I haven’t said anything about Charlotte Dawson’s suicide because I would never have the audacity to think for one second that I understood the pain and suffering of a fellow human being that drove them to the ultimate self sabotage. What I do know is that women live in a world with a daily multi-billion dollar advertising campaign convincing them they are ugly without beauty products. I do know how vicious human beings can be when they think they are commenting anonymously and I do know that each of us carry the human condition differently on our journeys. To do what Deborah Hill Cone did in the Herald yesterday, to strip Dawson of her dignity in death with grotesquely crude psychobabble is possibly the ugliest chapter in a novel of sadness. I appreciate the pressures of commenting on real time events with the need to provide a unique perspective to make sense of the rush of those events, but there are times when one needs to shut the fuck up and think a hell of a lot more before one comments. Because Deborah Hill Cone didn’t provide closure or understanding or insight, all she did was add to the very judgmental culture that drives those who hurt to the bleakest parts of their depression.
Be ruthless when criticising power, but out of basic decency, let the suicide victims be free of our judgements because they have sorrowfully passed the worst and ultimate judgement upon themselves. Anything beyond that is just a mutilation.
Many journalists are commenting on DBH’s herald article. Its not only nasty but erroneous in the writers thrust of lost beauty/suicide.
Many more women suicide young rather than 40yrs plus old. Aging beauties dont top themselves as a rule.
I guess DBH was butt hurt by CD maybe over something CD said, maybe the ‘small minded, nasty and vindictive’ comment?
Utterly, utterly spot on! My only thought as well is that New Zealand Herald needs to hang it’s head in shame at allowing publication. If this is what they think passes as “newsworthy” then either they have no scruples, sense of decency or they must be in desperate, desperate financial trouble 🙁
Thank you for writing this Martyn. As someone who knows about the hate of anonymous bullies online and offline, due to being on TV and also left NZ because of anxiety due to the scrutiny I received.
I was mortified to read Deborah’s article.
How can anyone know what another human being is feeling.
If it wasn’t for my family…I wouldn’t be here, life got pretty dark.
Charlotte was an inspiration to me and now she is gone.
Please leave her alone if you have nothing nice to say.
I have my own mantra ‘ It is hard enough to SURVIVE in this life let alone SUCEED….so please be kind!!
Writng this makes me feel hugely anxious as I hate blogs…but I need to do it for Charlotte.
To shine in this dark world….is becoming very very hard 🙁
Insightful, Martyn.
Yeah, well said. She’s pushed the movement backwards on understanding Mental Health and suicide prevention.
Not only that, she admits she didn’t know her and yet assumes vanity caused Charlotte to kill herself, not depression.
I’d suggest that Miss Dawson had far more playing on her mind for a very very long time.
DHC has scored her own “controversial opinion” goal, proving why CD said she’d left NZ’s vicious media.
I hope young Lorde has her eyes wide open – I doubt DHC will care the hurt she has caused if she wrote it in the first place.
However – If she had the balls.. she would apologise to Charlotte’s family and friends and also to those suffering mental health issues for trivialising their very real deep and dark pain.
The saddest thing is had CD known DHC’s own battles with depression, she’d have cared and reached out.
Revolting tabloid crap from the writer and shame, shame, on the editor for allowing the publication, less than 48 hours after her passing.
Really, If this is the standard now at the herald, then they no longer have standards in my eyes.
I will not read that publication ever again, let alone part with my money to buy it.
I agree. This article by DHC, is disgraceful. Nasty. Pointless & cruel.
I too will follow suit & cancel my subscription.
I couldn’t disagree with you more. I though the writer was clearly coming from her own perspective and experience with the issues and the fact that she has done so, so personally seems to be her crime. A kind of macho reserved only for men, and only for issues deemed appropriate by Men, the good priests presiding over taste and morality and the expense of an honest heart filled awkward communication. I suggest that if you have to lie, cover up the truth and all it’s splendid colors to have your “dignity in death” you (us) may be more of the problem than appreciated.
Tao – Cone may have been “coming from her own perspective and experience” – but she was clearly using the death of another human human to make whatever point she was trying to make.
I found Cone’s piece revolting and whatever message she was trying to convey was lost in her cynicism and judgementalism.
I guess there are just a few people like myself who view capitalism as a major factor in the creation and maintenance of depression. And that celebrities be it All Blacks or Super Models are at best poor spokespersons for this, precisely because of how they represent such a narrow definition of what it is to be ‘successful” in the first place. i understand that Deborah Hill article is upsetting, I just don’t feel you are up set about what is upsetting. Capitalism sucks.
I have to disagree with you Tao Wells about celebrities being poor spokespeople for depression. Having suffered from it myself, mental illness has a huge stigma to it. Had I seen John Kirwan’s advert about depression when I went through it I probably would have sought help earlier, instead of wanting to keep it to myself. It was incredibly humbling to realise that depression can affect anyone, anytime, at any age.
Lack of “success” or aging was not the basis for my depression and I believe Martyn’s point is we cannot assume what Charlotte was going through. Ms Cone’s article was arrogant and as Jennifer said, “full of guesswork”.
in my opinion she wrote directly to this public idea of CD, and about the limited social roles older woman face as a woman aging herself.
The role media and celebrity have in this is secondary, as in if we as a community celebrated older woman, for qualities other than their looks and not necessarily their smarts (the big two on offer) then perhaps “stars” would follow. But this is unlikely to happen.
I’m glad a lack of capitalism’s “success” was not a factor in your depression, I wonder what the national stats on that are? How many people have depression, because for some part they don’t share the values espoused by the dominating culture. What are the rates for mental health issues with indigenous people any way?
Tao Wells – I think the problem is not that Ms Cone Hill didn’t “cover up the truth”, it’s that she wrote an opinion piece, full of guesswork and innuendo, about a woman she never met, who can no longer reply on her own behalf. Poor “journalism”, poor ethics, poor humanity. THAT’s what’s got so many people upset.
The issue of women feeling invisible as they age is a valid one, but a. we don’t know if that was a factor here and b. Ms Cone Hill has addressed it dismally, at best.
And yes, I realise I got her surnames the wrong way round. Not deliberate!
I agree that there were many lines that were in bad taste, but I could also recognize that as a piece of writing those lines were to me, a way to prepare the more difficult, harder things for herself to say, about the role of older woman in society, a role that I felt she was occupying herself. yes I think we all see that the writer is capable of being nasty, has been before. But critical about capitalism, and the doctrine of the free market society, I think that was very very hard to admit.
There are no truths or “splendid colours” in labeling a dead woman who can no longer defend herself an ageing beauty who couldn’t handle no longer being in the spotlight. To write “she’s dead and I’m alive” shows a trite arrogance, as though Charlotte’s death was a victory for Deborah. Deborah Hill Cone has just taken mental health awareness back 10 years and I cannot believe the NZ Herald ran this article.
Thanks Tao….we are on the same page on this one….although we may be a minority of two judging from the number of negative replies I received elsewhere on facebook when i said something similar to you. I wrote as someone who has had a personal experience of suicide as my then partner of 8 years took her life totally unexpectedly one christmas day. I did not find Cones remarks disrespectful of the victim at all….she bought up some very interesting points about women and the “brutality” of aging. The point of her article was that women who have relied on their sexual capital…[or from a feminist perspective have been denied access to a self that isn’t an object of mens sexual desire]…have to devise a strategy for the transition to middleage. She cynically describes how some women may seek this in the arts by becoming writers or artists and thus replace their sexual status with a cultural status. Although this is a cynical position it does ring true to me. Men and women are status seeking beings…I do not think her article bolsters or supports a culture that devalues women….I just think she is articulating the everyday thoughts of many women in their forties and she should be encouraged to do so…..not attacked by people who mistake personal commentary on a celebrity’s death for self agrandisment
thanks Ross Forbes, I appreciate your words. I think it is clear that there is an enormous pool of grief that is being tapped here, and being the flip side some what of anger, there is enormous potential for a mob like mentality to be lead further down the garden path. I ‘m not sure, but initial reports on the new anti bullying law being promoted in CD’s memory is exactly the kind of mass manipulation of public misery that capitalism’s leaders are more that prepared to take advantage of. In the name of internet “security” watch internet “freedom” disappear. Bullying however will continue unaddressed. As to do that, you’d have to start at the top. Where bully’s are collectively rewarded, by us. Bit of a pickle. hence the grief.
Totally revolted by Deborah Hill Cone and the New Zealand Herald for hiring soulless spiteful trolls as so-called journalists. Nasty and sick.
I totally tautoko you Martyn “Whats was the Herald thinking???”
What a deplorable piece of journalism and what a deplorable journalist. What an ignorant twit.
Hill Cone has always been a narcissist and self-important from my impression of her articles but the offensive rot she has written about Charlotte Dawson takes the cake if you ask me.
That the Herald would allow this to go to print makes one wonder about the age/maturity of their Editor. Do they even have one still?
Hill Cone’s article is so offensive to CD’s family and friends as to beggar belief.
What is going on at the Herald? We see the rot from the likes of Brian Rudman and Kerre McIvor and co and just have to wonder about the future of the mainstream print media. It’s looking a bit grim.
Perhaps the Press Council needs to take a leaf out of the Broadcasting Standards Authority’s book and lift their act while they still have one?
From my reading of DHC’s opinion piece, she was trying to make a particular point, but she made a terrible mess of it in her choice of both timing and target, which, in both ways, were terrible.
Hill Cones previous piece was a narcissistic moan regarding her school writing letters to parents demanding kids lunches to have no packaging waste.
Sam Judd, another Harold journalist, replied with an article supporting the new policy of teaching kids waste reduction by having lunches in a lunch box with no throw away wrapping. Its here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11206725
DHCone has been working from home for 10yrs whilst raising kids. In 2014 she moved back to a work environment with other adults.
I’d say after these 2 strikes shes probably a bit fragile herself now.
Frank – you say “after these 2 strikes she’s (Hill Cone) probably a bit fragile herself now. And maybe that’s a good thing. I thought she was callous in what she wrote – insensitive, and callous – and maybe from the reaction she’s received, she’ll start to re-think how she looks at the world, and at people. Up to now, Hill Cone has been rightous in her opinions, and often judgemental. Maybe, now after receiving a bit of sh-te herself, and feeling bad about it, she’ll be a bit more gracious about other’s perceived failings and be a bit more generous towards them.
What the hell is sexual currency and why does Deborah Hill Cone focus on the loss of it? She seems to have the insight of Michael Laws mixed with the charm of WhaleSpew and the elegance of Cactus Kate, but that would be irrelevant if she could write. She can’t.
So thoughtful. I find a lot of commentary on depression stinks of “my depression is more real than yours”. Your comment, “each of us carry the human condition differently on our journeys” is very accurate, inclusive and helpful.
Thank you for your succint honest and thoughtful piece of writing.
Thanks for this posting. I hadn’t viewed the Cone column in quite that way when I read it in the Herald, but upon reflection, I think your points are well made.
Well said Martyn. This piece was sick, sick, sick.
Sorry all, but on this one I’m siding with Tao Wells. DHC wrote an article which was “her opinion”, she has a right to this, her opinion, and I feel there was a lot of validity in her comments. And I say that with all respect to Charlotte, but feel we need to see opinions such as DHC’s to appreciate aspects of what actually went wrong with Charlotte and others like her.
But Coneheads opinion has nothing to do with what happened to Charlotte… its totally erroneous and misses all the real contributing factors, as well as Head Cones hate piece having a nasty spiteful tone about it.
I thought DHC’s piece on Charlotte D was possibly defamatory…any media lawyers out there care to comment on this? Or can you not defame a dead person? In any case whatever the legal aspect is, DHC’s article was in very poor taste and should not have been printed by the NZH.
For what it’s worth, all psychology courses (especially first year psych) should come with a contract: “I will not offer any analysis of any human being alive or dead because I am not a qualified psychologist.”
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/celebrity/charlotte-dawson-darkness-behind-life-in-the-spotlight-20140222-338wu.html
[…] This is the newspaper who employs one of Charlotte Dawson’s most hated mainstream media Trolls – Rachel Glucina who delighted in tormenting Dawson. This is the same newspaper who printed what I think we can universally acknowledge was the most disgusting review of Dawson’s death by Deborah Hill Cone . […]
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