"With the newspaper strike on, I wouldn't consider dying"
About this Quote
Darkly funny because it treats mortality like a scheduling conflict, Bette Davis's line turns a labor dispute into a personal convenience. The joke lands on the brutal vanity of celebrity culture: dying is not just an existential event, it's a public one, requiring an audience, coverage, and the proper rollout. If the newspapers aren't printing, then death can't do what it is culturally expected to do for a star - become a story.
Davis is also winking at the machinery that built her. Old Hollywood ran on publicity as much as talent, and the daily paper was the original feed: gossip columns, reviews, studio-crafted narratives. A newspaper strike threatens the entire ecosystem where a famous person's private life becomes public property and, in exchange, public attention becomes currency. Her remark pretends to be self-important while actually exposing how dependent fame is on the middlemen who distribute it.
There's a sly respect for labor in there, too, even if it's incidental. The strike isn't background noise; it's powerful enough to halt the symbolic order. If the press stops, the world doesn't just lose headlines - it loses the ritual that tells us what matters. Davis, whose persona was all control, sharp edges, and calculated performance, is essentially admitting that even the grandest exit needs good lighting and a competent crew.
It's a gag, but it's also a small, precise critique: without media, even death struggles to compete.
Davis is also winking at the machinery that built her. Old Hollywood ran on publicity as much as talent, and the daily paper was the original feed: gossip columns, reviews, studio-crafted narratives. A newspaper strike threatens the entire ecosystem where a famous person's private life becomes public property and, in exchange, public attention becomes currency. Her remark pretends to be self-important while actually exposing how dependent fame is on the middlemen who distribute it.
There's a sly respect for labor in there, too, even if it's incidental. The strike isn't background noise; it's powerful enough to halt the symbolic order. If the press stops, the world doesn't just lose headlines - it loses the ritual that tells us what matters. Davis, whose persona was all control, sharp edges, and calculated performance, is essentially admitting that even the grandest exit needs good lighting and a competent crew.
It's a gag, but it's also a small, precise critique: without media, even death struggles to compete.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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