Letter 2 America for February 8, 2013

Dear America,

It appears that the children of Newtown, where the massacre of children, teachers and administrators occurred just two months ago, will be singing at the Grammy's.  It seems there is no end to which the American media are willing to exploit these children, and for that matter to which we as the viewing public are.  It was just a month or so ago that the local authorities in Newtown made a public plea for people to stop sending and bringing Teddy Bears to the school; they had no use for anymore Teddy Bears.  After all, how many Teddy Bears can a child take comfort from.  The piles of Teddy tribute were seen on the local news here in Connecticut, and on the national news as well, so the surfeit was plain for all to see.  Presumably, people stopped sending the toys to Newtown, and I thought at that time that perhaps the sensationalism that allowed things like Anderson Cooper's interview of the smiling parents of one of the victims just a day after she was killed might have ended...but no.  Now we are going to be treated to the cherubic voices of those who survived, and their parents must approve or the children couldn't go to the awards ceremony, which I also assume is where they will be performing.  I try to avoid cynicism, but as you know if you read these letters regularly, I am often unable to help myself, and unfortunately--I say unfortunately because I am talking about young children who don't know that they are being used--this is one of those occasions when I can't.  The parents of these kids will probably swell with pride, which used to be a sin by the way, when the children take the stage, and, giving them the benefit of the doubt, they probably haven't thought much about how perverse this whole thing is.  But I wonder if there will be any mass murderers created by this hoopla and its psychological impact.  I wonder how many of them will be affected on the subconscious level by the fact that one can get fifteen minutes of fame by being associated with a heinous crime and its victims.

The temptation is to excuse the parents on a sort of "they know not what they do" theory.  After all, it isn't hard to assume that they mean their children no harm, and that they wouldn't use their children's unfortunate fame just to get them on television so they can rub elbows with a celebrity like Ryan Seacrest, who will be at the Staples Center but will interview the children live by satellite.  But that is what they are doing, and it contrasts with the more sagacious decision made by the town to close the elementary school at Sandy Hook so as not to continually roil the memories of that horrible event in December.  That's where my cynicism comes in.  I keep thinking, if they knew enough to minimize the reminders of that horrible day at Sandy Hook Elementary by closing a whole school, why don't they know enough to keep their children out of the limelight at the Grammy's, which will shine on them only because their classmates and teachers were slaughtered.  Frankly, it seems more like vicarious narcissism than naivety, or even simple mindedness not to make that connection, and the people responsible for the awards program are no less culpable.  Putting those children on display is about as shameless and mercenary as anything I can recall, and as far as the media executives who decided to do this are concerned, not only is there no excuse, this is what they do...witness Anderson Cooper crawling all over those people the day after the shootings.  There was nothing more to know about them and no benefit to anyone from his being there other than indulgence in either producing or consuming the sensationalism that he created.  In the case of the Grammy's, however, the vices of the media are laid even more bare.  They are using small children to pump up ratings, and not to trivialize this whole thing, but what makes anyone think that there is anything special about the Sandy Hook children's chorus.  In fact, the children will be performing live, but viewers apparently will also hear the chorus on a recording of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," which they made to "help the community heal."  How allowing them to engage in such overt pandering is beneficial to them I cannot understand, even though the proceeds from this whole thing are going to some athletic center that apparently was used for briefly by the community for purposes related to the shootings.

What lessons are these children learning, I wonder.  And I also wonder if anyone has tried to find out from them how all of the fuss over them is making them feel, much less whether it is good for them.  I wonder how often over the rest of their lives these children will tell people that they were "Sandy Hook Kids."  I wonder how many of them will feel a sense of distinction over the fact that they were there, rather than feeling the bereavement--which we would hope would wane over time--that one normally would experience on account of such an experience.  I wonder whether any of them will develop a need in the future to be acknowledged as they are being acknowledged now, and I wonder whether that isn't the kind of need that inspires the kind of atrocity that they just saw and heard their friends go through.  While they are singing an inspirational song for what is ostensibly a good reason, they are finishing up with "Call Me Maybe," a pop sensation that could serve no purpose but to entertain.  And if there is some noble purpose in having these children appear on national television, I wonder how that purpose is served by making the kids a secondary pop sensation.  Only time will tell.

Your friend,

Mike