The entertainment
world was stunned Saturday evening to learn of the untimely death of actor Paul
Walker, only 40 years old, of the phenomenally successful Fast and Furious movie franchise. Ironically, the car enthusiast
Walker and his racer friend Roger Rodas both perished when the red Porsche Carrera
GT Rodas was driving lost control on a Southern California road, struck a tree,
and burst into flames.
In response to
the outpouring of shock and sadness from fans, Erin Gloria Ryan, news editor at
Jezebel, thought she was making an insightful point about celebrity worship
when she cynically tweeted, “None of you really love Paul Walker. You just love
the IDEA of Paul Walker.” She is very wrong about that.
First of all, while
I’m as critical as anyone of our sometimes irrational relationship with the
famous, people often forget that celebrities are human beings too. Many of them
are horrible human beings, it’s true, and that’s often how they got to be
celebrities in the first place – not merely because they are talented but
because they are almost maniacally self-centered as well, as opposed to talents
who don’t have that obsessive drive to “make it” no matter how many little
people they crush underfoot along the way.
Not all celebrities are monsters or mere carefully
constructed media images. By all accounts, everyone who knew and worked with Paul Walker (including
personal friends of mine) declare him to be a decent, good-hearted guy
unaffected by the warping seduction of fame and fortune. He never misbehaved in
the tabloids or starred in his own reality show train wreck. On his IMDb
page, Walker is quoted as saying,
Some people say that you should go
to all the parties, to the nightclubs, the Viper Room, and make contacts, and I
look at them and say, “You don't want to have contacts with those people.” Look
at what happened to River Phoenix [who died in 1993 of a drug overdose outside
the Viper Room]. If you get caught up in that, it ruins you. Hollywood is
garbage.
When
entertainment figures die, studios typically release a standard, glowing
official statement, but I believe Universal (the Fast and Furious studio) is not exaggerating when they say, “Paul was truly one of the most beloved and
respected members of our studio family for 14 years.”
I’m a Christian now. The things that drove me crazy growing up was how
everyone works at fault-finding with different religions. The people I don’t
understand are atheists. I go surfing and snowboarding and I’m always around
nature. I look at everything and think, “Who couldn’t believe there’s a God? Is
all this a mistake?” It just blows me away.
Third, the
victims in Chile to whom Walker offered his help and support after suffering a
devastating 8.8 magnitude earthquake in March 2010 no doubt loved him as well –
not to mention the earthquake victims in Haiti where he flew with his
humanitarian aid team Reach Out Worldwide. In fact, Walker had just left a Reach Out
charity event when the fatal crash occurred.
Last but not least, Walker’s young teenage daughter Meadow,
whom he had with an ex-girlfriend, no doubt loved more than just the “idea” of her
father. She had come to live with Walker full-time this year and he expressed
that he was making up for lost time with her: “She’s the best partner I've ever
had. I’ve never had anything like this in my life,” he said. “I’m
into being a dad. That’s where my focus is most of the time. I’m an actor – that’s my job, but it’s not my life.”
Sadly, his life was cut short, and the many friends and fans
he impacted along the way will genuinely miss him, not the “idea” of him. “You
know, all that really matters,” he once said in a Flaunt Magazine interview, “is
that the people you love are happy and healthy. Everything else is just
sprinkles on the sundae.” Rest in peace, Paul Walker.
(This article originally appeared here on Acculturated, 12/2/13)
