The news of Daveigh Chase’s death at 35 from AIDS-related complications has, predictably, sent the internet into a froth of performative grief. We are told to remember her as the voice of Lilo, the plucky Hawaiian orphan in Disney’s 2002 animated film. But let us not be sentimental.
Her death is a symptom of a society that has long since abandoned the virtues that once kept such tragedies at bay. Chase, like so many in Hollywood, was a casualty of a culture that worships pleasure but abhors responsibility. AIDS, once a scourge that galvanised public health campaigns, has become a silent killer among the reckless.
We romp through the ruins of the Roman Empire, and we do not even notice the fires. Her death is not a singular tragedy but a parable: the fall of a child star reflects the fall of a civilisation that no longer knows how to protect its own. Let us mourn, yes, but let us also learn.
Or do we prefer to fiddle while our youth burns?
