Five ways Six Feet Under helps me cope with death
This post might get a little esoteric, but I’ll just lay it out there and, as always, you can either take it or leave it. If you don’t like talk about death and dying, stop reading here.
If I was asked to say just one thing about Six Feet Under, it’s that they don’t shirk from anything. The Fisher family is complex and messy, but the writers and actors put it all out there, whether it’s gay sex, drugs, mental illness, or, of course, death.
That last one is a good thing for me, because I go to a lot of funerals. In the past few years, I’ve lost two aunts, a dad, a father-in-law, a grandma, a sister-in-law, two cousins, and at least two dozen friends. I’ve written scores of obituaries and played my violin for dozens of funerals. I’m on a first-name basis with most of the funeral directors in town. And you know what? It’s OK! Six Feet Under has helped me to see that. Read on for five ways the show helps me cope with death.
1. The show makes it “OK” to die. Six Feet Under’s tagline says it all: “Everything. Everyone. Everywhere. Ends.” As soon as we come to grips with that, it makes life easier. After all, we’ll die some day, too. Maybe sooner than we think. Since I didn’t grow up in a funeral home like the Fishers, I used to hate the idea of death. But I’ve gotten more comfortable with it in recent years. Part of this is the sheer number of funerals I attend. It’s not that I’ve gotten numb to it, but rather that I accept that everything ends.
2. You can choose not to grieve. In the second episode of season five, “Dancing For Me,” a high school buddy of Nate’s gets run over by a truck. During the funeral, Nate meets another former buddy and they get together for drinks. While talking about the death of their friend, Nate said he was tired of grieving and didn’t want to do it anymore. He just wanted to make every moment of life count. I get that. If I carried the grief of everyone I’ve lost in recent years, I’d go hide in a cave and never come out.
3. People die in lots of various ways. While most of the people I’ve lost haven’t died in such “colorful” ways as the folks on Six Feet Under, they’ve certainly run the gamut — drunk drivers, icy-road crashes, suicides, terminal illnesses, and old age. When you’ve lived in the same community for 40-some years, you get to know people. The older generation dies off. People come and go. It’s a fact of life. And if there’s one thing Six Feet Under touts, it’s that people are going to die, and there’s not one thing we can do about it. Nowhere is that more clear than the pilot episode, where Nathanial Fisher Sr. dies in a tragic car crash, sending the family into a turmoil of change.
4. It gives you a new appreciation for life. As cliché as it sounds, experiencing a lot of death has given me an appreciation for life. Of course, I grieve, but the fact that I have so many people in my life to grieve for is a blessing. Yes, I miss the people, but I’m happy to have had them in my life. It’s a beautiful thing.
5. It helps you put things in perspective. I started watching Six Feet Under during a particularly funeral-laden part of last winter, and there’s something about watching funeral directors deal with death on a daily basis that helped me put things in perspective. I guess Alan Ball felt that way, too, since he created the series after losing his sister.
So, hey, if you’re in one of those inevitable periods where you’re losing a lot of people, try watching Six Feet Under. It could be very cathartic.
Martha Stewart’s dog shuffles off mortal coil
Television icon Martha Stewart has suffered a family tragedy when her dog Paw Paw passed away from renal failure. He was almost 13 dog years old.
The dog’s full name was “Kublai Khan Paw Paw Chow Chow”. He was a 60 pound chow and had appeared on Martha’s television programs a few times.
I admit I am neither a fan of dogs nor a fan of Martha but I find any death of a beloved pet to be tragic. All this being said, the conspiracy theorist in me wonders if we’re being told the entire truth of the situation. I have a few alternate theories on Paw Paw’s death:
- Suicide. What dog really wants to go through life named “Kublai Khan Paw Paw Chow Chow Chow”? Since the breed originates from Asia, it could be interpreted as racist. The dog might have been shamed from being a stereotype.
- Murder. The Martha Mafia may have hastened the dog’s demise in an attempt to boost ratings through sympathy and to have that special “doggy funerals” episode.
- The dog faked its own death and is now touring the country with Elvis.
TV Squad extends its sympathies to Martha and Paw Paw’s family.
Kevin Smith’s Red State
Kevin Smith has finally spilled some details about his next project, a very different kind of horror movie.
“To me there’s all kinds of horror, and killing someone’s not the absolute worst thing you could do to another human being. The death in a horror movie has always been the money shot in a very exploitative manner. Stabbing somebody and splashing blood all over them is the equivalent to some dude exploding over some broad’s face,” Smith told Rotten Tomatoes.
Red State is a horror movie about an religious extremist, or so we assume.
“That dude has always fascinated me and he’s really informed the horror movie that I’m working on.”
Smith is referring to preacher Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. The group is famous for it’s “God hates fags” website and picketing the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq.
“The movie’s called ‘Red State’ and it’s very much about that subject matter, that point of view and that position taken to the absolute extreme. It’s certainly not Phelps himself but it’s very much inspired by a Phelps figure,” revealed Smith. “And to me, too, the notion of using a Phelps-like character as a villain, as horrifying and scary as that guy can be, there’s even something more insidious than him that lurks out there in as much as a public or a government that allows it and that’s the other thing that I’m trying to examine in a big, big way. It’s weird because for a few months I’ve been saying ‘horror movie’ and technically it is, but it’s also not a very traditional horror movie in the sense that people have been asking me, ‘Is it a slasher movie? Is it like the Japanese horror flicks?’ It’d be much easier to just show it to them when I’m done and be like, ‘This is what I meant.’ At which point I’m sure there’ll be people saying, ‘This ain’t a horror movie!’ But to me, it is.”
God knows, we need more horror movies that actually have ideas and aren’t just movie vehicles for the CW star of the week. Smith later wrote on his online website that Red in tht title also refers to BLOOD, an obvious connection which most people have missed. The Clerks director also confirms that the movie will be highly political. Smith plans on shooting Red State later this year in Middle America.
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