No One Mourns the Wicked: The Ethics of Mourning Morally Flawed Celebrities

The Broadway musical “Wicked” opens with an apotheotic song announcing the death of the Wicked Witch of the West (Schwartz 2003). The characters passionately sing, “No one mourns the wicked, no one cries ‘they won't return!’. No one lays a lily on their grave.” They claim that when morally flawed people die, people do not and should not mourn their death. Indeed, the song continues, “The good man scorns the wicked! Through their lives, our children learn what we miss when we misbehave.” Yet this claim is not consistently supported in real life when it comes to the deaths of celebrities who have committed severe moral transgressions, such as murder, assault and battery, rape, child abuse, and have never taken responsibility for their wrongs (henceforth, “morally flawed celebrities”).1 A striking example of this comes from people's public reaction to the passing of the football player Diego Maradona, who, despite his numerous controversies and immoral actions, was also acknowledged as one of the greatest football players in history. His death triggered a massive collective mourning (Huffpost 2020a, 2020b), especially among his millions of fans worldwide, with some even going through long lines to attend church services. This reaction met with feminist criticism, which reminded people of Maradona's misogynistic behavior (Centenera 2020; Romero 2020; Smith 2020). The day of his death, on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, added even more complexity to the appropriateness of this public mourning (Gómez Urzaiz 2020; Romero 2020; Smith 2020). Some journalists voiced concerns about the public mourning of Maradona, asking “At what point is it decent to mention that the hero had a violent drive towards women? Is it enough to simply speak of ‘lights and shadows’?” (Gómez Urzaiz 2020). Others acknowledged the tension but judged this blaming attitude as judgmental and divisive within feminism. For instance, they said that “As feminists we cannot let pass, let alone forgive, the violence that Maradona exercised against women in life, but neither are we in a position to judge the pain or patrol the feelings of others” (Romero 2020). Public opinion faced the same dilemma that year with the deaths of Kobe Bryant, who somewhat admitted in 2003 to a rape case settled out of court, and of Sean Connery, who was accused of abuse by his first wife (Gómez Urzaiz 2020; Smith 2020). These reactions highlight the ethical concerns surrounding the public mourning of a celebrity who has greatly contributed to their field, but who has also committed some serious transgressions. In this paper, we aim to address what might be wrong about publicly mourning a morally flawed celebrity. Public mourning is a way to express and validate the value of what has been lost through the death of a loved one. As Andrea Westlund (2017) argues, the purpose of sharing grief is often to “memorialize the deceased” (p. 33). By engaging in public mourning rituals, grievers aim to testify to the value of the person who has passed away and to garner recognition from others about it. However, a tension arises when this practice involves a morally flawed celebrity, as trying to testify their worth can conflict with the ethical implications of publicly honoring people who have committed severe moral transgressions, such as rape, child abuse, assault and battery, or other acts of significant harm. In what follows, we examine three explanations for why mourning such a figure might be morally wrong, and argue that the best explanation is one that considers both the moral flaws and celebrity status. In Section 1, we examine and reject a first explanation, which emphasizes the morally flawed character of the person being mourned. Drawing upon debates in the ethics of love, this explanation suggests that publicly mourning morally flawed celebrities is ethically problematic because we should not mourn morally flawed people, whether they are celebrities or not. In Section 2, we present and dismiss a second explanation, which highlights the celebrity status of the person to be mourned. Inspired by debates in the ethics of fame, this explanation states that publicly mourning morally flawed celebrities is ethically problematic due to the inappropriateness of mourning celebrities, regardless of their moral character. Instead, we advocate for a third explanation, which underscores both the person's morally flawed character and their celebrity status. Building on debates on the ethics of honoring and commemorating, in Section 3, we argue that publicly mourning morally flawed celebrities is ethically problematic because it risks contributing to testimonial and affective injustice against those who have been wronged by the celebrity as well as the victims of similar wrongs. Furthermore, it might normalize or endorse the wrongdoing. Finally, in Section 4, we conclude by considering how we might respond by mourning in a way that does not risk these ethical problems. Our focus on public mourning shapes the next methodological choices. First, our main emphasis is on public meaning. Public meaning refers to the interpretation and significance that people can justifiably infer of a symbol, or gesture, within a specific community or context (Archer and Matheson 2019). It highlights the idea that the intended message of a symbol might not always align with how others perceive it, and its interpretation might vary based on the cultural, historical, and social perspectives of different individuals or communities. Second, we focus on the expression of mourning in the public context, as both public meaning and normative expectations on mourning might change depending on the context. By public mourning, we mean mourning done in spaces which are accessible to others, such as open social media posts or displays in public areas. These expressions might come from particular individuals, institutions, fan communities, or news organizations. Regardless of the mourning body, our focus is on the public nature of the expression, while also recognizing that the degree of publicity might differently shape the potential harms we aim to highlight. Consequently, our paper intentionally refrains from delving into the ethics of privately mourning a morally flawed celebrity. Finally, as our emphasis is on visible displays of bereavement, we align with the broader understanding of mourning as the outward expression of an individual's grief. 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