I was sweating in my all-black funeral-style garb as I climbed the hill to the Jewish Museum of Australia. The lobby was quiet and cool, not just in the way Museums always are, but with a sober undercurrent, a sort of serious still to the air.
I didn’t want to interact with anyone that day. I had bought my ticket as soon as they were available online, so I pressed on – I knew there were things ahead that would hurt me. But I came here to cry.
Photos, drawings, audio, the museum laid out all of her things, donated and annotated by her family. I felt the swell in me reach my eyes as I saw the Luella dress that she wore at Glastonbury in 2008. My heart knocked against my ribs – she was so small.
People like Whitney, George Michael, Michael Jackson – they grappled with their demons naked in the public eye.
Back To Black came out in 2006 when I was 10, so not the age that one really identifies with an album about infidelity, sex and drug abuse, but nonetheless, the burnt copy of the CD got a thrashing on my little-girl stereo. But that year was one of upheaval for me: my nan, the centre of my small universe, passed away; I moved to a school in rural Victoria; and I was trying to take that step from ‘believing in Santa’ to ‘experimenting with eyeshadow.’ So whenever Amy’s voice would suck the rest of the sound from the room, a part of me knew she was feeling the things that I was: loss, grief, a sense of instability with her place in the world.
I asked Dr. Brock Bastian, Associate Professor in the University of Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, what is it about celebrities whose lives were messy and self-destructive that makes us mourn for them in a way we wouldn’t for other celebrities?
“We remember people who have more extreme moral character traits, who do things out of the ordinary,” said Dr. Bastian. “There are other people we aspire to be, but we do not necessarily miss them – because they never put anything out there as a part of themselves that you can connect with emotionally. I think what is interesting is that we still enjoy those ‘bad’ celebrities. It’s often the ones with pain, misery and treachery that we feel closer to.” People like Whitney, George Michael, Michael Jackson – they grappled with their demons naked in the public eye.
‘Fuck Me Pumps’ is a song that made me laugh and made me think and was light and sassy, and sung by a young girl who clearly had a read on the room. I wanted to be that girl. She sounded like someone who would take her shoes off and dance barefoot on the sticky floor – like a friend of mine who I hadn’t yet met. Or, as Dr. Bastian put it, “She put her emotions out there for you to connect with.”
That line “She put her emotions out there for you to connect with” made me think: the way Amy Winehouse lived her life in full view of the world was ahead of her time.
So when our social media feeds churn together photos of our friends with photos from celebrities who bare it all, it’s easy for the line to blur between those who we know and those we think we know.
Before social media, celebrities were untouchables. The only time we saw photos of them that weren’t planned by their publicists was when they were caught off-guard by the paps or something was leaked. These were photos they were embarrassed to see splashed on the cover of tabloids. But Amy rolled with the punches.
We love unflattering celebrity selfies and midnight confessional Instagram Stories. We love when we see our idols as humans like us, when their foibles are writ large and their vulnerabilities laid bare. We are all aching to be loved for our imperfections – and Amy never tried to be anything other than imperfect.
When we see something real, we think we know someone. So when our social media feeds churn together photos of our friends with photos from celebrities who bare it all, it’s easy for the line to blur between those who we know and those we think we know.
After the exhibition, I went home and lay on my bed. I felt an anger rising up. Why didn’t she think about how much her voice mattered? Why did she betray me? I was her friend.
I sat on my bed, staring out my window and ponder how strange it is to miss someone who you have never met, stranger still to know you never will. But I take comfort in the fact that the music still exists, and so I put on Love Is A Losing Game and fell asleep.
