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'Kyle's Mom' is Dead at Age 38
Packetbasher writes "Yahoo News is reporting that Mary Kay Bergman has committed suicide. Mary Kay was responsible for 'many of South Park's female denizens--from the prickly Ms. Cartman to Stan's beloved Wendy.'"
Those of us who watched South Park last night may have noticed that Comedy Central inserted a brief, tasteful message saying simply "In memory of Mary Key Bergman" after the closing credits. I didn't realize when I saw it who she was, but I commend Comedy Central for the way they handled it - quietly, and without fanfare, as befits the solemnity of the occasion.
http://www.hollywood.com/movietalk/celebrities/mbe rgman/html/sound.html
The last one (at the bottom) is a bit eerie in light of recent events.
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Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Here is her entry in the Internet Movie Database. She's done a huge number of movies, including STAR WARS Episode 1, THE IRON GIANT, and four Disney animated features, plus over half a dozen video games.
IMDB credits her with the following SOUTH PARK characters: Mrs. Cartman, Sheila, Female Body Part, Nurse, Mole's Mother, Little Girls, Wendy Testaburger, Stan's Mom, Kenny's Mom, Mayor McDaniels, Ms. Crabtree, Principal Victoria, Shelly Marsh, Nurse Gollem.
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
While I can't say that I have lost a fammily
:) ...else I shall
member to suicide, I don't see it as quite
so sad.
Those who commit suicide are dead because they
want to be. They have gotten what they want, a
final end to their mental suffering.
What is really sad is how our society treats
suicide. Those who fail and are discovered are
likely to live life much worst off than they were
before. They get to live not only with their
mental anguish, but with being constantly watched,
their actions always questioned as they might be
getting ready to try again.
The real sadness, is that because of this attitude
most people who are thinking about suicide never
come out and talk about their feelins, as they
know there is no "safe" place to do that...doing
it is almost surely going to take away their
ability to commit suicide, as now people will be
prepared to "intervene". Which in turn means that
a useful outlet for working through their problems
is effectively shut off...and thus they are more
likely to "just do it".
I have always found suicide an interesting topic.
Its interesting to ask yourself "Could I do it?"
Most people say no but why?
I bet many would answer that its out of love for
this person or obligation for that... but I think
its allot mor ebasic than that.
Actually taking the final step of pulling the
trigger or swallowing the pill is not easy.
Both from my own thoughts about the subject, and
reading the writtings of people who actually
are suicidal (I am not...I am just fascinated by
the subject) it takes an extreme amount of mental
will power to do it. Which of course makes me
think that anyone who says people who commit suicide are weak, truely have no concept of what
is really involved.
I for one couldn't do it. It takes alot of will
power to force yourself to "catch the bus" and
find out once and for all whether all those
religious people who were thrusting pamphlets into
your hands on the street corner were right.
(I for one certainly hope not
have a quite warm eternity)
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
And here is yet another example of fame making someone more important than any poor joe on the street. When a mother to 3 children dies in a car wreck, she doesn't even make it on page 84 of the local newspaper. If I went out and killed myself right now, not one reader of slashdot would mourn my passing, even though I have family and friends, just like this woman did. Face it.. money and fame really does equal importance in the world.
Another thing.. hoards of people will ring in with chimes of "she was such a wonderful " when they had never even heard her name before this event. If you don't know anything about her, please don't try to fake it and say she was so wonderful. Maybe she was a complete warbitch. Maybe she was an angel. I certainly don't know the woman, so I won't make any comments as to how she lived her life and treated others.
For the record, I am not trivializing her death. It is, indeed, a bad thing when someone dies. (most of the time, not counting terrorists and such) I just want to point out that many people are more pissed off that the voice of the southpark characters is gone rather than that a woman has died and left behind mourning family members and friends.
I'm fairly sure I'll be moderated down as a troll or as being flamebait, but that is not my intention.
This is all too true, though maybe not in the context you mention it. I don't believe that its fear of being prevented from killing themselves that stops most people from talking about their suicidal feelings. Most suicides make multiple attempts to let people clue into their pain. Often these attempts may be too cryptic for relatives or friends to realize. Often the fear that keeps them from being more open about their pain is that whatever they fear will be confirmed from those around them -- eg. I confess that i'm extremely lonely and if I tell someone they might tell me its cause I'm an asshole, or ugly or something along those lines.
And this is still a way too simplistic explanation. I've spent over 8 years dealing with the suicide in my family. I've been in therapy and have examined this problem from many angles. Its just too complex to reduce to some pat explanation, even as I have above. The biggest damage that suicides bring are usually to those around the victim. Having lived through one, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Its not something you get over very easily.
But I also agree with part of your assessment. I have come to believe that there are many situations where suicide may be warranted. I don't believe you have outlined any suicides i would consider acceptable (which i define as something I would be able to accept if it happened to a family memeber or loved one). Chronic pain with no cure is one of these. Perhaps a debilitating condition that one can't work through might be another. Its a personal choice. But this choice is also one that your loved-ones will have to deal with. To only consider your own view is selfish. Many others will be severly impacted by your decision. At least recognize that.
Its a sticky subject, and there are lots of emotions on all sides of it. Its something I wish I didn't have to examine so closely, but I think I'm better off from having done so.
The reason people are mourning her and not some unknown mother of three in a car wreck is that they don't even know the mother of three exists.
There are six billion (6,000,000,000 to make sure that we Yanks and the Brits are thinking of the same "billion") people out there in the world. People are dying all the time. In the time it will take me to fisnish this sentence at least one person (at my typing speed it will be far greater than that) will have died somewhere in the world for some reason.
Do I mourn the person(s) who died while I was foolishly puttering away my limited time on this world typing this? Probably not.
Why? I DON'T KNOW THEM! I have never met them, I don't know their names, I've never seen their faces, they have never directly impacted my life in such a way that I can associate the effect with the person as an individual.
The death of a famous person is a lot different. I don't really know them, but I know of them. I've seen their faces, or heard their voices, or music, read their words, seen their films, etc... They have efeected my life in a way _I_ can accociate the effect with the pserson.
THAT is why famous people are mourned by the masses of the population. It is BECAUSE we know of them, we know they exist.
In the end >99% of us will only be mourned by the family and friends we leave behind. Is that really so bad?
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
A copule of comments on this thread have been along the lines of "Man, she was successful, had a way better life than me, why would she do this?" I just wanted to comment on that. It's natural to think that way--I used to, I'm not trying to rag on anyone here--but clinical depression (not the blues, or being down, but an honest-to-God mental illness) can strike anyone, regardless of what reason they have to be happy. I speak from personal experience that I'm not going to delve into, but let me say outward success will not help someone get over this disease. They need treatment, both pharmacological and psychological in most cases, to get through it. And it's not easy to tell if someone's depressed. The person I know is a wonderful actor, and if you aren't very close to them you don't know what's going on. It would be entirely possible for her close coworkers--hell, even for her husband and family--to have been completely unaware of what was going on until it was too late. There doesn't have to be an obvious trigger, a depressive episode can start for any number of unclear reasons.
Now, I don't presume to do pop psychology at a distance, since we don't know any details (and shouldn't. It's not our lives.) This has probably been to presumptive already, I just wanted to share my experiences. Without meaning to turn this into a PSA, I wanted to point out that there are plenty of resources on depression out there on the web if you're curious about what I was saying or depression in general. It's worth a look; it's very likely to touch your life somehow before it's all over.
Stevis
We've got two lives, one we're given, and the other one we make. --Mary Chapin Carpenter
Doctor says 'Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him, that should pick you up.'
Man burst into tears. Says 'But doctor, ... I am Pagliacci.'
From The Watchmen, Alan Moore