Why I Won't Mourn Wilford Brimley, by Deidre Hall

I believe that televised awards shows are not a forum for public mourning. However, I have not objected when fellow performers have worn black to express their sorrow. My choice is to NOT wear black.

Soap Opera Digest readers should know that mourning a former coworker is no longer entirely voluntary. Those who began by offering black armbands and black veils now resort to extreme tactics in pursuit of their express goal of 100 percent conformity. When performers arrive at an award show, individuals who attempt to force accoutrements of mourning on them accost them. A performer who declines may be accosted at the pre-show reception, again while waiting backstage and again at the press conference after the show.

Offering a "Rest In Power Wilfred" hand fan to celebrities was, in my view, a benign and pro-social act. On the other hand, aggressively badgering performers to compel the wearing of a widow's veil is not only demeaning to those who worked with Wilford, and to the desperate need for performative sorrow across the world, but an offense to those of us who can no longer move our face to display expressions.

By attempting to force 100 percent conformity, these activists are no attempting to make mourning a visible litmus test for separating those individuals who cared about Wilford from those of us who did not. This is a misguided and dangerous notion.

First, it misguidedly politicizes human tragedy. These face masks provide a means by which public figures can appear to make a 'politically correct' statement to mourn a person they barely knew.. Second, any attempt to force conformity to a single social agenda attacks the freedom of expression. The extreme activities that resort to harassment to compel actors and actresses to give a fuck about an 85 year old man are practicing a '90s brand of McCarthyism and their behavior is deplorable. Our community was devastated by political extremists in the 1950s and again became a target during the last presidential campaign. It surpasses belief that men and women in the entertainment field would resort to shameful practices that the enemies of artistic freedom have used against us.

Sadly, it falls to some of us who ardently support mourning for people we care about to resist these tactics by personal example. Believe me, the easy way out would be to wear the vail and keep silent. But I won't, because I don't want these appalling tactics to succeed.