Look, I’m sorry the man died at 50, but are you kidding me with this non-stop, wall-to-wall coverage?
Now, it appears his funeral will be held at the Staples Center, on July 7 – that’s next Tuesday, if you’re wondering – which means this absurd coverage will continue through the 4th of July weekend, and at the rate things are going, the cable news shows will be showing fireworks and superimposed images of American flags with Jackson’s sparkly glove where the stars should be.
Make it stop! It’s all non-stop headlines and fakery, and it seems things are just getting warmed up:
His children are his, no they’re not, well, they’re this other guy’s but they’re his, but he didn’t adopt them. But his mother wants custody; the nanny wants custody; the will is missing; the will is here; Michael Jackson didn’t want to look like his father; he was loving; he was not loving. He was gay. He was straight. All the usual suspects have shown up. Jesse Jackson “counseled” the family; Al Sharpton did the grind with some woman. Jackson’s father plugged his new record label. Congress held “a moment of silence” for him.
The weirdest story I’ve seen so far, and one that I’m pretty sure is garbage, is the “people are committing suicide in grief for Michael Jackson” myth. Hokum, but it sounds like precisely the Brand-B, high-drama hokum that Jackson would have loved.
Several people have suggested to me that the reaction to the death of Princess Diana has made this sort of thing acceptable, but I very much doubt it. The spontaneous outpouring of grief for Diana, in all its excesses, had some authenticity to it. The enormous collection of flowers at the gates of the palace, the gathering, the people waiting on line for hours to sign condolence books – it may have been unseemly, decidedly un-British and even vulgar, but it was mostly genuine, as evidenced by the dumbstruck press who chronicled the reactions rather than suggesting them, as they seem to be doing in Jackson’s case. In Diana’s story, there was genuine horror at the violent and gruesome death of a beautiful young “people’s Princess.” Diana was faulty but philanthropic, sinner and sinned against, the mother of the future king, stripped of her letters – it all contributed to the the emotionality of it, which was so deep that Her Majesty the Queen finally had to come out and see Britain, and tell them that she was sad, too, or there might have been a revolt.
The Jackson death has been spectacle, spectacle, spectacle, a freak show long on performance and short on real feeling – not unlike Jackson’s concert extravaganzas – and that makes the non-stop coverage seem completely out of balance and, really, kind of insane. I wonder if that’s because people – who have been told (and told, and told) that this is a huge event in their lives – are simply responding to the prompts. The press says “this is huge; everyone will remember where they were when they heard the news…” and some people think, “well, then yeah, this must be really big. Life defining moment here!” But it all seems more than a little forced. If the cameras are out, people will always come and perform for them.
I wonder if some of this outsized attention to the death of a confused and possibly abhorrent song-and-dance man in a bad wig has to do with people’s need for something “transcendent” in their lives, if what we’re witnessing is a post-modern, post-faith world, unschooled in transcendence, seeking out something -anything- that will make them feel part of a thing “bigger than themselves?” If so, that may be evidence of an epic fail on the part of the faith-community – people of all faiths – a failure in modeling faith in a manner that attracts, rather than repels.
Perhaps I am all wet, and the media-hype and revved-up crowds are simply funhouse mirrors of each other, each giving the other what they want. But it all seems off to me, in the same way that the election coverage of 2008 seemed off; narratives are being pushed that are not exactly “right” and there is a sense of being hustled into something by the media.
Is society just out-of-whack? Within the grieving at Diana’s death, there resided a sense of pride and national unity; this Jackson circus seems almost devoid of human feeling; it’s just another excuse to find a crowd and belong to it.
In the UK, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks Wonders if something has gone wrong with society as a whole:
I believe we have lost our traditional sense of morality. I do not mean that we are less moral than our grandparents. We care about things they hardly thought about: world poverty, inequality, global warming and the loss of biodiversity. We are more tolerant than they were.
But note this: the things we care about are vast, distant, global, remote. They are problems that require the co-ordinated action of millions, perhaps billions of people. The difference we as individuals can make to any one of them is minimal. That does not mean they are not important: they are. But they are issues of politics, not of morality in the conventional sense.
When it comes to personal behaviour we have now come to believe that there is no right and wrong. Instead, there are choices. The market facilitates those choices. The State handles the consequences, picking up the pieces when they go wrong. The idea that there may be things we would like to do and can afford to do but which we should not do, because they are dishonourable and a betrayal of trust, has come to seem outmoded.
…
Concepts like duty, obligation, responsibility and honour have come to seem antiquated and irrelevant. Emotions like guilt, shame, contrition and remorse have been deleted from our vocabulary, for are we not all entitled to self-esteem? The still, small voice of conscience is rarely heard these days. Conscience has been outsourced, delegated away.So, in place of an inner code, we have regulatory authorities. Where once people believed that God sees all we do, now we have CCTV and video surveillance. When self-imposed restraint disappears, external constraint must take its place. The result is that we have created the most regulated, intrusive society ever known. And still it fails, and will always fail, because without a sense of responsibility to others, people will always find ways of outwitting the most sophisticated systems.
This is a longish, thoughtful piece; do read it all. A great deal to think about. (H/T).
I’m not sure Sacks and I are talking about precisely the same thing, but, perhaps nearly enough.
Sorry if this is a bit incoherent. It’s an insomniac’s musing. Those are always a little off.
Related:
Canonizing Celebrities, the press has not time to report real news
July 2nd, 2009 | 7:09 am | #1
THANK YOU for posting this! I felt like I was the only person who thought the whole MJ media coverage was getting ridiculous.
July 2nd, 2009 | 7:35 am | #2
“But note this: the things we care about are vast, distant, global, remote. They are problems that require the co-ordinated action of millions, perhaps billions of people. The difference we as individuals can make to any one of them is minimal. That does not mean they are not important: they are. But they are issues of politics, not of morality in the conventional sense.”
Or, as P.J. O’Rourke once wrote:
“Everyone wants to save the planet but no one wants to help Mom do the dishes.”
Before returning to Canada a couple of years ago, I lived in the UK for some time. I genuinely admire Rabbi Sacks. He has always struck me as a thoughtful, tolerant and considerate man who displayed quite considerable tact, particularly in his dealings with the British Muslim community (where Jewish patience can be strained to the extreme by their penchant for anti-Semitic cant).
July 2nd, 2009 | 7:48 am | #3
Oh, and as regards Jacko’s death, I agree.
Michael Jackson was an indisputably major talent in his day. Thriller was a superb album (I still have my old LP and have been replaying it the last couple of days).
However, Jackson was becoming creepier and creepier as he aged. Frankly, I wasn’t that surprised to hear of his death. BUT (big BUT) it was no less very sad news for all that, as news of the death of any person should be.
So enough already. Let’s recover some perspective. Jackson was a talented guy even though a flake and we’re sorry he died.
But, unless you’re a Jackson family member, perhaps that’s about enough now.
July 2nd, 2009 | 9:18 am | #4
Doesn’t the media coverage of Jackson’s death remind you of the scene in “A Christmas Carol” where the rag pickers go over Scrooge’s belongings after his death? Ghoulish!
July 2nd, 2009 | 9:50 am | #5
Great post Anchoress. I blame mostly the MSM; always on the wrong side of things. I know one thing, the next time I hear anyone go off on a rampage regarding a “Pedophile Catholic Priest”, I will waste no time reminding them of not only the pass but the adulation they gave to Jackson.” Even if he wasn’t “proven” guilty, the man unabashedly admitted on national TV that there was/is absolutely nothing wrong with sharing his bed with little boys. My how the standards change with the “agendas.”
I managed to watch a few minutes of the Today Show the day after Jackson died. To my great surprise, and also Matt Laurers, Maureen Orth (wife of Tim Russert), who covered Jacksons for years, was the only person I could find in the MSM not contributing to Jackson’s sanctification.
I never really followed Orth, so I was as shocked as Laurer was “horrified”, when the first words out of her mouth were something (paraphrased), like this:
“Michael Jackson destroyed a lot of lives.” When Matt tried to defend him, Orth wasted no time in reminding us of the voodoo (at the price of $150,000), he had placed on Speilberg and others in Hollywood. I later looked it up and found it to be astonishingly true. Google Maureen Orth and Michael Jackson for some interesting, and IMO, probably, some of the only accurately reported accounts of Jackson.
Regardless of what Jackson was or wasn’t guility of, he’s now met face to face the Judge of Justice. I prayed for him and will continue to pray for him, his children, family, and all who are victims of “fame.”
Getting back to the MSM, if they weren’t so blinded in their arrogance and self importance, they might be able to recognize some REAL role models instead of feeding the ones who do surface to the lions. I also agree that anyone grounded in the truths of Judeo/Christian values, simply “couldn’t go where the MSM wants to take us.” Perhaps even sadder than Jackson’s death are the sycophants and hero worshipers, clueless to the insignificance of fame, and most of all, like Jackson, clueless and devoid of authentic love.
RIP Michael, my prayer for you is that in your death, you have now encountered not only endless mercy, but finally an encounter (and acceptance) of real love.
All said, I too agree that Jackson was a great talent.
July 2nd, 2009 | 10:17 am | #6
Chesterton said the same thing:
“When you break the big laws, you do not get liberty, you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws.”
July 2nd, 2009 | 10:37 am | #7
Every time a celebrity passes and the media gushes ad nauseum I recall the soliloquy at the end of “Patton” – “For over a thousand years, Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of a triumph – a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters and musicians and strange animals from the conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children, robed in white, stood with him in the chariot, or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror, holding a golden crown, and whispering in his ear a warning: That all glory is fleeting.”
Does anyone remember Billy Murray? Or how about Alma Gluck, the first woman with a million-selling recording? Even today it is hard to find anyone under 45 who knows just how big Al Jolson or Bing Crosby was.
I suspect a lot of this over-the-top coverage is rooted in a lot of people mourning, not just the loss of Michael Jackson, but the loss of their own youth and the sense of their own immortality.
July 2nd, 2009 | 10:53 am | #8
Brava, Anchoress — once again, you have summed up my thoughts and extended them. I must agree that as a society, I do not hear the concept of “honor” — and this is one I try and instill in my son. One of the scenes I most clearly remember from “Caesar and Cleopatra” (with Claude Raines and Vivian Leigh) is the one in which Cleopatra tries to free from an audience with Caesar, though she had promised to stay, and her nurse reminds her of that promise and says “even if you die for it, you must make the Queen’s word good”. Too bad such thinking is not a hallmark of our current President.
July 2nd, 2009 | 10:56 am | #9
I think one of the most disgusting things in that “suicide” article was Jesse Jackson’s comments:
Jesse Jackson, a friend of the singer, has recorded a YouTube film on the site urging fans not to “self destruct”.
He said: “This is a time when hearts are heavy. There is great pain but great cause to celebrate Michael’s life.
“It made Michael happy saying ‘We Are The World’. Don’t self destruct.
“We fall down sometimes, we get back up. That’s the right thing to do. In Michael’s name let’s live together as brothers and sisters and not die apart as fools.”
This man is no reverend or minister for Christ with talk like that. “In Michael’s name”??? Seriously?
July 2nd, 2009 | 10:57 am | #10
Surmising from the state of Jackson’s life and the state of his body at its death, I don’t even want to imagine the state of the soul which submitted itself to the Almighty to be judged.
July 2nd, 2009 | 11:15 am | #11
Thank you for writing this. The coverage is beyond insane. There are plenty of shows such as Entertainment Tonight, Nancy Grace, etc., that can cover all the extravaganza of the reaction. The MSM should have, and still should, report on it, give a retrospective of his work, and move on to real news. I wish.
July 2nd, 2009 | 11:17 am | #12
I’ve heard MJ likened to being a civil rights pioneer, paving the way for Tiger Woods and Barack Obama.
Of course it was said by Al Sharpton so you take the grain of salt needed.
Still…pioneer of civil rights? Perhaps pioneer in pop music. But what about Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Metger Evers. I guess they don’t matter anymore, they aren’t current or popular.
MJ was a talented man who wasted that talent. It is sad that he’ll be remembered more as the caricature he became rather than for the enormous talent he squandered.
We lose people like Ed McMahon, Karl Malden, Farah Fawcett – and their losses are drowned out by the clanging voices grieving for a pedophile who fits their social narrative.
It’s cool to grieve for MJ; makes you seem like part of the “in crowd”.
July 2nd, 2009 | 11:43 am | #13
[...] You Have Said “So Be It”! Dear Readers: I was reading a wonderful piece by my blogging icon, the Anchoress (perhaps she would have preferred me to use the word “idol”, but as my admiration for her has a spiritual aspect, I think my use of the term is correct). She quotes another, in her post, Had enough Michael Jackson, yet?. [...]
July 2nd, 2009 | 12:03 pm | #14
Agree, agree, agree with all. Hardly a thing to add to everything that has been said by Anchoress and the comments. But this: wasn’t there a time when MJ’s sordid antics would have earned him a permanent trip to the social wilderness? I think in a way he was there – really just a caricature (as someone else already said) of the person who achieved the fame. But in death we’ve dragged him back into the mainstream and wiped the slate clean for him. Not good. We should be honest about who he was, even in death. There are important lessons in the full arc of his life which we won’t learn if we don’t look at the whole thing.
July 2nd, 2009 | 12:16 pm | #15
Boy that rabbi in the UK is really on to something. When so many people feel there is no right or wrong in personal behavior (but only personal “choices”) it’s not hard to see how quickly people embrace the attitude that “if everyone else is doing it it must be OK.”
The whole Michael Jackson thing has really renewed my disgust for what the MSM has become. With the 24 hour news cycle, it’s really gotten out of hand. When the coverage started immediately after he died, I enjoyed revisiting the songs from Off the Wall and Thriller for a bit but had a nauseous feeling about the unrelenting coverage that was sure to come.
I may not watch TV again until the end of next week. If it’s even over by then.
I agree that what we are witnessing with the Michael Jackson thing is different from Princess Di’s death. As over the top as the reaction to her death was, there IS something truly, freakishly, out-of-balance about this one.
July 2nd, 2009 | 12:29 pm | #16
Canonizing Celebrities, the press has not time to report real news.
With all due respect to them (note the qualifier), celebrities are something they understand.
I doubt many of them have the ability to fathom real news, let alone report on it.
-
July 2nd, 2009 | 12:40 pm | #17
The Anchoress: spot on as usual.
Your rabbi touched on something I myself have noticed especially in the American Liberal. The desire to outsource their compassion. They feel soooo bad about (fill in the movement of the moment), yet they’re too busy to really do anything about it. The answer: tax everybody to throw money at the thing the American Liberal feels badly about.
Doubt it? Look up how much money our current President gave to charity before he was running for office. Ask how much he contributed to the care of his illegal immigrant aunt. Or, even better, check out how much patriotic Joey Biden was contributing before the national spotlight turned on him.
Outsource their compassion. Take money from my family to pay other people to do what the American Liberals feel so strongly about.
The Liberal feels. Everyone pays, and someone else does (probably poorly and inefficiently, since it will result in another government program).
[You remind me of something I wrote a while back - I'll have to look for it and consider reposting - admin]
July 2nd, 2009 | 12:42 pm | #18
While I agree in spirit with Paul_in_houston, this whole thing does not surprise me. I’ve said it before that MJ was the musical equivalent of Howard Hughes and there was a similar coverage of his death / nuttiness. The difference this time is the MSM is ignoring completely the nuttiness (besides this also takes peoples minds off of that 9.5 unemployment loss of 490k jobs last month) and all of his other things.
July 2nd, 2009 | 1:49 pm | #19
Let’s make it a double PJ O’Rourke quote day. “If you say a modern celebrity is an adulterer, a pervert, and a drug addict, all it means is that you’ve read his autobiography.”
The studios used to employ armies of PR people to bribe, cajole and schmooze police, prosecutors and the press to protect their stars. They learned from the 1921 Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle episode, although Roscoe had the additional bad fortune to get caught in scandal in San Francisco, far outside of the Hollywood cocoon.
William Desmond Taylor, a successful director at Paramount, was murdered in 1922. In the wake of the Arbuckle scandal the studio got to the murder scene first and sanitized it to the point that the crime was never solved.
There was also a cadre of film actors, now long forgotten, that died under the influence of drugs, most notably heroin. Names like Olive Thomas, Wallace Reid, Barbara La Marr and Jeanne Eagels – all major stars of their day – are now all but forgotten except by a handful of silent film buffs.
“O quam cito transit gloria mundi”
July 2nd, 2009 | 2:43 pm | #20
There’s been a lot of Michael Jackson coverage? I must get my news form the wrong sources.
July 2nd, 2009 | 2:56 pm | #21
The MSM is the voicebox of the culture. There is a reason for the media overkill on Jacko’s death. The death of a celebrity may lead us to a time of personal introspection, which may not be pleasant for us. It might even lead to a consideration of seeking God. This amid a culture that does everything possible to ignore and delay death and the contemplation of it. The MSM wants to ensure that we are so distracted by Jacko’s death that we will take no time to consider our own.
July 2nd, 2009 | 3:35 pm | #22
I was just thinking…
Imagine if all the energy and outpouring “idolizing” Jackson was spent in prayer FOR him. Never let it be said that America is “too busy to pray.” America never fails to find time for it’s “idols.”
What a waste of precious time. I suspect the big “goodby celebration” will be secular and more of the same, at the cost of millions.
July 2nd, 2009 | 6:55 pm | #23
Will not more be expected of us Catholics who have access to our faith and tradition than of Michael? Hollywood isn’t the best petri dish for life to grow in. Still he managed to create some great music and dance. One wonders if his career had maintained a surer trajectory, where it would have taken him. A great Hollywood needs great dancers and great musicians. Would that he still had the God-given talent he received at birth and were able to use it today.
July 2nd, 2009 | 11:45 pm | #24
A tragic life. That’s all that needs to be said. But what are you going to do to fill 24/7 news channels and keep the kind of people who have nothing better to do with their time than surf cable TV glued to the screen. It’s Michael Jackson or the Obama dog or the Helsinki weather report.
July 3rd, 2009 | 12:03 am | #25
well i was genuinely saddened by his death. I’m not one that usually gets upset about clebs dying.
His death was the first one that really affected me.
BUT i am sick of the media flogging it. He’s dead, let his family bury him and give him some dignity.
July 3rd, 2009 | 6:33 am | #26
This is the Age of Media. No other reason for the hysteria. Farrah Fawcett died, too. And a few days later Karl Malden. (I thought Malden died years ago. He hadn’t – he was 97!)
This is Anna Nichole Smith all over again with a dash of Princess Di.
Boring, crass, stupid.
*sigh*
And how has your week been?
Have a Happy Independence Day!
July 3rd, 2009 | 9:22 am | #27
I haven’t watched any of the coverage, not into TV, but it was predictable. Reading discussion of the coverage and news reports on the internet is quite enough.
Part of the overkill is because Michael was black. Forgive me for saying this but I think it’s true. The main stream media has to demonstrate to themselves, and to each other, how open minded and unprejudiced they are. They are patting themselves on the back for that as much as they are doing anything else. The Jackson death coverage is a personal accolade. This is another media created, media driven phenomenon. Where was all this concern for Michael when he was slowly killing himself over the last 15 years? The MSM was willing to report salacious details of the freak show then but nothing else. Expect this kind of coverage for Tina Turner, but not for Barbara Streisand.
Jackson was a gifted singer, performer, and songwriter, I’m sure that there are many true fans who are grieved at his death. He was also one of the most psychologically damaged people in our news cycle, unable to cope with life. What a waste.
July 3rd, 2009 | 9:40 am | #28
One more thing, dear Anchoress. You might enjoy this GraphJam:
http://graphjam.com/2009/07/02/song-chart-memes-news-coverage/
I would have just emailed it, but have mislaid your addy. Ah, well.
July 4th, 2009 | 2:09 am | #29
Okay, I’ve been mulling this over in my mind some more the last couple days. How can one not? It’s still in the news!
Remember when Mother Teresa died right at the same time as Princess Di, and people said that perhaps there was some sort of mystical relationship between the deaths?
Reading about Farrah’s death was interesting. It sounds like she attended a Catholic grade school. Later on in her life, she went back and visited the nuns who taught her (I thought this was particularly touching, as my parents did something similar–when in Wisconsin they visited the Franciscans who had taught them in Bozeman, Montana). It sounds like Farrah grew closer to God as she approached death, and it was mentioned in some of the various news articles (you have to read a few from google before you fine the best Catholic coverage on her funeral) that she had a rosary with her. Her funeral was in a cathedral. Perhaps there is some mystical relationship between her death and Michael’s. Neither were saints, something most of us share as well, but I like the idea of Farrah somehow being a companion to Michael in the journey to Heaven. Our religion mandates in us a hope that “all be saved”, and so I am mandated to hope and connive schemes in which people get to Heaven. Okay, off my limb now!
July 4th, 2009 | 9:47 am | #30
“…Congress held “a moment of silence” for him.”
Doesn’t this administration ever tire of embarrassing itself?
July 7th, 2009 | 10:54 am | #31
As witnessed, the truth is whatever we come to accept as the truth. It is whatever we don’t, or can’t challenge.
This talent suddenly curtailed, overtaken by scandal, now disappearing before our eyes. His influence on several generations to be dismissed for whatever lazy summary our press choose to share, as a characture occupies the void left by truth.
The context for Michael’s rise to fame, the context for his sudden fall from grace, goes unspoken as the unrecordable. Our memory being short, we can only accept what we are told.
When people grieve as they do, when they continue to celebrate this man’s achievements, they do so with a sense of this lost context. The comfortable, those enconst in the illusion can only wonder what all the fuss is about.
Michael Jackson was a magnet bringing people together from all walks of life, he was an international figure, a focal point for a diverse group. A rival kind of power. One wonders what will become of that unique group without this source for their love.
Searching for some semblence of what he dared to share through his music, looking but not finding the equavalent sparks of humanity in the beats we feed the young, I am left to conclude our societies are either perfect, content with its illusions, or we no longer have the heart to care.
There is so much we now take for granted, yet to follow the career of Michael Jackson is to also note the ways in which society has changed. For better or worst, he is now an historical figure, a figure whose memory will also shed light on our times. This sendoff now with this outpouring of emotion, is the way we preserve this history.
The big splash as the iconic ship is launched, the waves from this moment is destined to resonate with the rest of history.
July 7th, 2009 | 6:42 pm | #32
the reality is that /as phnominial entertainer///SOOO much serious news for america needs to be covered!!!!!!!!!!
July 7th, 2009 | 7:03 pm | #33
Bad enough we have wall to wall coverage but must it be made into racial BS by the two most bigotted people on earth. Give me a break. Carrying on about MJ reflects poorly on all that do so. People have been using him for years and if they had any respect for him they would not continue to do so after his death. Good music, great dance a sad but somehow lovable person in spite of all the bad he did. Leave him alone and leave me alone enough. Get a life!
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