When a sullied hero passes: Michael Jackson, rest in peace
When it's all so fresh, this news of the death of an icon, most people instinctively mark their lives by the event. Their own lives and the countless roads they've chosen to reach their current destination are spread out before them like huge travel maps, unfathomable except in tiny sections, or by zooming out from the expanse of it all, to catch the important mileposts and the general lay of the land.
And so when someone as universally famous or infamous as Michael Jackson dies after forty or more years in the spotlight, most people will react with a personal view. They (we) are, in effect, judging the life of a celebrity in the light of ideosyncratic perceptions or interpretations of what MTV or the news media has portrayed, both positive and negative. And for most people this judgment includes closely-held prejudices and fears and/or happiness and joyful memories...
... and it's complicated by our subjectiveness, our honesty, our humanity.
Most people want to feel happy in their reminiscences, to relive their innocent youth, and believe that what they once gloried in so much (the music, the dancing, the parties, the friendships) cannot be sullied by dark realities and appearances of evil. Most people sublimate and candy-coat their personal histories. Most people don't want their hero worship questioned by the appearance of facts, because it's far too personal, too integral to whom or what they've become.
And most people lead unexamined lives by choice - and for anyone or any event to challenge their long-invested beliefs is to question the very meaning of whom they've become and their own uncertain destinies. For some, Michael Jackson would never hurt a child, his love of children was merely compensation for his own, lost childhood. For others, the appearance of pedophilia was obvious and abhorrent and overwhelming.
In these mere hours and days after the passing of an icon, a worldly superstar, let's declare neither sainthood nor damnation. For the moment, let's just recognize the place on our personal map where this happened, the many roads we've taken to where we are now, and... move on.
Eccentric or evil, history will judge.
--RAC
And so when someone as universally famous or infamous as Michael Jackson dies after forty or more years in the spotlight, most people will react with a personal view. They (we) are, in effect, judging the life of a celebrity in the light of ideosyncratic perceptions or interpretations of what MTV or the news media has portrayed, both positive and negative. And for most people this judgment includes closely-held prejudices and fears and/or happiness and joyful memories...
... and it's complicated by our subjectiveness, our honesty, our humanity.
Most people want to feel happy in their reminiscences, to relive their innocent youth, and believe that what they once gloried in so much (the music, the dancing, the parties, the friendships) cannot be sullied by dark realities and appearances of evil. Most people sublimate and candy-coat their personal histories. Most people don't want their hero worship questioned by the appearance of facts, because it's far too personal, too integral to whom or what they've become.
And most people lead unexamined lives by choice - and for anyone or any event to challenge their long-invested beliefs is to question the very meaning of whom they've become and their own uncertain destinies. For some, Michael Jackson would never hurt a child, his love of children was merely compensation for his own, lost childhood. For others, the appearance of pedophilia was obvious and abhorrent and overwhelming.
In these mere hours and days after the passing of an icon, a worldly superstar, let's declare neither sainthood nor damnation. For the moment, let's just recognize the place on our personal map where this happened, the many roads we've taken to where we are now, and... move on.
Eccentric or evil, history will judge.
--RAC
Labels: Infamous, Music, Television
