Pop Goes the King
The "King of Pop" is dead.
But while the man may have mattered, his self-anointed royalty is just another example of the superficiality of our pop culture and its rotating cadre of paper-thin ambassadors.
Michael Jackson was yet another personality prized more for his ability to generate massive revenue than for meaningfully impacting peoples' lives. But yes, much of his music can still cause a body to move or transport one back to wistful youth; "ABC", "Got to Be There", "I Want You Back": blowing the world away on Ed Sullivan; crackling and popping on our Fold N' Play's; making our AM radio's twitch, buzz and jump; "Billie Jean" and "Thriller" arguably cultural touchstones, inspiring legions to mimic MJ's schmaltzy military fetishism and walking on the moon long after NASA deemed it financially unfeasible.
And yes, we look back on the innocent boy himself, pop prodigy, revelatory mini-dynamo, sporting all the moves, wielding the pure tones and the perfected 'fro of a truly singular talent, a velve-pre-teen idol, a bona fide Motown miracle.
And then over time we watch silently as the smiling strangers take the kid by the hand and lead him down a path a certain dysfunction, where money and fame are substituted for affection and affirmation.
A life of candy ensures decay.
Michael Jackson, the King of Pop is dead. And it's really not a big deal in itself, since scientific studies have proven that over time people do indeed die, whether by natural or unnatural causes. But as the super famous live unnatural lives, their similarly unnatural deaths seem, well, natural.
And while leading what must have been an extremely unhealthy life the real tragedy of it all is that perhaps it could have been saved, had he not gone down that damning path of fame. His handlers (read: parents) might have been able to prevent a life of exploitation and untethered eccentricity were they not themselves besotted by ambition and greed and yoked their children to a life of servitude disguised as gleeful performing.
At every opportunity for the young man to disembark from the one way fame train he was caught by the collar and pulled back on. Eventually he did this to himself, unconsciously mimicking his handlers' subliminal suggestions to eschew normalcy for commerce.
And he is not alone. So bombarded are we with comparable examples of what is supposed to constitute Success, where the only worthwhile life is lived in public, new generations are raised thinking "This is life's imperative. You only live if you're seen." Like the light inside the refrigerator.
The fame pandemic leaves a trail of broken bodies and fractured dreams, so much landfill for ever newly laid pavement. The funeral will be the best business in years, not since Anna Nicole. In lieu of humble admissions of culpability and/or introspective mourning, to hail the money-making/sexual deviant/pop icon with what will no doubt be garish, televised spectacles of calculated, high-profile grief, the "I'm A Celebrity, Hear Me Keen" reality show will be a ratings bonanza.
But by all means dismiss and underpay the teacher, the cop, the people who handle our endless refuse and when they die, give them no more than a backward glance, an absent "oh, yeah -- they kicked. Did you see the new iPhone?". It is such misappropriation of concern that leads to an unnatural life and its naturally unnatural death.
In fact the measure of one's existence should not be in dollars and cents, nor is life unimportant if not observed 24/7 by millions of paying subscribers. The recent spate of showbiz deaths only points to the fact that life, no matter how opulent or in debt, no matter how famous, infamous or unobserved is short and not always sweet. Why even Farrah, riddled with cancer, had the business acumen to maximize her commercial appeal to the end, filming her slow, tortuous demise when she might just have easily fought her fight in dignified privacy. Corporations and all who subscribe to their profiteering approach, seem to think that if they churn out cheaper and cheaper products and ever disposable cultural totems they will ironically, as the song in a certain film says, live forever.
Michael Jackson was another soul in torment who had his talent exploited, his singularity mass produced, his place in the natural order disrupted by greedy, insatiable masters. The king, it seems, was really just a pawn.
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My apologies fornot taking my thesaurus with me on the road; I was not expecting to see a hit piece on the Jackson family so soon after the death of their son.
So while you might content yourself with the claim that you said nothing in your piece to diminish the many accomplishments of Michael Jackson, what even you cannot deny is your responsibility for the broadside you laid against his parents - or, if you prefer, "his handlers".
My comment was written in direct response to the insulting post you made, assailing the decisions of a family from a world you know not.
Or, am I mistaken?
Did you also find yourself the father if nine children, scratching out a living in the steel mills of Gary, Indiana, back when neighborhood covenants restricted black families in the North to the poorest of neighborhoods? You know the same ones that white kids like you only visit to buy drugs?
For you to post this lame assault on the decisions another man has made to keep his family fed - and for you to decry him for even reaching for something more than that - is naught but one more racist screed, slapping down the hand of a black man for even daring to dream that his lot in life could be more than what you might deem appropriate.
My God, man. They haven't even laid their son to rest. What? Did you think you needed to rush your disapproval onto
Thanks for saying things I agree with.
Steve, you might've just lost a fan.
Say what you want about celebrity. People have commented that Jesse Jackson is exploiting this.
It's his celebrity that got hostages freed. It's Motown that, along with the rest of pop culture, made it through the iron curtain.
Your one sided argument against the cult of personality is just that, one-sided.
Think about the corny theme song to the Facts of Life. That pretty much sums it up.
MICHAEL JACKSON 'pop culture superficiallity'? That's a given isn't it? Diversion from common lives. Annie Lennox? Snoop Dog? Charlie Chaplin? Muhammed Ali. Hercules. Dolls on an altar shelf. Pause for pleasure, strength. Another paper-thin ambassador? Spreading concrete, lasting Joy and goodwill for all? Elvis. Fred Astaire, Angelina. Batman. I'm missing Weber's point, right? Bono? Like Former UN rep John Bolten? Bob Hope, right? We are talking show biz ambassadors aren't we? Caruso? Prized more for generating revenue than meaningfully impacting lives. Not fans, right? Rather the brokers of talent. Which comes first, incredible talent or money drawn to it? Jackson's passage is sad. That tour, gone! For me, I was 25 when he was born and old enuf to know better. Imagine. An old timer appreciate hiking the concert extravaganza balls moon walking high. Again, it is the music, the dance! That spirit to miss. But In a way I could care less. He was not my family of show biz icons. Michael, just a kid. Genteel but so infantile, whatever reasons. But for a showman, hoofer, singer, arranger of himself, entrepeneur extraordinaire, a person apparently wanted love and adulation by everybody so much he made himself sick over it but, fulfilled stage-wise, could go mass public, and make us. Gave us that extra something most of us don't have the crying need to pay for, give it all! Tortured soul. Yet many of us somehow identify, suspend belief. Get a moment of relief.
Michael Jackson enabled his own destruction but I believe at least as a child he truly didn't know better. After being exploited since the age of 10, he had people around him who only told him what he wanted to hear, not what he needed to know. This gave him the illusion of being in control. If we assume the accusations against him are true, we know the familiar pattern with child abuse. Eventually the abused grows up and becomes the abuser. http://theclosetconservative.com
Let's release everyone from the prisons then. They were all misunderstood and abused.
Either that or give me your children. In this economy I can help them make money.
Today is Saturday. I am working all weekend to stay just ahead of the wolves. In a sense, I am also on a treadmill, but I keep giving too. Fame I have not, a respite. About the same as Michael Jackson, it got me thinking a lot about my own mortality. Although trapped in the machine, I enjoy what I do, so it is not all bad. The same can be said about MJ. He was trapped in the machine, doing what he lived to do. It was not a purposeless life, by any stretch of the imagination.
Fine article, but it attracted people with sour grapes. I chuckle when people remark that he had no talent or made bad music. I wonder, who are these people and what have they themselves made ?There is something else about this gross machine that you describe. I grew up at another end of the planet that you have never heard about, and I had access to the Jackson 5's music when I was 11yrs old, thanks to the machine. Back in the day of Mozart, Handel and such guys, only the rich and privileged to listen to their music at exclusive venues. Thanks to the evil machine, I can listen to every single known piece of Bach at any time. Even Bach himself did not have that priviledge.
I suggest that you get hold of MJ's last interview, given to Ebony magazine, just to add extra dimension to your perspective.
interesting perspective, about the Bach pieces even he couldn't hear at will.
I believe every ill comes with a cure, and the noise and chaos of modern life comes with the cure of instant peace through music, when you put in earpieces and cut out the noise.
Amazon, I-Tunes reporting the huge increase of downloads and sales of his music. If they were so distraught of his death, the downloads would be free, but they would not be able to profit off his death. Who do we blame on what he did to his face? It's sad that this man who apparently had everything, could not be happy with who he was.
I call.b.s. here big time. MJ shilled the tune of Billie Jean, his most acclaimed song ever, to Pepsi! Just a YEAR after Thriller! Just so he could have the biggest endorsement ever!!! Nobody made him do that. To equate getting a big endorsement with making great music is some sad stuff, you never would have seen Sly Stone or John Lennon or Bob Dylan or Miles Davis or, or, or, you get the picture. The hyperbole on the greatness of MJ is getting so thick it's a danger to the lungs.
Uh, you may want to take back Bob Dylan not selling out, cuz he is shilling his song "Forever Young" for Pepsi.
You miss my point - I don't care what somebody does with a thirty year old song. Dude, Michael Jackson sold Billie Jean to Pepsi the year after it came out!
MJ enabled his own destruction. This little boy of such great, raw talent became an extreme narcisist, where the only thing that compelled him was to become more and more mysterious, insular, aloof, a prized person/product that transversed both popular culture and "art." Except what he aspired to really be, a deity of great artistry, he failed at. Sure he could dance and sing but where was the heart and soul? The authenticity and connectness to anything resembling humaness? After his 1979 album "Off the Wall" it wasn't to be found. He made soulless, pretentious music which was all he was really capable of doing. Caught up in "being the best" (by the most superficial Hollywood standards he eagerly absorbed), the self-annoited king was incapable of authenticty. He masked such a deception through "willfulness" (disguised as art) and a gift for self-promotion that would make P.T. Barnum blush. His attempts at trying to reclaim some idyllic childhood were equally ridiculous and further stunted any growth, artistic and otherwise. There was, after his early 20s, very little that was real about MJ. Sure, it's sad he had such hurdles, the little boy lost pushed too early too suceed. But at some point, I dunno, maybe by the 40s, a sense of taking stock and "dealing with it" must take root. He chose otherwise.
Ultimately, what appeared as vulnerability was just another self-delusional ploy. He foolishly used and abused the many options the universe gave him.
MJ enabled his own destruction. Well, likely. He hurried it along say. But far as selling us out in anyway, his vast eclectic audience, him being soulless, please. Who do want, Otis redding? What he is sould. He used everything. From his particular life strains made him a Jackson. He was fingerprint dna and God given. Turned on the wheel who he became like nobody like him ever again. Born his lineage, magnificent, to the nth. To the extent his extraordinary 'stage opera' designed for his particular hood instrument which was decidedly Cadillac. He did nothing less or more than he was to begin with and that was enuf for anybody knows what the best do to be the best. Even born with the gift.
Michael drove himself to death. Is that so unusual?
Whatever he used to keep going - who isn't guilty?
the brightest stars burn out the quickest. I suspect he had friends around him who gave him a spiritual outlook that counted 50 years just about the same as 80.
In 100 years it will all look the same - and he'll still be singing and dancing.
exactly
Every successful entertainer, has been manipulated - willingly or not. Handled and traded in the Pop factories of Hollywood, since the "Star System" in the 1920's. The bigger the star you are - the more manipulated you have been. Manipualted by handlers and fans who want more of what makes them happy.
On the other hand, distorted people out there want more war, starvations, doom and gloom, sufferings, accidents,and terrorist attacks, traded in the War Factories throughtout the world. Wanting to make more soldiers, who are produced because of WAR
Michael Jackson like other great eccentric stars are heroes to the world. They produce art that can knock down walls of division, whether racially or literally as in the Berlin Wall. I bet you, many of those young kids in Tehran and their parent, have Jackson albums, many.
Jackson might have been manipulated early on, but unlike an actor, he was never just "Talking Meat"
When you act, man, you're talking meat. You have to do everything they tell you. You have to wear what they tell you to wear, you have to paint your face the way they tell you to, you have to stand where they tell you to and you have to act like they tell you to. Michael Jackson, was not good at doing at being told what to do, hence "Thriller" and so forth and because of this he survived manipulation. He didn't "pop" as you suggest, but ironically "Exploded" beautifully with his music.
Manipulated indeed. First by themselves. After that who cares. Selling your soul to the devil indeed.
Mr. Weber - Excellent essay. Truly, you strike at the heart of a disease that has been eating away at American culture for the last several decades. It's a vile combination of narcissism, greed and corporatism which promises happiness and fame yet does nothing but denigrate and ignore the contributions of regular people doing the extraordinary things in life. As you so eloquently point out:
"But by all means dismiss and underpay the teacher, the cop, the people who handle our endless refuse and when they die, give them no more than a backward glance, an absent "oh, yeah -- they kicked. Did you see the new iPhone?". It is such misappropriation of concern that leads to an unnatural life and its naturally unnatural death."
Michael Jackson was, indeed, a hugely talented person. If the judges of American Idol were our leaders, statesmen and thinkers, then I suppose Mr. Jackson would have become President during his career. Fortunately, Life, in spite of what Americans think, is not just a big version of American Idol. There are far more people in the world who deserve attention, resources and development who can and quite possibly will contribute to the general welfare of humanity than MJ. It's tragic that we don't regard them with as much honor and respect.
Steven, another great post, and you are so right about fame being a drug, particularly for someone who had the personality development issues that Michael Jackson so obviously had. I've often thought that if Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had lived in the late 20th to early 21st centuries, his life would have been not all that different from Michael Jackson's. Both musical geniuses, both had overbearing stage fathers, and each one was the musical darling of his time. And now, unfortunately, both are gone before their time!
As my old man used to say when people complimented him, as to my talents...
"A healthy oyster produces no pearl..!"
Very, very true. MJ should be an object of pity, not a measure of greatness. Musical talent does not necessarily translate to musical genius, and he was no musical genius.
American pop culture appears to exist for the purpose of making a profit by creating mass neurosis. It devours itself in the person of its perpetrators, like the houroboros.
Quincy Jones was the genius behind much of MJ's success. II doubt MJ would have the notoriety he enjoys had QJ not entered the scene. This is not to denigrate MJ, certainly he had talent; however, few people achieve greatness alone. Success is often the result of collaboration.
So Ghandi's success was because he had a marketing genius? Mother Teresa's notoriety was because she had a great PR firm marketing her?
Wow. If this guy is to be believed, then the shallowness of our pop culture is all that has held us back from the world of genuine achievements, like those the author has already bestowed upon us.
Pardon me for finding that a ridiculously laughable concept.
Michael Jackson gave the world all that he had to give and if he and others around him were rewarded with a gift as etheral as money, then peace be upon him. Who are we - who are you - to begrudge him that peace?
Here is a question for you to ponder, as you go about casting dispersions upon Michael Jackson and his parents: what would you have had them do? Look at Gary, Indiana today; the steel mills where Joe Jackson worked have long since been shutterred. Had he kept his family there, the most likely path for them is self-evident on the drawn and tired faces of the people who are still there today: they are mostly without good jobs, good schools and good homes. While no one could have anticipated it upon Michael's arrival to this Earth in 1958, the most likely prospect for him as a teenager in Gary would have been work as a drug dealer, probably heroin. He might have followed at least one of his older brothers down this path, as the mid-70s were a tough time to live in Gary and they haven't gotten much better since.
I assume you would not mourn the death
See Steven Weber's Profile
Your comment, while impassioned, seems to argue a point that was, I can only assume, written in another article by someone else, as though you somehow perceived anything I said as an attack on Michael Jackson. Is that the kind of comprehension our pop culture society has bequeathed its consumers? (Also: "dispersions" refers to things that are distributed over a wide area. "Casting aspersions", or an attack on someone's reputation or integrity, was probably what you meant. But far be it for me to begrudge you that peace.)
No Steven, the answer was directed at your article. Some of the very things I thought as I read your words were covered in the response. Those far more worthy of accolades and resources than MJ, in the grand scheme of things will get their just due, in due time.
For his time, Micheal had a huge impace on the world because of his natural talent, ability and work ethic. So he wasn't perfect. He was mis-understood. He was exploited. For you to suggest that all the outpouring of love and affection is misguided because this tortured and conscious soul wasn't perfect is mis-guided. I'm not casting aspersions, but I think the article though good was a little mean spirited with a little agenda attached.
Jacksons life and death represents a fascination of complete distortion of priority and social concern. To see a stranger openly weep at his or any celebrities demise is freakish and bewildering.
I understand why media wants to capitalize and sell magazines and boost tv ratings.
I can't relate to the priority of it all when there is always so much more substantial discussion and focus to be had on so many other realities.
I cannot relate, and that pleases me just fine.
Tommi2, In life the world is connected by something good, as in music - a true force that gives us meaning, or WAR another force that unfortunately gives men meaning all too often.
It seems that man is completely distorted by concentrating,exacerbating and creating wars wars wars, suffering and divisions.
Its wholly OK for a 44 year old man to go to war and kill women, children and his fellow man and cause suffering, but heaven forbid, it is weird for a 44 year old man wants to persue his dream of making music that comforts the soul. If you are pleased with this mentality- this hell on Earth - that man has created, by wanting to just promote wars and hate, then buddy, it is only going to get worse, and boy does mankind have a tough and hard history ahead of it but remember, when man is in the foxhole waiting the coming war or facing death, its music that they sing.
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