And yes, even during the monstrosity of a memorial service that took place yesterday, it was clear that the man had a tremendous heart for everyone and anyone whom he came across, especially those impoverished and wrecked by disease in countries that could not give them proper aid.
But all throughout his final performance, i.e. his memorial service, one thing struck me the most. When Al Sharpton, said to Michael's children, "Your daddy was not strange, it was strange what he had to deal with," and he received a standing ovation for the remark, it was one of the few moments throughout the service in which I could not believe what I was hearing.
Excuse me? The man was not strange? He slept in an oxygen tank. He had a pet chimp named Bubbles for Christ's sake. He had not one, but two child molestation charges brought against him. Reports coming out now are saying that he was completely bald and that his skin was whiter than a piece of paper. He had more plastic surgery than Joan Rivers. His children, whom are most likely to be not genetically related to him whatsoever, bear a strange and creepy resemblance to him kinda like The Adam's Family, and then he made them wear masks and veils in public. He wore pajamas to court hearings. He was friends with Liza Minelli. I think to say that the man was not strange is not only a lie coming from a supposed godly man, but the word "strange" does not even begin to describe Michael Jackson.
Yes, the racial climate that the Jackson's had to overcome was staggering, I am not denying that. But the thing that gets me is that the defenders of celebrity's weird and, honestly, "strange" actions then want to blame those actions on the fact that they are a celebrity - that their fans and their notoriety drove them to some kind of deluded way of life. That they are somehow martyrs for their contributions to pop culture and that we, as the celebrity obsessed American public, are to blame for their idiosyncrasies and their behavior. That we stick the needles of diprivan in their veins, and they died for our obsessions and they saved us all and brought us together through songs like "Bad" and "Billie Jean."
And yes, Michael Jackson was indeed portrayed as the second coming yesterday. More blasphemy from such religious people.
The conundrum in all of this is that there has to be a place, within the celebrity status and all the "hardships" that come along with it, that one has to be a human being within a normal mental state. Just because you have lots of money and have demands placed on you, does not give you a wild card to go out and act like a freak. If most people around the globe, two weeks ago, were asked if Michael Jackson had a normal mental state, the answer would be much different than what it would be right now during MJ induced post traumatic stress syndrome.
Despite it's connotations delivered by Rev. Sharpton, "strange" is definitely a word that I would apply for the spectacle that took place yesterday at The Staples Center. While I wondered whether I was at a memorial or a sermon that blasted me for how much I took Michael Jackson for granted, while I wondered why there was not a separation of church and state in Congresswoman Jackson Lee's contribution to both the service and to the house floor, while I wondered why Mariah Carey had chosen not to rehearse her song bit, I wondered most of all, why was the whole thing so fake?
Even at the most moving moments, from Brooke Shields' eulogy to Jermaine Jackson's "Smile," at one point the camera shot out to a sea of plastic (literally) faces wearing black and in that instance, that shot summarized the entire memorial service. It was just so shiny. And clean. With choreographed emotion and tears cued to the second. Not one of the members of the family was shown crying throughout the service. And yet, this Oscar calibre stage show, which was somehow pulled together in a week, is being hailed as having so many "moving moments" with fans calling it the most touching eulogy ever put together, and I am left wondering if we watched the same program.
It was so void of genuine feeling that it made me wonder just what this man meant to these people. Sure, you can scream out Michael Jackson's name however many times you wish as the coffin is rolled it's spotlight, but how is this going to change you? You say that "Man In The Mirror" is a calling to everyone right now to change and to better ourselves - what are you going to do different? Come, show me how Jackson made you a different person, show me how you truly want to be better because of him. Because all I see right now is crying and gnashing of teeth with all empty emotion. You lost a celebrity, whom most of you would have talked shit about not even two weeks ago.
And yet, the most harrowing moment of the entire show, having Jackson's daughter abruptly take the mic, was both haunting and horrifying. Here was the daughter that Jackson tried so hard to shield from the public and to have out of the tabloids, who in his death was being pushed out into the public for the first time. It was like seeing some kind of family secret being laid out in the open after a decade of hiding worthy of a Desperate Housewives episode, in public. I was both taken aback by the lack of care by his family, for what Jackson tried so hard and long to keep sacred and by the fact that this little girl, on a platform being viewed by millions of people, was outing herself to the world as fodder for newspapers, just ten feet in front of the casket of her father. Who was probably rolling over in it.
And, not for nothing, but can someone tell Prince Michael II it's not polite to chew gum like Britney Spears in front of a global audience, at your father's memorial service.
Yes, I might seem like an asshole who is devoid of any public emotion bearing this, so I tried to put it in terms to which I could relate. Despite the fact that I might sound like the gayest gay man ever, while I was watching the service, trying not to be overly critical, I kept on asking myself how I would be feeling if someone like Madonna died abruptly. Surely in comparison, there are few people who could contend with Michael Jackson as far as fame and influence, but Madonna would be one of them. And while the "Queen of Pop" would surely be missed, and while Madonna is my girl, she has her faults too. If Madonna died, does she become the next Virgin Mary to MJ's Jesus? Do we get to stand up in front of millions and proclaim that she stripped down naked for most of the 90's because of us, and that she did it for us, and that we are the reason why Lourdes and Rocco couldn't have normal lives? That we, her fans, hounded her and broke up her marriages and ridiculed her for her vision? That the patron saint of everything gay died as a martyr for her contributions to Vogueing and coincidentally made hundreds of millions of dollars because of it? No, because the fact is that while the woman did tremendous things, she is still, in fact, a woman. Just a woman. Like all the other women out there who struggle to make a difference, if not on a global scale, than within their own household. Did Madonna do much for those women in breaking down barriers to be expressive? Absolutely. But she isn't the Virgin Mary. Nor does she claim to be.
Michael Jackson isn't Christ, nor did he claim to be either. He just claimed to be Peter Pan. More strangeness. He was a man with great influence who died suddenly. He was a very strange man, who did things that were ridiculed and scorned in the same society that wants to now deify him. I'm sure he was a great friend to those to whom he was close, and I'm sure he tried to be the best father that he was capable of to his children, just like every other father out there. But he was strange. And for all the hooting and hollering that went on, his final goodbye was just as much of a production as his life was. It was staged so well that some people actually believed that there was something staggering about what went on inside The Staple Center.
What is staggering is that so many people had faith in this strange and imperfect man. They put more faith into him than into religion, than into politics, than into things that really can change people's lives. Being an artist, I know how art can change people. But I also know empty attempts. You say that Michael Jackson called you higher. There are millions of you out there. You really want to "make a change" like the song says? You can. Like MJ said, you can "raise together in one voice." But if the sentiment behind that change is like the one I saw yesterday, I can't say I'm going to sit here and hold my breath.
Perhaps I'm a little cynical about the whole thing. But in all actuality, I'm hoping that y'all will prove me wrong.
2 comments:
Oh, I will state my case one day soon, cher. Whether I prove it to you will be dependent upon your willingness to entertain the idea that fame and the manner in which people respond to it is in some cases, an unfortunate byproduct of whatever an artist creates. The experience with Michael when he created is what I cherish. The other stuff, well, he was a Reflector; we do what we are. I can't fault him for that cause oh, Lordy, do I have my own shit. I just hope it doesn't stink so much when people come by to engage with what I have to offer.
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Melanie, I just saw your comment -
I am not denying the fact that the man was a musical genius, and believe me, I am not denying nor faulting the fact that many artists have "eccentricities" that we all have to deal with. I mean, I deal with many of them just being in art school, let alone in a real artistic world.
My problem is the celebrity deification and the hypocrisy of it all, and of the people who are so quick to talk one way and then act another. You cannot tell me that 90% of the people calling in and appearing on TV, that the big butch black men made of street smarts and hard lives, would have gotten onto national or even regional TV and proclaimed Michael Jackson to be their greatest influence if the man had not died. Yes, fame can POSSIBLY be an unfortunate byproduct, but it doesn't have to be. Did MJ do tremendous amounts for charity and global outreach, yes. But all of that was undeniably overshadowed by his personal lifestyle, and that's what the media obviously feeds on.
But the aspect that I speak of, the artist and the benefactor, and the aspect that you speak of, the creative person, not only was not showcased well in the memorial, (as the memorial was used in place of an actual Jackson performance), the positive aspects the he did do could not survive in a society so hungry to broadcast faults and failure, and broadcast by the same people who deify him. In some ways, not all but some, my argument has much more to do with celebrity culture than MJ himself.
But MJ was a part of that, and he chose to be. I mean, there are celebrities who manage to do great things and still remain out of public scrutiny. For them, the media is a medium which also much be crafted, if not by you than by good PR, especially if you are Michael Jackson.
Michael Jackson is not a victim of celebrity, nor are any of us victims of the paths that we all chose to take. He chose to live this lifestyle, and it afforded him not only a voice, but also mass amounts of wealth and power. Should I appreciate him and maybe see him more of a human being than as "Michael Jackson," sure, probably. But I'm not convinced that Michael Jackson didn't see himself as "Michael Jackson." The fact remains that within his life and death, there is the famously bad and the not so famously good because the famously bad overpowered it. Yes, we all have issues, but if we live in the public sphere, weather it is right or not, we must know that those issues will be laid out. Is there opinion differences on what constitutes as "issues," sure absolutely. But the issues that Michael Jackson had, as I said, only made him a victim of his own decisions. With all his wealth and power that not only he, but his entire family had, knowing the social structure that he was operating in, someone in there could have prevented his image from being so tarnished, even if his "eccentricities" were so innate in his being that he had to play them out.
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