A LONELY WORLD TURNS ITS EYE TO...?

This week saw the passing of two entertainment stars. First came the news that Farrah Fawcett had succombed to cancer. Next came news that Michael Jackson had succombed to a massive heart attack. The world needs stars to distract them from its own long list of problems. They become both objects of admiration and envy. The world swoons in their great successes and turns down-right nasty at the revelation of foibles and, even worse, eccentricities. The tabloids live to exploit the latter. A whole photographic genre was created to focus exclusively on their doings.


Experts sniped at Ms. Fawcett's "beautiful smile" commercials and snickered at her emotive "depth" in Charley's Angels. However, she was indisputably a TV-film star for a few years. Young girls tried to be like her. She was a glamorous role model, as well as something of a feminist in the sense of being an action heroine. She and her Angel peers were doing things that were once exclusively the film turf of men. They were "kicking bad-guys' asses." They may have looked like angels but they behaved with the instincts of lionesses. Charley ate well because of them, and Farrah Fawcett was the leader of the pack. In life she was a heroine all the way.


Most Americans watched Michael Jackson from his "little bitty bundle of energy" days to his apparent self-exile to Arabia near the end of his days. More than any other entertainment star by far, Michael Jackson had a split public image. Few would ever criticize his performances on stage or video. He was multi-media, when multi-media wasn't even cool. With the exception of Big Screen musicals, no one in the music business had exploited the possibilities as Michael Jackson did. Elvis had arrived about the time that Dick Clark and others were just introducing video to the Rock-n-Roll scene. Ed Sullivan and others allowed TV cameras to "catch" a suddenly famous singer or group, including both Elvis Presley and the Beatles. TV programs might include the Grand Ole Opry or the like.


Elvis, the Beatles and a scattering of others made movies, whose purpose was to exploit their singing fame. I believe that Michael Jackson was the first to turn the tables and to exploit the format, rather than the format exploiting him. His Thrilla album struck me and many others at the time as sensational and mesmerizing. His introduction of the "moon walk" caught everyone watching in disbelief. It was a very modest piece of revolutionary showmanship, something akin to Fred Astaire's "dancing on walls & ceilings." It was - shall we say - unexpected.


Great talent is not necessarily predictive of the character of a person. Michael Jackson existed it seems as a haunted, neurotic Othello, loving not wisely but too well. He undoubtedly had his share of Iagos proffering him advice, as well. The media, acting in the stead of the worst instincts of humanity, focused on the "Achilles' heel" of the entertainment hero, their eyes glazed and nostrils flared with the scent of blood. The more they saw him soft as a deer, the more they keened to the hunt. Problems with health and wealth by Michael Jackson only added to this media's sense of his vulnerability to attack. Heroes aren't meant to fail. Failures and foibles ascribed to Michael Jackson gave the talentless but solid citizenry an opportunity to patronage the "King of Pop."


If the media can be said to represent the general perception of the people and if the people "loved" Michael Jackson, then it might be said that they, using the words of Oscar Wilde, "killed the thing they loved."


It is a fact of the heavenly universe that even stars must die.






June 29, 2009