Michael Jackson, Not Guilty; You and Me, Guilty
A "used to be" famous person once told me: "When you go from somebody to anybody, it's the same as being nobody." If that's true, then imagine what it's like when you go from "somebody" to being laughed at as a freak.
I wonder what the toll on someone's peace of mind, subsequent stress level and need to take meds to deal with it would be when a world that used to idolize you ridicules you as a screwball.
In Hamlet Shakespeare wrote that: "The lady doth protest too much." It's understandable that the untimely death of the "King of Pop" would generate such an emotional reaction since Michael Jackson's life, accomplishments and setbacks have occurred alongside our own. I just wonder how much of the outpouring that we see and that we may feel coming from within ourselves is fueled by a touch of guilt that maybe our laughing and parodying of him over the past decade may have contributed to what finally made his heart give out.
Whatever the case, it appears that his memory will be less about the person whom we felt embarrassed for and more about the superstar who "thrilled" us for so long.
So long Michael. May you rest in peace and I hope that when you run into Elvis and Frank Sinatra you're jammin away.
Also: Will Michael Jackson be loved for who he once was or not?
What/Who Killed Michael Jackson?
Follow Mark Goulston, M.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/markgoulston
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If you're going to feel guilty about something, feel guilty about over-rating him in the first place. Really, there is so much good music out there, popular and not. Michael Jackson made some of it, but he didn't tower over his contemporaries, much less his predecessors. Perhaps he wouldn't have gone off his nut if everybody else didn't about how "unique" he was.
That's okay. No matter what Michael Jackson would have been torn down. There is something evil that lies in people that want to bring down those who attain heights that we can't imagine reaching.
I hope that, when gifted record producer Phil Spector dies, and when gifted athlete OJ Simpson dies, everyone will be as anxious to explain that they were geniuses, wonderful individuals and not to blame for the oddball things they did.
Excellent point.
I'm sorry but if he really cared about what others thought of him, he wouldn't have provided so many ample opportunities for ridicule over the years. He was either clueless, or like Britney, addicted to fame at any cost. OOps interest is waning, time for another public appearance with tape on my destroyed nose. Oh nobodys been talking about me, time to dangle a kid off of a balcony
i never felt sorry for him in the slightest and i find it odd that others would..
That's just cynical. Trust me, in London, he's adored. He was a pleaser..and he wanted to please his fans. He had a father's grip on his child. I think it was dumb, but who I've seen a dad do this to his child at the Hoover Dam just to put me into a frenzy. I don't know why I didn't trust the dad, of course, he wasn't going to let go of his baby. But it is a scary thing to watch for some of us.
I am by all means no Michael Jackson fan, but I still want to thank you from the very bottom of my heart for finally standing up for truth in general. I don't care if it's Michael Jackson or John Smith or Michael Smith or whatever name they are given, anyone who is held hostage by predatory lawyers and coniving families do not deserve to have their name dragged through the mud.
Don't throw your guilt trip on me, Doctor. I never particularly liked Jackson's music, I thought his buying up the rights to Beatles songs and selling them for commercials--despite Paul McCartney's plea to sell the rights to his own work back--was despicable. The whole child molestation issue was never proven, and the woman who took him to court seemed more interested in extorting money than in protecting her child. Jackson's famous dangling of his own child...? Tell me how that was acceptable behavior, please.
As a human being, I felt very sorry for Michael Jackson. His desperate attempt to make himself into... whatever it was he wanted to be...was simply pitiable. Overall, I saw him as someone like Howard Hughes -- too much money and fame for anyone to be able to stop him from destroying himself.
Mocking him? Sir, I have too much going on in my own life to care what Michael Jackson did, or waste time throwing rocks at such an easy target. Believe it or not, there are thousands of us who were not either fans or detractors, but simply... uninterested.
I hope he's at peace now, anyway.
If you were not so interested you would not have posted a comment regarding MJ. He was and will always be a great entertainer, his music and his genius will live on forever. So even if you are not interested like I said why make a statement. Rest Michael you will be missed. RIP
"He was and will always be a great entertainer, his pop pabulum, written and produced by a corporate machine, will always be useful for driving record sales and commercial conversions."
Fixed.
To call Michael Jackson a musical genius is ridiculous. He was a mildly talented musician who was "lucky" enough to be exploited by those around him for his entire life and completely willing to go along with it.
I guess tht's why Im cryin so much. Just last week I was joking about Michael Jackson. I feel like I was way too judgmental and laughed too easily at this man who brought so much joy to me, and never harmed me. Guilt coupled w/ love makes my heart hurt. I wish someone could've been there 4 him.
When he runs into Jackie Wilson , Sammy Davis Jr.,James Brown, and Sam Cooke, Then he'll be jammin.
Oh yes true that
I stand corrected. Thank you.
good point, with a deeper lesson, that really explains a lot in the whole subject of bullying and jealosy - which are as rampant now as they've ever been.
It would be useful if this message could be given out more broadly. Everybody I've seen on TV, stars, authors, singers, Deepak Chopra,......... all they want to do is score personal "fame points" with how close they were to him, when was the last time they spoke, what secrets did he share. Screw that, talk about exactly what you just wrote, THAT is the deeper meaning. Seriously well done! .
He wasn't born twisted, and his fans didn't make him like that. It appears that his "manager"/parents wanted him to support the entire family forever by staying a little boy. Remember that scene in Gypsy when the little girl wants to grow up, but if she does the act will fall apart? Somebody sexually humiliated him when he was young, convinced him he had to starve himself, keep away the male hair growth patterns, male adult muscle and body patterns, speak like a child, act like child, stay a child forever. That wasn't the fans, it was somebody closer to home.
He was taught that who he was -- a black male -- was bad, and he had to devote himself to disguising that or he would be hated. What kind of an end could anyone expect? This type of childhood trauma usually ends in self-mutilation, shame, isolation, addiction, early death. But it's not the fault of his fans or the public. It was much closer to home.
NABNYC, you hit the nail on the head.
Regularly sleeping with young boys in and of itself is beyond creepy, whatever you do or don't do beyond that. It's sad indeed that something in Jackson or his family or whatever made him behave this way, and even sadder that something made him seek to whitewash himself. It was certainly not his fans--white or black--who wanted him to whitewash himself. The Michael Jackson they knew and loved was the amazing talent who sang and danced as a proud, handsome black man. Jackson, like Michael Jordan, like a whole line of hip-hoppers since Jackson, was idolized by young white people, and the last thing any of these white people wanted was for Jackson to grotesquely bleach himself. Maybe having grown up in the America of Toni Morrison's "Bluest Eye," Jackson was simply brainwashed by childhood media to dream of bleaching his African-American identity away. If so, this was especially tragically ironic in his case, since he was a central figure, like Jordan and the hip-hoppers, in the change in young white American thinking that made them realize that the coolest people in our culture seemed to be "black." Jackson's fans loved him "black" the way he started; they began to wonder about him when he himself seemed to do all he could to move away from that blackness.
He disfigured himself horribly with his plastic surgery, but would someone please explain to me why it easier to believe he bleached his skin than believe he had vitiligo?
Next, would someone care to explain exactly how he could achieve the ghostly effects that his skin had? His skin color was beyond just white, it was translucent.
I agree with you 100 percent, he was mentally and emotionally damaged that is why he was so child like. Michael is now at peace and he will not be subjected to all the mean evil people of this world. Rest on MJ. We will miss you.
Of course, he had no agency or responsibility for this, even after an adult. OH, the humanity.
".....a touch of guilt that maybe our laughing and parodying of him over the past decade may have contributed to what finally made his heart give out."
I once watched a nature show that showed a pack of hyenas tearing a baby elephant apart while still alive.
Although disturbing, it is the natural behavior of that animal.
What was their excuse?
Opportunistic profiteering from their "cash cow" M Jackson at his expense, not theirs.
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