This May Lose Me Some Friends

[poliphilo]

The music never dies. It goes on and on and on. Ad nauseum. Someone switch the bloody thing off.

Jackson's work is kitsch. Even the better stuff is slick and empty.

Fred Astaire said Jackson was the greatest dancer of the 20th century. I refuse to believe he meant it.

Bad? Not in the way he wanted us to think.

I find it shocking that people make excuses for Jackson that they wouldn't dream of making for other middle-aged men who like to share their beds with children.

By the time of his death he was a freeloading junkie who indulged himself in every little whim- but couldn't be bothered to pay his staff.

Celebrity turns men and women into monsters. The strong-minded get out before it destroys every last scrap of decency and truth.  Jackson wasn't strong-minded.

Comments

[jourdannex.livejournal.com]

I don't find this repulsive, I find most of it (to me anyway) sadly true. I have never in my life seen anyone's life benefit from celebrity alone. If the person is productive and well adjusted ...it can be survived and even thrive. But this level of celebrity, and just that alone, coupled with a creative personality and eccentricity or just being different or shy, this level of fishbowl life coupled with child abuse or self conscious fear to the point of altering your face to remove what you think is so offensive is disastrous. I am trying to stay away from the child molesting offenses because he was never convicted, but I think we all wonder if he was truly a Peter Pan like person or if more was at the centre of it.

Living in a world where I see a lot of people in the business of entertainment, some who deserve it and some who do not....no one is ever prepared for even the smallest levels of it...and I would not wish it on anyone. And his was a level that few will thankfully ever have to endure. Constant trailing, flashing, people in your face and outside your home just wanting a shot to sell every moment of the day. In some people it creates a "you can't touch me" god complex. Others lose themselves completely. He was lost, there is no denying that. And in the end, it's a sad person who went to great lengths to alter his appearance and sadly you are right in saying people would not have been so understanding if he was not who he was. Put him in any town down any street and people would have moved away and locked up their children. I will never say he did not contribute and change music. He did. We listened. Some loved. But I think we all looked at him in the past decade and just thought...this is sad, he's a lost person.

But would any of these people who are jumping on the bandwagon about him want their child spending a weekend alone with him? I wonder.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I drew a little media attention once- very little, nothing to speak of really- but I could feel the pressure to adopt a settled persona and conform to it, to say things things people expected instead of what I really felt- and it unnerved me. I saw how quickly I might slide into inauthenticity- and turned sharply away.

I've little doubt that Jackson was a paedophile- in the sense that he was sexually attracted to children. Whether he ever acted on those feelings is another matter. I don't suppose we'll ever know for sure.