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

[algabal.livejournal.com]

Wow. I admire you a lot from reading your blog, but this is repulsive.

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

Mind if I use this in class tomorrow? Year tens will be examining different media responses to his death for the non-fiction part of the GCSE.

I'm going to shift after this topic into looking at the freedoms citizen journalism affords people in oppressed parts of the world and your liberty to strike a different note to most of the media and most of LJ leads nicely into that.

[kishenehn.livejournal.com]

I agree completely ... so this might gain you some friends, too.

Thanks for having the courage to say it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry that you think so.

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

I was never a fan, don't think I could recognize anything of his except Thriller.

Fred Astaire must have been going senile - no way was Jackson better than him OR Gene Kelly or even Danny Kaye (and that's stretching it, Kaye was not a dancer either).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Please do. I'd be honoured.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Maybe Astaire was just being polite. I don't know. Or modest.

[suzilem.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed some of his music. "King of Pop"? Naah.

In his prime, he was a good dancer. NOT the same type (or even caliber) as Astaire or Kelly, but he (and/or his choreographer) stimulated a change in movement which has had an effect on dance since then.

There was much in his personal life that I found either repulsive or weird or unacceptable. The never ending plastic surgery. The pedophilia. The fiscal irreponsibility, including not paying his staff while he continued to indulge himself to the tune of millions of dollars. One of the weirdest things? Sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber.

But I still liked some of his music. I also like some of Sinatra's music and I don't like some of what he did or stood for either.

[algabal.livejournal.com]

In response to your post yesterday, while it's true that there were other blacks who reached mass white audiences, there were no popular performers (of any race) who reached the level of incredibly diverse worldwide popularity that Michael did. Certainly people in Zaire, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Sweden and Morocco don't listen to much Jimi Hendrix or Ella Fitzgerald. But they all know Michael.

While there are a handful of songs on Dangerous and HIStory that are quite shallow and lifeless, the majority of his recorded work is amongst the best that that mainstream pop and R&B has ever had to offer. Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad are all masterpieces. While his music might not contain the pretension that macho, male chauvinist rock critics love in bands like the Beatles, there are plenty of interesting, repeating themes for anyone looking for depth (a beautifully naive conception of good and evil, predatory female sexuality and the female as victimizer, etc.) His work in video was groundbreaking. He was an incredible dancer whose strange combination of litheness and aggression was hypnotic.

On a personal level, he was always an incredibly poignant image to me. Michael was the Christ-like suffering servant, constantly suffering from the cruelty of others while urging us to trust in him. At the same time, he lived the life of a decadent. He was a real-life Des Esseintes, but unlike Des Esseintes he completely lacked self-awareness, which made him even more fascinating. He made enough of an impression on me that the last few days have been some of the saddest I've had in recent years.

To me, he is the defining figure of the twentieth century and a formative influence on my value system. I don't know if I'd have made it through childhood without him.

[brttvns.livejournal.com]

Well, you have just gained a friend in me for saying what you have. Could not agree more. Thanks for some reality amid the over-sentimental misted hype. I'm pouring a large one to you.
Cheers

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I respect what you have to say. I recognise it as a possible response- even though it's diametrically opposed to mine.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

I needed that. :)

Celebrity turns men and women into monsters.

[baritonejeff.livejournal.com]

While that is much too often the case, not every celebrity becomes a monster. I have had too many lovely colleague experiences with too many bonafide celebrities to accept a statement as blanketing as that, although I can certainly see where one could easily come to believe such a thing.

Jackson was severely damaged goods, and he behaved accordingly. You make an excellent point about those whose attitude toward him is of the "blind because they will not see" variety; excusing things that they would never excuse in others. Idolatry requires that.

Having said all of the above, I greatly admire the sheer chutzpah of this post. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I so don't want him to become a saint of popular culture- alongside Elvis and Garland and Monroe- but I can see the process is already underway.

Resistance is futile.

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

You can actually take Sweden off your list, although I am sure you were using it just for an example, but people like Ella Fitzgerald and Hendrix were incredibly popular there and are still being listened to.

[algabal.livejournal.com]

Ella Fitzgerald had a level of popularity comparable with Michael Jackson in Sweden (http://www.thelocal.se/20298/20090626/)? Color me astonished.

Re: Celebrity turns men and women into monsters.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

I would draw a distinction- spurious perhaps- between celebrity and fame. There are plenty of famous people who manage to keep a distance between themselves and their public personae. Celebrity is what happens when the person and the persona merge.

[algabal.livejournal.com]

I apologize for my original choice of words. I should have said I was hurt.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

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.

This aspect of the whole carnival surrounding Jackson's death is the most fascinating. We as a society forgive our celebrities all manner of sins - but something like domestic violence/child molestation? That's a hard one to wrap my head around, particularly since this isn't merely focusing on the so-called positives (i.e. the work) of the man, but excusing the negatives.

[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]

Our society hates paedophiles- and yet Jackson- who was clearly a paedophile (whether or not he expressed this physically) gets a free pass. It seems to be a case of one morality for ordinary folks and another for the rich and famous.

[wolfshift.livejournal.com]

I agree with everything you said here.

I don't care at all for his "music" or his public image(s) or his behaviour. Everything he gave to the world was vapid, shallow, and crassly, wastefully materialistic. It's utterly pathetic that he should be an "icon of the 20th century" or whatever they're calling him. If he's an icon of anything, it's of what's wrong with the world.

[brttvns.livejournal.com]

Yes but the power and spread of media is stronger these days, and incidentally - I can't speak for the African countries that you mention, but Europe, particularly northen European countries have always had a great followers of Fitzgerald, Holiday, Armstrong, and Hendrix.
Paul Robeson was virtuallt adopted by the Welsh valleys.

Michael Jackson ''the defining figure of the twentieth century'? You have either a sheltered or shallow view of that 100 years, I'm afraid.

[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.