Michael Jackson, an enormously talented and influential pop star of mixed and increasingly dubious accomplishment, has died a premature and miserable death, as anybody with half a brain thought he likely would. And so now he’s gone.No doubt this is a terrible time for his family and friends.
The rest of us: surely we can see that his death deserves little attention. It isn’t particularly meaningful or important, now is it?
Snap out of it!
We cannot say that we are being fooled. It is not entirely inaccurate to say that we are being "informed." … The efficient mass production of pseudo-events—in all kinds of packages, in black-and-white, in technicolor, in words, and in a thousand other forms—is the work of the whole machinery of our society. It is the daily product of men of good will. … The people must be informed!
—Daniel Boorstin, 1961
Around the World, Shock and Grief Over Jackson (New York Times)
Fans lighted candles at an spontaneous gathering in Hong Kong, while in the Philippines, a dance tribute was planned for a prison in Cebu, where Byron Garcia, a security consultant, had 1,500 inmates join in a synchronized dance to the “Thriller” video.
“My heart is heavy because my idol died,” he said.
15 comments:
You're cold, dude.
I agree it's really odd that he's getting all this attention--he contributed one very good dance record, and wore some funny clothes. John Lennon didn't get this sort of attention, and there was a major loss to any thinking person.
No, 2:05; Chunk isn't cold. He'd rightly argue the same if someone he loved and grieved over, but who had not made any notable contributions to the world, received the same vastly disproportionate reaction in the press and popular consciousness.
--MAH
I still haven't gotten over Ed McMahon. As for Michael, I like him better now that he is dead. He did have a huge influence over our culture - particularly in the 1980's. He also had worldwide fame. He was also a freak and a pedophile. There is nothing to say that hasn't already been said many times over. He was a beautiful child but a ghastly adult.
Why accuse him of being a pedophile? Any evidence, apart from his being tried in the media (but acquitted in trial)?
Freakishness per se is no sin; after all, natural selection proceeds (sometimes happily) upon the occurrence of "freaks." And, more importantly, surely the automatic condemnation or rejection of "freaks" (i.e., the set of persons usually saddled with that term) is akin to racism in that it is arbitrary and certainly unjust. So let's lay off this freak talk, OK?
Speaking for myself, I had pity for the fellow and disdain for much of his clueless and undiscerning following. I do think, too, the crowd of family, friends, and business associates who allowed "the King of Pop" to drift so dangerously from norms of conduct, feeling, and self-image--these are the obvious villains in this unseemly saga. At least since the early 80s, it has been obvious that he was a train wreck a ticking time bomb. Only a dolt or creep would fail by then to avert their gaze. As always, the moral of the story is: we are a culture without a molecule of wisdom.
Many people's "coming of age" memories are tied up in MJ's music, and so they mourn the loss of an icon. As with Elvis(also a train wreck)and John Lennon, Michael Jackson's iconic status causes his mortality to be felt as a shock for a whole generation of people. Perhaps members of this same generation must also face their own mortality and so mourn the loss of youth as they mourn this figure. It might feel like the passing of an age.
ES
I must be missing some brain cells or cromosomes or something. I recall the death of John Lennon. I was a fan--grew up with the Beatles. But I did not understand then all the importance heaped upon his death (as opposed to his being murdered--naturally, we were ashamed about that). It seemed unseemly and confused to me then to regard his death as the death of an era or any such thing. I feel exactly the same way about MJ's death, except that MJ was, I think, less impressive as a musician (etc.) and far less attractive as a person. (OK, I admit to thinking that, comparatively, "his" era sucked.) But I do understand how the death of "icons" causes one to think of one's mortality--the old "time is running out" feeling. I recall thinking about that hours before MJ's death, when the world seemed fixated on Farrah F's death. I was never particularly a fan, but I do remember her from even before Charlie's Angels (which my crowd always regarded as execrable and irredeemable), when she had a small role in a great little show called "Harry-O." Anyway, her death caused me to think about being young and living in a very different world of breezy and bad TV and bell-bottoms. On the other hand, this world in so many ways seems better to me. It is a drag, of course, seeing yourself as old as you once saw others--others who once seemed to you to be invisible and an inch from oblivion. When the mortality neurosis sets in, i always force myself to think "50 is the new 30." Yes! And it is! Unfortunately, that didn't help MJ much. 30 and dead. I sometimes think that some elements of American idealism or romanticism never quite took with me. I'm a sourpuss European in some ways. God, that sounds awful.
Well, you don't have to understand it. It just happens that way. You are a thinker; many, if not most, people are not. Your reactions and thoughts will differ from the majority. This is not a criticism - I like the way you think.
ES
Thanks, ES. I think that some of this has to do with the peculiarly American attraction to joining emotional gushfests. (In part, this is a willingness to become an emotional spectacle; in part it is an attraction to the group gush--a kind of erasing of the self and joining of something larger.) For whatever reason, my inclinations are entirely in the other direction. That everyone is out there pouring out their "grief" immediately drives me indoors. And I don't really want anyone but those close to me to see me in distress. But then there's just the sheer irrationality of these things: viewing a man's death as though it were the death of a friend or the death of one's time. Imagining (I guess) that one had a special connection to the person or something. I dunno. The world is divided into two types: those who enjoy using the word "unseemly" (that's my group) and those who wouldn't think to go there.
So true. I also don't get the gushfest, as you call it. I think that the imagining of a special connection to a celebrity is how they become celebrities in the first place. It's part of "charisma". Is it really peculiarly American? Remember the reaction to Diana, Princess of Wales? Now, I know she did much good work in her lifetime, but people around the world acted as though they'd lost their own sister.
ES
Ok, seriously, this really is too much. I went to Amazon to buy a cookbook just now, and on their homepage I was invited to "share my memories" of the King of Pop by clicking some stupid comments link. Now the unseemly "grief" has gone commercial. "We understand, we're grieving too. Share your feelings and buy his albums and biographies with us, in one convenient place."
ES
Somebody's gonna pursue a national Holiday. You watch. I'd prefer "Fawcett" day myself. We could all show up wearing that hair.
I find it amusing that we celebrate on the day he died.
Fawcett day would be fun. With our goatees Chunk, we'd no doubt be amazing. I could try to capture young Fawcett, you could catch the older days. Then we could have a hot off.
ES, you can be Charlie.
-wonders why such a fine sexy young woman would be willing to go in to an all male prison to be in a thriller video...oh wait. - BS
Ooh, that IS hot! I can't wait!
ES
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