Until I read the comments on my brief obituary of Robin Williams, I had no idea that there was such a universal love of the man and his work. And, it seemed, a lot of the affection was connected to the characters he played, both the unreservedly humorous ones (Patch Adams, Mrs. Doubtfire), but, especially, the damaged ones who were all the more empathic for their trials (Dr. Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting and Parry in The Fisher King, both of whom lost their wives in tragic circumstances). And although I knew Williams had substance abuse problems, I didn’t really pay attention to reports that he suffered from mental illness, something that, remembering those roles, somehow makes sense.
(By the way, although everyone seemed to agree here that Williams suffered from bipolar disorder, I can’t confirm that. A piece at yesterday’s PuffHo reports that, “Comedian Robin Williams once told an interviewer that he struggled with depression, but hadn’t been diagnosed with either ‘clinical depression’ or bipolar disorder.”) Several other comics I can think of, including Stephen Fry (much more than a “comic,” of course), Spike Milligan, and Jonathan Winters, suffered from depression or other forms of mental illness. I can’t help but think that the malady helped feed some of their comedic genius. Winters’s and Williams’s rapid-fire, extemporaneous comedic riffs, for instance, seem like a highly channeled form of mania—one of the poles of bipolar disorder.
As New York Times movie reviewer A. O. Scott said in today’s Memoriam to Williams:
Back then, it was clear that Mr. Williams was one of the most explosively, exhaustingly, prodigiously verbal comedians who ever lived. The only thing faster than his mouth was his mind, which was capable of breathtaking leaps of free-associative absurdity. Janet Maslin, reviewing his standup act in 1979, cataloged a tumble of riffs that ranged from an impression of Jacques Cousteau to “an evangelist at the Disco Temple of Comedy,” to Truman Capote Jr. at “the Kindergarten of the Stars” (whatever that was). “He acts out the Reader’s Digest condensed version of ‘Roots,’ ” Ms. Maslin wrote, “which lasts 15 seconds in its entirety. He improvises a Shakespearean-sounding epic about the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster, playing all the parts himself, including Einstein’s ghost.” (That, or something like it, was a role he would reprise more than 20 years later in Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.”)
Besides “Good Will Hunting” and “The Fisher King” (whose last scene I’ve reprised a few times in my own dreams), my favorite Williams movies were “Dead Poets Society,” and “Awakenings” (probably because the story, based on a book by Oliver Sacks, was so moving). And of course there were his incomparable comedic appearances, best when he was just making stuff up. When you saw Williams on a talk show, you always sat up because you knew you were in for a ride, and a lot of it would be hilarious. While I don’t know what he was like in his private life, every sign I could see (plus a few readers’ comments) suggests that he was exactly what he seemed to be: a funny, empathic, and (in light of the news) troubled man who hid his troubles well. The statement from his wife in his obituary in the New York Times supports that:
Mr. Williams’s publicist, Mara Buxbaum, said in a statement that Mr. Williams “has been battling severe depression.”
His wife, Susan Schneider, said in a statement, “This morning, I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings.” She added: “As he is remembered, it is our hope the focus will not be on Robin’s death, but on the countless moments of joy and laughter he gave to millions.”
Indeed, and that’s what readers here focused on. It is no small accomplishment to bring joy to the lives of so many people, and also, after death, to get them to open up about their own battles with depression. I found the readers’ confessional statements about depression very moving. I’ve had enough friends and family so afflicted that I know it is far more than sadness, and that it can plunge one into a maelstrom of hopelessness so deep that there seems no way out but death. I know, too, that to the severely depressed their malady is like terminal cancer: they see no respite, ever, and so death seems preferable to eternal mental torment.
Williams’ passing thus gave us some moments of humanity that provided respite, however brief, from the troubles and brutality besetting our world right now. We can mourn Williams not only as a purveyor of joy and laughter, but also for the knowledge that he died from an affliction far commoner than we think, and perhaps we can learn to help those so afflicted.
How do we respond to the severely depressed? Stephen Fry, who has been suicidally depressed, shows us how. Read this post from From Letters of Note:
Early-2006, during a bout of depression, a young lady by the name of Crystal Nunn wrote a desperate letter to Stephen Fry. Says Crystal:
“I had no idea who to turn to. But I really needed someone to turn to and to ease the pain. So I wrote to Stephen Fry because he is my hero, and he has been through this himself. And low and behold, he replied to my letter, and I will love him eternally for this.”
Here’s Fry’s reply to her (there’s a transcript at the site if you can’t read this):
What a wonderful letter, and a wonderful man!
Here’s how you don’t respond to Williams death: as P.Z Myers has in a post at Pharyngula, in which he claims that the media (and our government) has taken advantage of Williams’s death to draw attention away from racism and other social problems. In other words, we’ve been manipulated:
I’m sorry to report that comedian Robin Williams has committed suicide, an event of great import and grief to his family. But his sacrifice has been a great boon to the the news cycle and the electoral machinery — thank God that we have a tragedy involving a wealthy white man to drag us away from the depressing news about brown people.
. . . Boy, I hate to say it, but it sure was nice of Robin Williams to create such a spectacular distraction. No one wants to think the police might be untrustworthy. [This refers to the police shooting of black teenager Mike Brown in St. Louis.]
And think of the politicians! Midterm elections are coming up. Those are important! So people like Barack Obama need to be able to show their human side and connect with the real concerns of the American people by immediately issuing a safe, kind statement about Robin Williams, while navigating the dangerous shoals of police brutality and black oppression by avoiding them. Wouldn’t want to antagonize those lovely law-and-order folks before an election, you see.
Wealthy white man? Really? This is one of the most contemptible and inhumane things I’ve ever seen posted by a well-known atheist. It reeks of arrogance, of condescension, and especially of a lack of empathy for those who loved and admired Williams not because they knew him, but because he brought them happiness and made them think.
Yes, we can care about the oppressed, but we can also care about the loss of someone who did a lot of good in this world. Let’s face it: few of us atheists will make the difference that Robin Williams did. In a time of immense brutality, it does no good to ride roughshod over the feelings of those of us who really did admire and respect Robin Williams. What is gained by that?
Professor Myers forgets one thing. While he can jump to conclusions as to who did what and to whom, the POTUS cannot. He did it once in his first term and wound up egg-faced buying beers at the White House.
Fortunately, unlike his predecessors, and unlike PZ Myers, our president learns from experience. It is only right that he remain silent at least until the investigations are complete. Even then if something is to be done it will be by the AG not the POTUS. The charge that President Obama is silent about events in Ferguson, MO while eulogizing Robin
Williams as a diversion from those events is preposterous and insulting. It insults not only President Obama but any person with enough intelligence to realize that presidential comment about Ferguson is not needed, wanted or even wise at this time. Hell – it insults my intelligence, and the intelligences of millions of people who are not pharyngulists.
On a more personal note: I was an atheist before PZ Myers was born. I don’t need lessons from him or the pharyngulistas on how to do it right.
Is it not time to admit that PZ Myers is actually harming the cause of atheism in the eyes of the general public with his obnoxious self-important puffery? I’m happy to tell anyone who asks that I am an atheist, but I’d hate them to assume that I’m somehow like him. Time for a campaign: “I’m an atheist and I am not like PZ Myers”!
T-shirt logo time!
You know, I can’t add anything that hasn’t already been said about PZ. But the more I think about it, the more disgusted I am. Who is he to prioritize the importance of the news? To be honest, Robin Williams death affected me a whole lot more than Brown’s death. My whole life has been affected by my loved ones, my mom especially suffer from this cruel disorder for years, decades even, without help. And now a very genuine, kind, cherished human being was taken from us too soon. It blows. So the fuck what if he was a “rich, white man”? He was an artist, a husband, a father, a friend…he was so much more than a “rich white man”. I am not as smart as PZ and his crew – I’ve only ever commented a few times, even though I’ve read him for years, I was never acknowledged…it’s a pretty tight knit group. So be it. WEIT is so much more friendly and respectful. And the care that pours forth from the regulars here is so refreshing and real. We can get our points across without resorting to “mean girl” cliques and nastiness. Sometimes I feel like I was adopted into a healthy loving family here.
I am disappointed in PZ, I thought he would maybe realize that he was arrogant and insensitive. I was really hoping he would realize that William’s death could open up a new dialogue on depression….a much needed healthy dialogue. I thought he might apologize. I thought he was capable of that. He’s demanded it of so many others. Alas, he is doubling down in a filthy way, heels dug deep. I’m glad he has been spared the ugliness of depression – there’s no way he could have made these posts if he had any fucking empathy whatsoever for sufferers of depression and/or their affected loved ones.
That’s well said. And I don’t mean to beat a dead horse here, but rereading PZ’s follow up comment (quoted by Vaal above) has left me so astounded, I have to comment once more. PZ says that you, and all of us, have no emotional connection to Robin Williams. PZ says that his death does not matter and is distracting us from things that do matter. PZ says that his mistake in that post was not being even more disrespectful to the “famous dead guy.”
Nice of PZ to tell us how we do and should feel, what matters, and what should and should not matter to us.
PZ has lost all perspective. He is an embarrassment to all atheists and humanists.
“PZ has lost all perspective. He is an embarrassment to all atheists and humanists.”
Atheists and humanists shouldn’t feel compelled to defend everyone in the movement. The are more than enough assholes to go around on all sides of the spectrum.
Brilliantly written eulogy:
Russell Brand: Robin Williams’ divine madness will no longer disrupt the sadness of the world
Beautiful eulogy by Brand, Vierotchka. Thanks for sharing.
Truly sad about this one. He was the best!
PZ became popular by debunking creationist dogma with interesting examples. I used to read his blog quite regularly but he seemed to develop his own mental problems over the years.
I’m not sure what the clinical term is for Paranoid conspiracy theories and a highly developed persecution complex, but they are incompatible with rational behaviour.
I stopped reading a few years ago when it became apparent he had joined the “lunatic fringe”.
What he publishes these days is almost always in bad taste, like so many of the well educated crack-pots on the web, he’s unwell and deserves our empathy not our derision.
This is not fully true. Actually PZ Myers also ridiculed genuine scientists doing difficult and leading edge science.
PZ Myers is also wrong on important scientific issues, and his anti creationists crusade, however justified in itself, was also an alibi to ridicule and scorn interesting science out of his field.
If person A thinks that the death of person X is less newsworthy than the death of person Y it doesn’t mean that person X is not important to some people.
(By the way, my opinion is that this and similar arguments are not logically sound in any way. However there are people who think arguments of this type are sound, but only for certain values of A.)
I’m a therapist and deal with death and suicide all the time.The comments people hear from others, even when well meaning, can be so cruel and there have certainly been thoughtless and cruel comments in this case. It’s a testament to Robin’s appeal and and, I believe, vulnerability, that he his death has touched so many. It’s made us look at the darkness of depression and the repair of suicide. If only we will continue to have compassion and care for others and reach out when they need us.
Depression, along with bipolar disorder, are so misunderstood, that the people who suffer from these debilitating illnesses are largely alone in a world that can be very judgemental and harsh.
More information, education, public awareness, public ‘marches’ (similar to what is done in aid of cancer) should be done in aid of mental illness, as it is real, and it robs it’s victims of their quality of life, and very often, ends in death.
Just because you can’t ‘see’ it, does not mean it does not exist. It’s as real as a tumour growing on an arm, that is visible, painful and receiving treatment. Which also, could end in death.
Please people, educate yourself on depression and other mental illness, as you may have a loved one suffering terribly, that you are not aware of. It would be a tragedy to lose a loved one from bipolar depression especially if you had no idea what he or she was going through.
So PZ Myers thinks the media is using Robin Williams death as a means of focusing attention away from the troubles of black people? Let me see if I can get my head around that for a minute. The press never gives two tugs on a dead donkey’s ding-a-ling about highlighting the troubles of Black people on most any other day, let alone the day Robin Williams commits suicide. It’s not like the media wouldn’t have found some other shiny thing to shift focus from the plight of the poor. Matter of fact, the kind of person who would make such a wild conclusion from such a limited set of data must be a middle class white guy living in the boonies of Minnesota. Wow. PZ lost it the day after he went to the creation museum. That was his last sentient era IIRC. I’ve been mocking and satirizing the internet silo from which this type of ‘crazy talk’ has been coming since the blue haired skeptic girl went bonko on Dawkins for pointing out the obvious. Then it was Lawrence Krauss, because he knew a guy who was friends with a guy who chatted up a 16 year old. Then it was rape accusations against Michael Shermer, bolstered by the unshakeable witness testimony that he may have offered to refill a women’s wine glass. (I am not making this up). Anyway, Jerry is a lot higher status and profile than I am and so his push back against PZ will be more effective than all the content I have published on this lunacy in the last several years. I call them the American Girlyban. Might be tied intimately and strongly to my profile you could google that term to find my stuff, but in any event. KUDO TO MR COYNE. JERRY IS MY NEW BEST HERO. HITCHENS IS GONE.. WE NEED A FOURTH HORSEMAN. Just saying’ Enjoy.
I haven’t read PZ’s blog in a while, but I have the impression that he’s upset that men hit on attractive women. Give me a break. That’s the way of the world.
I only heard about it chatting with Justin Vacula, a prominent skeptic friend in Pennsylvania who does a lot of church/state stuff. Coincidentally, I think Justin and I first crossed paths in the aftermath of what was called Elevatorgate. That got Dawkins laughing at the absurdity and it was game on. I was a big PZ fan. Not a Johnny Come Lately to the movement or his history. The guy and his raving bunch of misshapen girls in sundresses lost me with the unsubstantiated high profile charges of rapes and assaults at women attending those events. I have never been, but I have been to hotels, some even in Vegas where these things are often held. Security is tighter than Mitt Romney’s grip on the key to his tax return file cabinet. That aside, in all the years and all the events, none of these feminist atheist warrior was ever able to produce so much as a reported rape attempt let along a rape report, which as a skeptic, doesn’t pass my standard of proof. The ‘you gotta believe us’ with no proof? I swear at first I thought it might be intentional parody the standards for evidence had shifted so wildly and quickly. THAT got me agitated to write against them. Once I did so, I was branded along with a bunch of other innocents into some block list being described as the worst of the rape threateners and trolls? I wasn’t alone. Half the list was comprised of FEMALE skeptics!! Anyway. That is all honest history. I’m just glad Jerry called it out. I hate that PZ gets any traffic from it. Through that chance Skype call with Justin today I found out about it since even though I’m on WETI feed I can’t keep up with Jerry’s output. LOL. When Justin told me about it? I was reminiscing with him on the fact I thought PZ was pretty much out of sight these days, done in by his previous hubris. That’s when Justin hit me with the bombshell of PZ’s latest attempt at what? Relevancy….pffft. Hits….He that hard up for a buck? It’s weird. Guy used to show a vicious side but it was balanced by honest appraisal of evidence. Evidence be damned now. What does my gut tell me is the mantra of the day. Sad. I’m still of the mind that Skepchick has compromising photos of PZ and she’s hijacked his website and agenda in a blackmail payoff to keep them out of the press. That’s just my gut feeling. It’s based on observation. I swear it makes more sense and is probably just as likely that it’s some weird brain tumor disabling PZ’s ability to reason. I’ve called for medical evaluation such is my genuine human concern for the ignorant goober. Enjoy.
I can’t believe P.Z. meyers said that. If we learned next week that Morgan Freeman was in a deep depression and had killed himself, it would be just as shocking and tragic.
I do not believe that there is “always help” for those suffering from depression and it may be, at times, a reasonable solution to a life we can’t always make work. But we do need to understand that this action will deeply hurt the very people who care and love us. That is the greatest tragedy.
I’m not going to pretend that I know who PZ Myers is or that I care what he as to say, but my response to his load of absolute drivel would be: “It’s not about the death of a ‘wealthy white man’, it’s about the death of someone close to us – or rather someone to whom we FELT close. Racism and police brutality are social issues, the death of Robin Williams is a personal one.”
I’m pretty sure he’s an evaluationary biologist. He’s fairly well known in the atheist community. Your point about why we feel as we do is very well put.
You know, I *did* feel an emotional connection to Robin Williams. Right from the start, I thought maybe he had ADHD, too (I don’t think that’s what we were calling it, then, though.) I saw someone who was physically hyper, who bounced around from one subject to another randomly, who was weird and socially awkward, just like me – except people responded positively to it. We also shared the depression and the struggles with alcohol, and his successes gave me hope as well.
Maybe he wasn’t a close personal friend, but he was not just some white rich guy to me.
I wonder how PZ’s traffic is doing these days….
Anyway, I’m out. Have fun guys’n gals.
Myers couldn’t help it. He has no free will…
I just remembered this one:
Robin Williams doing Elmer Fudd doing Springsteen’s “Fire”
forgot the link…
The day after he passed I was wearing a hat I got from his weapons of self-destruction to her and someone that I had respected at work cuz I went to talk to her cuz her son and I both have really severe ADHD I thought I would find sympathy there but she ended up turning it into a competition saying that Depression was nowhere near as bad as childhood Cancer and that she thought he did it for attention. Suffering from depression myself I have found that making other people’s happy you get I’m not going to get second hand but it feels like it so you get that quantity of happiness and laughter returned back at you cuz your body just cannot generate that feeling by itself