The Merchandising of Mourning

Abstract

One of the paradoxical truisms about modernity is that it affords endless opportunities for enterprising individuals to profit by capitalizing on the misfortunes of others, as we see in contemporary events as different as the deterioration of royal marriages in Great Britain and the O.J. Simpson murder case in America. It is not only journalism - print, broadcast and electronic - that engages in this profiteering, but also other material aspects of culture. Commemorative T-shirts, that ubiquitous late twentiethcentury advertising form, are everywhere, proclaiming positions, caricaturing the principals and advertising products. Books of all sorts, from the highly sensationalized to the ponderously academic, proliferate, along with songs, made-for-television movies and an array of decorative commodities like caricature mugs, trading cards, glassware and tokens of various kinds.¹ Even the events themselves are transformed into an elaborate sort of theatre, with television coverage frequently being framed in overtly theatrical fashion, with coverage titles, theme music, an imposed narrative and a cast of real-life characters whose public manner (whether at formal public events or in the courtroom) is the result of careful tutoring by professional advisors engaged to instruct the principals in how best to stage their behaviour to influence public perceptions.