bummer of the week

Hey you guys,

Now I like to think of myself as being fairly jaded and unshakable (it goes with the territory of being an arts writer and Onion vet) but I was watching the Biography profile of Jayne Mansfield that's included in the new "Girl Can't Help It" DVD (look for a review in an upcoming issue) and something in it disturbed me in a visceral way that really got under my skin and stayed with me. At the nadir of the "nightmare descent into booze and pills" stage of Mansfield's life she's quoted as drunkenly yelling at her abusive lover to "beat her (Mansfield's teenaged daughter) like you beat me!" And though it kind of sounds like really bad, over-ripe dialogue from a terrible show-biz melodrama I found it disturbing for any number of reasons. Needless to say, it's not good parenting (Dr. Spock specifically forbids it) and though I'm not naïve enough to imagine Jayne Mansfield ended her life handing out daisies to widows and orphans and nursing injured kittens back to help I was horrified at how low she had sunk. Even for a boozed-up, pill-popping has-been Hollywood sexpot.

So here's my question for you dear readers: what was the last thing you experienced in film/television/music that made you instantly think "God, I wish I could go back and erase that from my memory. I just do not need to see/know that on any level?" What last broke through your iron clad cynicism and really affected you on a personal, emotional level? Please, don't feel the need to be specific or graphic. In fact, feel free to be as fuzzy and vague as possible, all you Captain Bringdowns and Debbie Downers out there.