The point being, extremely few people rise to the top of multiple fields, which is essentially what Jackson has done, which is something to marvel at in and of itself. Jackson, became a two-time Oscar-winning actress, a two-time Emmy winner, and amassed four Tony Award nominations throughout her career. She was one of the preeminent British thespians of the 1970's, and achieved pretty much every filmic accolade one could accumulate during that time. Just left to that, she would have remained a legend in her field and have accomplished a great deal, but Jackson also took a foray into politics, and has been a Member of Parliament for over twenty years, becoming a figure on the national stage once again, and became a junior minister during the administration of Tony Blair.
This is all to say, before we get into a dissection of her recent speech on the floor of Parliament, that I do admire the woman going into the debate. I have two major passions in my life: politics and film, and she's one of the few people who has achieved significant success in both, so my hat is off to her.
Recently (yesterday), Ms. Jackson took to the floor of Parliament and delivered a disparaging, biting speech against the late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that proved why she could sell both politics and Shakespeare over her long career. There were members of the Tory Party who tried to challenge her, and while the Speaker didn't wave one way or the other on what he thought of her speech, he did agree that she had the right to say it on the floor. The speech brought up an interesting conundrum, one that, while this incident took place in the UK, resonates in the United States as well: when politics and grieving meet, what is the proper protocol?
The knee-jerk reaction to this sort of thing is that it was improper, and the adage "don't speak ill of the dead" comes to light quite quickly, but it really is more complicated than that. For starters, we've gotten to a weird area in the past decade when it comes to the deaths of well-known people and how we treat them. Looking into the world of celebrity, we see people like Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson, beloved by millions but disparaged by millions more, and yet when they die, the entire world comes out in an almost altar-worshipping manner to pay their respects. I'm thinking specifically of someone like Perez Hilton, who had been writing horrible things about celebrities and then when they die, he does a complete, hypocritical 180 degree turn, but he's not the only culprit; this is something the media does in huge waves, and that we do ourselves.
Part of this is because we can separate the person from the issues that they are facing-the drugs, the scandals-and remember why we became enamored with them in the first place, but shouldn't that sort of understanding come when the people are still alive, when that sort of support could actually do some good? And if we treated them like garbage while they were alive, what does that say about the public, and the media in particular, when it comes to their deaths? It says that, even if what the people are selling is a product, we fail if we can't remember that they are humans underneath, and death is probably the worst time to remember that sort of empathy, as it does no one any good except perhaps ourselves with an ersatz nice feeling for buckling to a societal norm.
Where am I going with this, you may ask, aside from a random tangent of something I've had on my chest for a while? I'll tell you right now. The difference between Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson and someone like Margaret Thatcher is that, if you didn't like Houston or Jackson while they were living, you simply could ignore them. That's not the case with a politician in power-for better or for worse, you have someone who is in charge of you that will make decisions that will greatly affect your life, and in the case of Thatcher, she affected millions of people. Her policies regarding Monetarism had a huge impact on the unemployment numbers in the manufacturing industry in England, and her views on privatization, unions, poll taxes, and in particular, the poor, mentally ill, and unemployed are held in high contempt by many people, both in the UK and internationally.Where the belief that people should mourn the person and not the deeds becomes an issue is when someone like Margaret Thatcher is in essence her own deeds. These things happened as a result of Thatcher and her government, and therefore, I think it's wrong to chastise Glenda Jackson for her strong words against the late Prime Minister. Where with someone like Whitney Houston you can separate the art from the life that was being lived by the artist, politicians are not celebrities-they are leaders who make decisions that affect our lives. They are completely intertwined with the policies they are crafting, and since those policies affect people long after the politician leaves office, and are their principle reason for being in the public eye, it is not only fair but just to continue to call-out the beliefs of that public figure if we don't agree with them, as long as the issues they espouse remain relevant. I'm not saying that people should constantly decry a person, but it's a dangerous path to sanctify someone just because they are dead. With that sanctification comes justification for what they believed in life and what they did in life. If someone like Glenda Jackson, or the people of Northern England who also derided Thatcher upon the announcement of her death, disagreed with her in life it would behoove them to point out that what she did was not all good. She may have been a strong-willed person, someone who shattered multiple boundaries, but to ignore the bad of a politician's politics, the reason for their fame, would be an injustice to all of the people that were affected during her leadership and afterwards.
This is not that we wish ill of a person-far from it. But we shouldn't be forced by societal pressure to turn a public figure, particularly one that we had a strong dislike of, into a saint, and I think that's where we have come as a society, which is a shame for multiple reasons, but primarily because it shuts down yet another avenue of political debate. The issues of Baroness Thatcher's tenure as Prime Minister are still alive, still issues that people feel at heart, and every opportunity we spend discussing a gaffe or a misspoken word or a sex scandal or some other nonsense is an opportunity we haven't taken to discuss an important issue of the day. Public assistance, education, the environment, federal debts, the rights of unions are all still looming large in the UK and in the US, and pressing to be a part of the national discussion. We need to stop mincing words because it isn't the "proper time" and start having a legitimate discussion without pretending something is what it isn't.
So, in summation, I don't 100% know how I feel about Margaret Thatcher and her passing as the end of a life is a bitter affair regardless of your personal opinions toward an individual, particularly one that you have never met and don't really know. I am sad for her family and for those that loved her, and do wish her the best in whatever the next life brings. But I am certain in my standing behind Glenda Jackson that she has every right, and should be encouraged, to bring back the debate to the policies of the woman, and to not cherry pick to sugarcoat a legacy that millions still disagree with, including Ms. Jackson and myself.
In fact, to quote a rather well-known politician, "I love argument, I love debate. I don't expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me-that's not their job." That politician? The Iron Lady herself.
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