The Grammys, as always, presented the strangest bookending of talented famous people: Tina Turner and her defiance of age and gravity opened the show; Amy Winehouse and her wee problem with cocaine won five Grammys.

Winehouse, of course, who is marginally terrifying to gaze upon, has recently been in rehab for drug addiction — but this, of course, seems to be part of her allure.
More has been said about the generally hellish last year in lives of Winehouse, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and an embarrassingly large amount of others than most pertinent, serious problems our society faces. Nevertheless, the pervasive darkness of both Spears’ and Winehouse’s 2007 albums somehow resonated with a fair share of the public.

Now, we all love a good drug story. “Saturday Night Live” and most legendary rock bands have provided us with entertaining material to last us until Revelations. But, in the case of the Tragic Starlets of the Aughts, the classic drug story takes on a discomfiting nature — details are a little too explicit, streaming video a little too revolting, and the decaying looks a little too cringe-worthy.

Spears and Winehouse, fixtures of this era of disastrous wrecks, are enclosed in their own worlds, likely perpetuated by drugs and the glare of the media. It seems to fit with our Facebook and TMZ culture, wherein new media fuel our lightning-quick perceptions. Without the immediacy of online culture, Spears and Winehouse might not hold the fascination they do; the sheer amount of information spurs on the drive for more details and more depravity.

Contrast these two images of straggly hair and deranged fashion with Turner. At 68, the lady is a fox. She could probably do cartwheels in roller skates around Thunderdome and take down Osama bin Laden by shooting lasers out of her eyes. Nobody expects either Winehouse or Spears to make it to Turner’s age — hell, nobody would be surprised if they were dead tomorrow.

Clearly, Turner is not without her own Ike Turner-shaped luggage set, but her lady parts never went out for a stroll during a night on the town. Nor is there is a horrifying image of her bashing a car window with an umbrella or smoking crack cocaine. Perhaps many of her contemporaries that would have ended up like Spears or Winehouse died too young, the victims of lesser emergency care, or perhaps, Turner is a product of a different era, one that valued class and did not need figures like Winehouse and Spears to revel in.

In looking at these fallen figures, the pop culture icons for which this period of history will likely be remembered, we’re faced with a complex set of social issues: Does the fascination with the grotesque stem from our new online culture? Are we looking for something that reflects the disastrous state of politics, the war and terror? Or, are we looking for famous people to feel morally superior to?

The only sure answer, of course, is that we don’t need another hero; we just need more Tina Turner in our lives.

—Katherine Miller is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Science. She can be reached at katherine.m.miller@vanderbilt.edu