What happened to Tony Scott was tragic, though suicide generally is.

Whatever one may think about the act, whether or not it’s right, wrong or whatever, concerns me less than the blatantly lurid tendencies that seem to emerge when such things happen to famous people (the non-famous don’t seem to attract as much attention, for some reason).

Numerous bystanders ended up filming Scott as he jumped from the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro, CA.  The filming in and of itself doesn’t bother me because, if I happened to be there, I might have done the same thing if I had a device capable of doing so.

I even understand the urge to sell the footage.

What I don’t understand is why someone would want to watch it.  Scott killed himself, though I am not at all sure that the watching the act of him plunging toward the dark, turbulent waters of Los Angeles harbor is going to teach us anything.

And if we can’t learn anything about what caused him to end his life in such a brutal manner by watching it unfold, then we don’t need to watch it at all.