Photographers at Lennox Hill Hospital This Week

[LansburyLuPone]

Posted: 3/19/09 at 10:35pm

I just wanted to say that I think it was TOTALLY TACKY for photographers to stake out Lennox Hill Hospital this week and take pictures of heartbroken Vanessa Redgrave and Liam Neeson as they went inside to be with Natasha Richardson. Then the photos wound up in the papers and on the news. Whatever happened to class?

[nearthestage]

Posted: 3/20/09 at 7:28am

"Whatever happened to class?"

It was deposited into their bank accounts along with respect, compassion, and decency.

[nmartin]

Posted: 3/20/09 at 9:02am

If there were not a multitude of people who bought papers and watched tv footage of the coverage, they would not have been there.

[logan0215]

Posted: 3/20/09 at 9:09am

I'm pretty sure the papers would survive with a text article without pictures of a grieving family leaving the hospital.

[nmartin]

Posted: 3/20/09 at 9:14am

You're missing the point. If this coverage were offensive to the majority, they would not have been there because it would have had no viewership. Period. I am not condoning it. I am just stating something that is obvious.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 3/20/09 at 11:36am

The sad fact is, the public in great numbers would turn out for public floggings or human flailings. Doesn't mean we should have them. The usual basis for this type of obsessive and intrusive photography is an assault on women. Try to photograph their nipples, go for the crotch shots. It's rape by a different name. Is it any wonder that the Los Angeles street gangs have infiltrated the paparazzi? A recent study indicated that many of the photographers who specialize in this field have a criminal history, often for spousal abuse. It takes a certain kind of lost soul to stick a camera lens in Liam Neeson's face right after his wife just died.

The same skill set worked really well for prison guards at Auschwitz.

Updated On: 3/20/09 at 11:36 AM

[thetinymagic2]

Posted: 3/20/09 at 3:24pm

Brilliant paragraph, AOML.

[PRFRMR20]

Posted: 3/20/09 at 4:16pm

Brilliant paragraph?

Um... did you really just compare the paparazzi to the Nazis? Taking pictures of celebrities to killing 6 million innocent Jews and millions of others?

Wow.

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 3/20/09 at 4:21pm

I was just amazed how E!News Juliana read a statement from the family's rep asking for "privacy" as E! showed film of the family coming and going from the hospital and footage of Liam going into his apartment building yesterday. It's just astounding.

[nmartin]

Posted: 3/20/09 at 4:48pm

"Brilliant paragraph?

Um... did you really just compare the paparazzi to the Nazis? Taking pictures of celebrities to killing 6 million innocent Jews and millions of others?"

Thank You! I thought the same thing.

[thetinymagic2]

Posted: 3/20/09 at 5:15pm

I am Jewish and did not take AOML's "paragraph" literally. I believe the poster was trying to make a point re: man being in inhumane to his fellow man...without empathy. Yes, the parallel may have been over the top. Of course, the Nazi's and the paparazzi's are on hugely different spectrums of behavior , but the point is well taken...to me, anyway.

[Esparzafan]

Posted: 3/20/09 at 5:21pm

The pathetic thing is that there is plenty of footage of Natasha Richardson and Liam Neeson on the red carpet of events together. Rather than have camera people stalk the hospital and their residence to get ghoulish video, it would have been infinitely classier of any of these media outlets to run old B-roll of them.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 3/20/09 at 8:13pm

Since nmartin didn't quite get me, allow me to elaborate. We live in a totally dehumanizing society, one where Harvey Levin of TMZ is considered a viable media baron, instead of the leader of a pack of bottom-feeding "filming-drunken-woman-in-front-of-nightclubs" and "let's get Britany's crotch" photographers (and BTW, I use the word "photographer" very loosely, most of their work is crap.) The fact that Levin and TMZ and all of the other scumarazzi would have sold their parents to get in-focus photos of Natasha Richardson on a respirator and the fact that millions of people would look at/buy/watch this dehumanizing bile indicates how low and trash-filled our society has become.

This is the first step down a long and torturous path to places like Auschwitz and Belsen. If we don't blink when a cameraman gets five feet from Liam Neeson and turns up the volume to try to hear what Sarah Jessica Parker was saying as she hugged him at the lights-dimming ceremony, and we don't grimace and gag at photos of dead accident victims (try ogrish.com) we're losing our humanity bit-by-bit. I was appauled at some of the "reporting" on this story and that's what I was commenting about. I know from this to a concentration camp seems like a long journey but every journey of a thousand miles....

[jazzicat]

Posted: 3/20/09 at 8:41pm

Unfortunately horrors like tragic, untimely deaths provide appeal and feed a curiosity factor in humans- particularly when a celebrity is involved. Anyone who lives in NYC knows that you don't go to Lennox Hill if you are fighting for your life. You go to Lennox Hill for the stomach flu. It was clearly a lost cause and they were out for blood. For the story. If it bleeds it leads.

I live right by the hospital and was absolutely disgusted by the paps, but admittedly I was also concerned and fascinated. I looked. And I think it's ok to question, to wonder. Which is why people took pictures, why we look at pictures of Holocaust victims and autopsies.. it is our of curiosity for various states of the human condition as horrific as they might be.

And we are in a down economy.. the thirst for financial gain is as powerful as it ever may be. This is the driving factor behind the paparazzi. Many are desperate. Trust me, we will probably see abuses worse than this as more homes are foreclosed, tent cities grow and children starve. And who makes you sicker-- a paparazzi photographer or Bernie Madoff?

I keep thinking of a line from Steel Magnolias that relates to untimely death..

She will always be young, she will always be beautiful.

Fear not, soon the paps will lose interest and we'll be writing about the next tragic story.

[PRFRMR20]

Posted: 3/20/09 at 8:53pm

allofmylife-

First of all, I think you should have address that to me, not nmartin. Though I could be wrong.

I understand your point about our society's dehumanization. However, once again its correlation to the Holocaust is completely out of line and false. Most importantly, it is the fact that "people would look at/buy/watch" other's flaws, faults and devastation. It was the psychotic idea of Hitler and other Germans to "purify Germany." It was superiority and prejudice that led to persecution that led to genocide. Not "rubber necking!"

Also, there are how many photos of death and torture from the Holocaust? How many pictures of the skinny prisoners behind the concentration camp fence? How many pictures of the dead bodies piled up in ditches?

If you forget, go to: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=holocaust&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

How about the painting that are centuries old of the crusades, wars and the cave paintings of hunting? How about the thousands if not millions of pieces of art of the crucifixion of Jesus?

People have been "looking at/buying/watching" these things for all of humanity!

I am also Jewish. However, I am not offended. I just think you are stating a really inappropriate and false idea that I needed to disprove.

Lastly, thanks for the mention of ogrish.com. It is a really neat website!! Oh no!!! Maybe I am going to be the next Hitler... (to be continued)

[allofmylife]

Posted: 3/20/09 at 9:29pm

actually, PRFRMR20, Ogrish has a better place in society than TMZ. They revel and boast of their inappropriateness and challenge people to look. TMZ uses tabloid TV techniques to lure people in ("Guess which star is stepping out on her hubby.") With Ogrish, if you choose to go inside, you know it's a dark ride and often a horrific lesson in man's inhumanity to man. With the paparazi, it is buried in celebrity and style and beauty, but it's the same brutality.

[uncageg]

Posted: 3/20/09 at 9:53pm

I found it to be apallling. Celebrities or not, where do we draw the line? And it bothered me that Liam Neeson apparently felt he had to wave at the cameras.

[logan0215]

Posted: 3/20/09 at 11:45pm

I'm sure Liam wasn't waving hello, it's most likely a gut reaction when you see the cameras and they are yelling "We're so sorry!" with mock sincerity.

Damned if he did, damned if he didn't. It can be twisted either way.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 3/21/09 at 2:35am

Actually, from what I understand, the cameraman stepped right in front of a friend of Neeson's just as he was waving.

Vultures.

[uncageg]

Posted: 3/21/09 at 10:29am

I saw it, that's why I commented on it. it wasn't a big wave hello, but I agree it may have been a gut reaction. I didn't see anyone jump in front of anyone.

[PRFRMR20]

Posted: 3/21/09 at 10:35am

uncageg, when you say "I saw it" do you mean in person? You were there? Or, just the picture?

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 3/21/09 at 10:44am

I, too, found the behavior of the photographers appalling; unfortunately, it's the norm and has been ever since the camera was invented -- it's nothing new at all (which doesn't mean it's right). Remember William Holden's line towards the end of Sunset Boulevard about the the press having a field day with the Norma Desmond story after she's shot him -- the "heartless so-and-sos." It's a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same. Sad, sad, sad.

[logan0215]

Posted: 3/21/09 at 11:01am

I think the more we accept the above stated attitude, the more this behavior will be perpetuated.

There has always been an element of sensationalism in the media, but I don't believe it ever has stooped as low as it has today. If JFK had been murdered today, the Post would have the photo of his partially severed head on the front page.

[April Saul]

Posted: 3/21/09 at 11:16am

Though I'm not a paparazzi, I AM a photojournalist, and at times, may be called upon to photograph people who might not really want their pictures taken at the time, usually notorious defendants in criminal cases. The comparisons with Nazis here are really over the top, and I agree with the posters who pointed out that it is OUR pop culture appetite that feeds this beast. Also, there's a big difference between covering Natasha's loved ones going in and out of the hospital and covering Neeson and others paying tribute on Broadway.

I would imagine the first to be be far more intrusive at a trying time; the second--unless I'm mistaken--is a public marking of the loss of a beloved and respected actress. As a member of a repected media organization, I would never be asked by my editors to stake out the hospital; however, the second, which was done in memoriam on a public sidewalk, would not be a strange thing to be covering at all, and I'm sure Neeson expected media to attend. I imagine--unless you all know something I don't which is entirely possible--that in this case the wave was just an acknowledgment.

I have covered untimely deaths in my own city in as sensitive a manner as possible, and more often than not, I am welcomed by the victim's loved ones for taking note of their loss. But honestly, this is all about our celebrity-hungry culture, not the working stiffs who feed into it, however obnoxious they may be!

[LadyDramaturg2]

Posted: 3/21/09 at 12:07pm

I thought aoml’s main points were compelling:

…this type of obsessive and intrusive photography is an assault on women…
…nipples…crotch shots…rape by a different name.

and contained some new, disturbing information:
…LA street gangs have infiltrated the paparazzi…
…[some of these] photographers…have a criminal history/…spousal abuse.

And finally,
…takes a…lost soul to stick a camera lens in Liam Neeson's face right after his wife just died.

The reference to Auschwitz, it seemed to me, referred to the loss of compassion and humanity that leads people to unimaginable lapses in their treatment of fellow man – not that he was “equating” paparazzi with 1940’s Nazi guards, nor the street outside Lenox Hill Hospital with the camps.

I watched the news reports; but I most remember the photos of that dazzling, radiant face of hers, so full of life, and was reminded of her brilliant talent. I just kinda looked away during the coverage of the family at the hospital.

And, btw, let’s not start speculating about why Mr. Neeson raised his hand in a wave “at a time like this;" none of us has any idea of what was in his mind or intention. There is absolutely NO reason to disrespect him.