After watching the season premiere of Glee on DVR, I was moved to look up a quote.  While on the boards – I saw comment after comment about the upcoming Cory Monteith tribute episode.  Negative comments.

A lot of people it seems, feel that a tribute show is not only not in order – but in bad taste.  “Hollywood shouldn’t be glorifying drug use!”

As if his body of work and part in making Glee a successful television program should not be acknowledged or celebrated.

If that is the case – then we all really ought to stop celebrating or recognizing the following people and their contributions to history and culture:

Van Gogh, Edgar Allen Poe, George Washington, Ernest Hemingway, Winston Churchill, Florence Nightingale, Sigmund Freud, Pablo Picasso, Stephen King …

Just a few people who used/abused drugs during their lifetime.

And if you’re thinking about putting on a heart warming holiday film in the next couple of months, make sure it isn’t ‘A Christmas Carol.’

Do you think if  TMZ was there to report every time Charles Dickens got into opium that we may not have ‘Oliver Twist’ or  maybe there would only be a tale about ‘One City’? ‘Mediocre Expectations’?

Drug use, abuse and addiction is nothing new.  As long as there are humans with physical, mental or emotional pain – there will be a drug to numb it.  Addictive ones – that grab hold and render the user dependent.

But does an addiction define you?  Shouldn’t a persons accomplishments be celebrated? In spite of flaws, handicaps or addictions?

No, drug addiction shouldn’t be glorified.  But if using drugs disqualifies a person for any good they may have done – then you’re going to have to cast a much wider net than ‘Hollywood.’

I’ll be tuning in for the tribute show the 2nd week of October, because I know they won’t be celebrating his drug use.

His sad, untimely death closed the curtain on what might have played out.  I look forward to remembering the moments that have made me smile on an innovative show he was an integral part of.