By Cavan Burns | Reporter
Mac Miller, to me, is a tragic hero. A tragic hero is a type of character with heroic qualities — which make the audience sympathize — in addition to personal flaws. A tragic hero, first defined by Aristotle, is both virtuous and flawed. The tragic hero must suffer a reversal of fortune at some point within his journey. However, in the modern day, these characters no longer have to fit into that heroic standard.
Most often, this reversal of fortune is caused by the specific person’s flaws. Such is the case with Miller. In one of his songs, Miller said, “The white lines be numbin’ them dark times. The pills that I’m poppin’, I need to man up, admit that it’s a problem, I need to wake up, before one morning, I don’t wake up.”
Miller was only 26 years old when he died in his California home in September 2018 due to an accidental overdose. One simple decision ultimately resulted in his death. There is a trial date set in November for three suspects charged with connection to his death. Despite a trial date being set, Miller did struggle with substance abuse throughout his young musical career. A week before his death, Miller seemed to be thriving, even though he was struggling. Thundercat, a fellow artist and friend, and his daughter, Sanaa, were invited over to spend the whole day with Miller.
Since Miller’s death, his team has released an entire album entitled “Circles,” and it has rereleased some of Miller’s older music. A posthumous single was released by the late Mac Miller and his team on Sept. 15. The single, “Colors and Shapes,” is from a mixtape entitled “Faces,” which was originally released in 2014. Today, though, “Faces” is set to release on streaming services on Oct. 15.
“That was the plan with ‘Faces’ [closing song]. ‘Grand Finale’ was supposed to be the last song I made on Earth. I don’t feel that way as much anymore,” Miller said in a Billboard interview in August 2015.
While it is nearly impossible to convince you that Miller is an objectively virtuous person, everyone has their flaws, and Miller was no exception to that rule. However, a lot of the tragedy surrounding Miller is seen in his music.
In Miller’s song entitled “Perfect Circle / God Speed” from his album entitled “GOOD A:M” — which was released in 2015 — he said, “They don’t want me to OD and have to talk to my mother, tell her they coulda done more to help me and she’d just be cryin’, saying that she’d do anything to have me back.”
That, to me, is why Mac Miller is a modern-day tragic hero.
