2013

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
by Emily Abbate 5 hours ago

As a parent, you want your child to do the right thing. Unfortunately, doing the "right thing" got one 13-year-old from Florida beaten senseless by three of his classmates. I'm sure he had no idea what would happen when he got on the bus that July afternoon. But when three boys attacked him, bullied him to the ground, and beat him to a pulp in between two bus seats -- I bet he (and his parents) wish he never did.

The results? Two black eyes and a broken arm, all because he "ratted" out one of the assailants for trying to sell him drugs to school officials. The hardest part of it all? The bus driver, John Moody, wanted to help. He called dispatchers, told the attackers to leave the boy alone, but he was too petrified to step in himself.

Technically, Moody didn't do anything wrong. He did what he was required to by law. But if I was this brutally beaten teen's mom, that would be one VERY hard pill to swallow.

First things first, let's watch the horrifying fight:

It's not Moody's fault that the scene escalated so quickly. It's not his fault that he was scared that stepping in would endanger his life. I know that. But it pains me to think that there was an adult on the scene who couldn't do anything to stop the horrible beating that was going on.

I have to wonder, are school bus altercations becoming such an issue throughout our nation that we have to reevaluate the way they run? Would it be wise to have someone who was more capable of aiding in such an event instead of that oh-so-common sweet older man behind the wheel?

It's hard. I remember my bus driver from back in elementary school, an older woman who we all loved for her kind spirit, great smile, and awesome taste in sweaters. I loved seeing her at the beginning and end of my day, but then again, frightening fights like this weren't a commonality like they are now.

There's no doubt that in my mind that for my parents, my safety would trump keeping that sweet bus driver on our weekly route. It'll be interesting to see, as back-to-school season starts, if this is the kind of conversation more and more school districts are having, too.

My heart goes out to that poor bullied teen and his parents.

Do you think school bus drivers should be able to step in if there's an altercation? What would you have done in that situation?

Image via bsabarnowl/Flickr

?

reacties | | Read More...