I gotta object to all this...love for the man. I dig the music as much as anybody, and long live the music, but as for the man, good riddance. T
Am I wrong to say you're all weeping over a child molester? I mean, I'm no expert on the case, but I don't see too many people defending him on those charges. And that's not a small thing. It should be the first line in any obituary, and is every bit as heinous as what OJ or Bernie Madoff did. Worse, really. We're talking about children here.
I say all this as a big fan of the music, I grew up with it, too. And still listen to it, and found the discussion of his place in music history very interesting last week.
But the man's flaws are not the kind you overlook. If anything, they are the kind of thing you hope he burns in hell for.
I don't want to relitigate Mike's case, but I will say a couple things. I'm sure there will be plenty of MJ condemnation, and people are welcome to do it. My own perspective is formed by two factors.
1.) I've, at times, heard of the death of awful people and thought "Good riddance." But upon reflection, that feeling rarely keeps. When Jeffrey Dahmer died, I initially thought it served him right. And then I got to thinking about the internal torture that must have made him who he was, and I lost my righteousness. When the mountain falls on people who've spent their lives inflicting pain on others, I am rarely comforted for long.
This is a point of religion, for me. I don't expect everyone to see it my way. Death is fucked up. I don't wish it on anyone. I don't have much use for evaluating who deserves the sword, and when they should get it.
2.) Ray Lewis may well be an accessory to a man's murder. But when I watch him run up and down field on Sunday, it sparks something in me. Woody Allen wooed his wife's adopted daughter, and may well be a child molester. But I think Bananas makes me laugh. Mike Tyson is, among other things, a convicted rapist. But I had not lived until I saw him demolish Trevor Berbick. And so on...
I guess I could peel these people out my life. I guess I could stop seperating art from men. Regrettably, I think, I wouldn't be left with much art worth admiring. Sometimes awful people, do beautiful things. One doesn't cancel the other. And mourning the loss of human life, does not excuse the sins of that life.
People who don't feel that way are welcome to their opinions. I'm not sure why they insist that others share them.
UPDATE: Lots of comments on whether Mike actually was a child molester. I left that argument alone because it's not going to be settled in any way here. Some of us will, quite fairly, point to the courts. Others, quite fairly, will point to the behavior he admitted to. (Sleeping with young children, who aren't his own.)
Before you comment, consider whether your likely to get anywhere with the argument. At some point, we end up with He said/She said.
UPDATE#2: Closing comments on both MJ posts. I don't think this is going anywhere interesting. Moreover, we're mostly hearing from people who just registered today, or yesterday. I think that says something.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
couldn't agree more. in fact, people's sins - their darkest, most unforgivable thoughts and acts - inspire some of the most brilliant art.
TNC's point is well taken. The man was a legend whose life deserves to be remembered. But...
Sadly the manner in which this will be covered is likely to suck all the air out of the room. As Andrew noted yesterday the passing of MJ means that the coverage of events in Iran by the MSM is now over. On top of this violence is surging in Iraq. But these stories are traumatic, they are far away, and we're fatigued. So real news will inevitably be trumped by a story more fit for TMZ and Access Hollywood.
Awesome.
Well if you've been reading Andrew, I think he has been saying the coverage by the MSM on the topics you listed have been over for a while now, prior to MJ dying. Hell, even the death of MJ was an illustration to the faltering existence of the MSM. I can't believe you were really getting any real news from the MSM, were you? If so tell me where, I haven't seen it and wouldn't mind checking it out.
you know, I had a similar response, in that the MSM was still reliant upon a tabloid/blog/internet source for that scoop. No MSM confirmed it until much later, but TMZ got the lead, ran it, and everyone else had to link to them.
Yet another MSM FAIL
Fair point.
You're right that at almost no point during this unfolding crisis did I get my "news" from a traditional MSM source (the Lede blog at the Times being the possible exception, though a new media format at the queen of the old media). That being said the MSM, and here I mean principally the cable news outlets, still reach an audience, and a type of news consumer, that Nico, Andrew, and Tehran Bureau by themselves can't.
The MSM provides access to this story to people whose news consumption habits are much more casual than the average reader of the Atlantic magazine. What upsets me isn't that the MSM isn't breaking news on Iran. We all understand that they are particularly ill equipped to do so at this point since hardly any are still allowed in the country. What upsets me is that MJ's passing is going to suck up any coverage that this much more important story would have received.
While I am not arguing that we all share the culpability of murderers and child molesters, it can be really hard to accept the darkest parts of ourselves. And I think this spills over to how we perceive and talk about the good and bad nature of others.
In eastern thought, the lotus flower is an important symbol of this. The muckiest, shittiest lake bottom nurtures the roots of the beautiful, seemingly pure flower.
As the man says, "there is good and bad in everyone."
Who says he sinned? What ever happened to presumption of innocence until proven guilty, or taking a court and jury's verdict at face value? This wasn't the OJ case, where there was an overwhelming amount of evidence pointing towards guilt. Race was not involved, and I imagine the jury that acquitted him had more than a few parents on it. The charges would have been hard to verify in any case - he was accused of groping and distributing alcohol to minors, not sodomy. And this is hardly the first time someone would have been untruthfully accused of child molestation. These cases are actually more common than folks think.
The man was strange, that's true. But instead of getting all wrapped up in his strangeness and remembering him as a child molester and sinner, it seems like it would be more judicious to consider the fact that he might have been the victim in this case. Strange guy with lots of money who likes to hang out with kids - it's surprising that he wasn't the target of more predatory suits. But I guess it's easier to just go with your gut and assume that the man was a child molester because he dressed funny and acted strange. Take a look at the details of the case, look at his relationship with his own kids, former spouses, etc before remembering him as a "child molester." That stuff is just mob mentality, group think bullshit. Long live the King of Pop!
I do remember the details of the cases. There were more than one. I also remember Jackson stating on television that he didn't think there was anything wrong with sharing a bed with young boys. At the very least, he had some boundary issues where children were concerned.
He was very strange, had no sense of appropriate boundaries about children, and didn't seem to understand what normal is, especially regarding how adults interact with children. It was very sad. But I've got to agree with Bolton--if I knew some adult who just really liked to play with children all the time, and asked if my kids could come have unsupervised sleepovers with him even though I didn't know the guy that well--I question what the parents were thinking, in the sense that "ooooh, money" comes to mind first.
He may have been a child molester. I on balance think it's likely. But there's enough doubt that it seems very unfair to remember him as foremost guilty of a crime he may not have committed.
I agree with this, but I didn't want to get bogged down in that debate. My point is that, even if he had, I'd still feel the same.
Strikes me that that debate is key. If he molested children, he was a tremendously talented child-molester, and pretending he was just a brilliant performer is like ... well, like flying a Confederate flag in honor of one's 'heritage', nothing at -all- to do with anything racial, don't you know.
A partial truth can be a lie, no?
I think you are all kinds of messed up on this analogy. The Confederate Flag is directly to related to the heritage, and identity of the south. Molestation has nothing to do with how talented an entertainer MJ was. You called him a talented child-molester, what did he moonwalk into bed, did he have the glove on as the acts took place. What the hell does him being a child-molester have to do with how good an album Off The Wall was...I think is the point...
Well, I think I messed up on my explanation, maybe!
My point is that I don't accept that someone says, 'I fly the Confederate Flag from a completely race-blind pride in my heritage,' because you can't pick and choose that way. You can't say, 'Oh, I'm fond of John Wayne Gacy because I love clown pictures--nothing to do with the murders.'
And you also can't say, 'I celebrate Michael Jackson as a musician and performer--nothing to do with the molestation. No reason to even mention that.'
It's all or nothing. But reading this thread, seems to me that there's no telling if Jackson was a predator, so talking about him as if I know he was a child molester strikes as very wrong.
I don't think you understand. Being a "talented child molester" is not the opposite of being a "brilliant performer"--one can be both at the same time.
"Heritage not hate" explicitly argues that there's nothing racial about the flag. I'm not arguing that Mike isn't a child-molester. I'm arguing that, from my perspective, it's not relevant to how I feel about him as a performer.
Your welcome to strike him from your catalouge. I'd be wary of the expectation that others should do the same.
I hear you Guster, but you're going down a long road. It recently came out that John Lennon wanted to sleep with his mom, does being a fan of his endorse that? Ezra Pound was a great poet. And a fascist. Kurt Cobain, Hemingway--suicide.
Johnny Ramone--Republican. All artists have fatal flaws unfortunately (mostly kidding about that last one)
I'm always leery of people who are more interested in paraphrasing the opposition, as opposed to quoting and countering. It's relatively easy to take on an argument that you've invented in your mind. The real challenge is confronting what's actually written on the page.
I know it'd be nice if I'd said that there was "no reason to even mention" Michael's molestation charges. It makes arguing a lot easier. Of course, it skirts the obvious problem that that isn't what I said.
People deserve to have their arguments taken on the merits, on what they've actually said. This isn't Crossfire.
"My point is that I don't accept that someone says, 'I fly the Confederate Flag from a completely race-blind pride in my heritage,' because you can't pick and choose that way. You can't say, 'Oh, I'm fond of John Wayne Gacy because I love clown pictures--nothing to do with the murders.'"
Really? There's no accepting somebody, even celebrating them in spite of their flaws? I mean, I guess it clearly depends on how you measure the flaws themselves, but it seems pretty clear that people know that everyone is imperfect. That some people are very deeply troubled. Some people simply don't understand and do not want to. Somebody who flies the Confederate Flag, for instance, is somebody. He may do it as a white supremicist or he may do it genuinely out of a desire to celebrate his heritage, or the myth of his heritage that he's been taught.
In the end, we can choose to jettison these guys like so much space junk, but we typically do this because it's easier for us to not make an effort to understand and to empathize.
I agree that Michael Jackson is forever tainted for better or worse. His life was one long train wreck. Looking back on it, his was a life that seems like a MacBeth soliloquy (you know the one I'm talking about, no need to quote it). His life was a mess of things good and bad, and we sit here today trying to figure out what it was worth in the end. Is it a net plus or negative? I honestly don't know. His life was a tragedy. His death feels empty, almost meaningless to me.
I understand that you didn't want to get bogged down in the debate, but when you title a post "Blessings for a Child Molester" and spend the majority of said post equating him with stained celebrities who earned their mark of shame (Tyson, Allen) it doesn't really help clear the air or add balance to the way this is being covered. You're just another voice in the crowd who's willing to assume out of hand that he was guilty; being willing to "look past" his supposed guilt and value him for his artistic contributions doesn't get you off the hook. That being said, the fact that he was accused of being a child molester is notable and deserves press coverage. It's a lot easier to make the case that predatory litigants drove him to substance abuse and ultimately his early death than it is to make a case that he was actually a child molester. And the fact is that both the Chandler and Arvizo cases were fishy as hell - the ONLY reason they're given any weight is because the accused was a weirdo, and it was hard for folks to process the way he looked and acted.
I guess my bottom line is that I wish you could have saved your post on Billy Jean for today, or focused more on his contributions to music, and left the "child molester" angle for those too lazy to do a little homework and balance the facts against their prejudices about the man. You're above this one, and you've basically dredged this one up. Not that it's a huge deal - I'm not a super fan, don't even know why I've waisted this much time on this.
Whenever this conversation comes up I can't help thinking of that Chappelle's show skit where Dave is being questioned for jury selection at a bunch of high profile celebrity trials. Dave asserts that MJ is not guilty because "He made Thriller", but when asked if he would ever let his children sleep in the same bed we get the only sane answer anyone would give "F*** No! Ugh!".
http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=11926
Oh yeah, Beretta did that shit.
Right on, TNC. I see people going out of their way saying they won't child molesters and then saying they're not saying anyone else can. They want to have it both ways. They want to make people feel ashamed for feeling even a modicum of sadness, but they wanna come off as not telling people how to feel.
And also, perspective: for all Michael (allegedly) did to kids, for all his weirdness, let's not forget all the terrific things he did for children worldwide, through charities, through "We Are the World," and by standing with Ryan White as he put a face on AIDS that many people had refused to accept.
Sorry: That second sentence should read: "I see people going out of their way to say they won't mourn child molesters and then saying they're not telling anyone else they can't." You think I would use the preview button!
Hold on now - Ray Lewis was innocent. Not only was he innocent, but the guy who did the actual stabbing seemed like he really was defending himself. I forget alot of the details of his case, but that was the thought I walked away from the coverage with 10 years ago (or whenever it happened.) I didn't know it was some sort fo forgone conclusion that Ray was guilty.
Here is what I wrote:
Here is your conclusion:
It helps to quote what you're questioning. It's not just a courtesy to the person you're debating, it helps clarify the argument. In this case, for instance, I don't think we actually disagree.
You're right about quoting. My bad on that.
There's a difference between not wishing someone burn in hell for their sins--not dancing on their grave, not clinging to hatred--and not acknowledging their cruelty.
The specifics here are beyond me: do we even know that Jackson was a child molester? But if we do, then we must make even if you're a beloved genius, you don't get a pass for molestation. If we know he did that, isn't there a moral imperative to make it the first line of his obit? Not the whole obit, maybe not even the final life. But the first one.
I've never understood the intense, passionate hatred that seems to arise in some when the subject of child molestation comes up. Not to say that child molestation isn't a terrible thing, or that it shouldn't be illegal, but there are many bad things that people do to other people and few get the kind of hyperbole that is reserved for child molesters ("the kind of thing you hope he burns in hell for"). I have never experienced being molested as a child, but then again, I have never experienced being murdered as an adult either as Nicole Simpson did, but between the two I have no doubt which one I'd prefer. And of course it's well demonstrated how the emotional fury released by child molestation cases can overwhelm reason, the rule of law, etc.
I knew a guy once who claimed to be exclusively attracted to prepubescent children. He never acted on his urges, to my knowledge, other than an extensive collection of child porn, but it was a problem that affected every aspect of his life and virtually ruined it. It was not the kind of thing that was motivated by malice, or greed, or anything else other than the complex ambiguities of sexuality, and it certainly wasn't a lifestyle that he chose, any more than being gay is a choice. If we were capable of choosing who we are attracted to, the one thing I can say for certain is that none of us would choose to be a child molester. The only thing I feel for the molesters themselves is sadness.
Personally, I suspect that the fury has as much to do with a social norm that represses the sexuality of children as it does with the harms associated with actual molestation. That's not a bad social norm - some sexual urges do need to be repressed - but repression always has costs, and a pathological obsession with molestaters is, I suspect, part of that cost, just as pathological homophobia is a consequence of the widespread repression of homosexual urges.
In my mind the fury has to do with the fact that an adult (often someone in a position of some sort of power - relative, priest, coach)sets their sights on someone who is vulnerable and lacks the same awareness as an adult. Then they use their relationship with that child and what they know about that child to prey on them. Children have a different understand of sex and relationships than adults - they are not prepared to handle these situations. There is a wild inequity of power in child abuse - it is a violation and a form of rape. Children are helpless in the sense that they need to rely on adults for all of their primary care (food, shelter, safety) and thus they need to trust adults. When an adult violates that trust they often damage those children for a lifetime. It is not just the immediate act, but the impact the act has on the child for the rest of their lives.
And it sure seems to me that that emotional fury must surely have a serious negative effect on the victims, perhaps more severe than the original act. How many times does a victim -- child or adult -- have to hear the inflamed rhetoric that surrounds these cases (stolen innocence, childhood taken away, etc.) before it exerts a powerful, negative effect on that child's self-image that lasts, perhaps, forever? How often does a ten- or twelve-year-old have to hear someone (a parent, a relative, a prosecutor) say that their life's been ruined before they themselves actually begin to believe that?
I am sure that any stigma is not helpful, but ignoring or not discussing the crime isn't going to help either. And the crime is still the root of the trauma. Maybe there is a better way to discuss it, but how do you prosecute a child molester whith out stressing the damage done? It should be discussed so victims get justice and so people who commit these acts are kept away from children in the future.
Jackson93 wrote:
ignoring or not discussing the crime isn't going to help either
I never suggested that.
What I am saying is that the over-the-top, emotionally charged rhetoric that often surrounds molestation cases may end up doing more long-term psychological damage to the victim than the original offense, if the victim's experience is dealt with appropriately (counseling, etc.). Victims, unfortunately, have no choice but to deal with the psychological consequences of the original act; what I am saying is that our first obligation to the victim is to not make the psychological and emotional burden that much worse by our careless words and actions afterward.
And who do you think got raped in order to make that child porn? And no, it's *not* the same as being gay. I get similar levels of rage when talking about rapists, but to be honest, there's a culture that encourages jokes about and defense of rape. Not so much about child rape. We're taught to protect children because they can't protect themselves.
We're not pathologically obsessed with preventing child molestation so much as we are with preventing damage done to the innocent and defenseless.
As for your friend with the child porn collection, if there were photos, someone was raped to make them. If you've ever known and loved any children, think about them being put through that, and you might get some sense of why people abhor child molesters so much.
So is it your position that pedophilia is a choice?
it may not be a choice. it may be an illness, but it is something that people can seek help for. and when acted upon (even if it is *just* child porn) hurts other people in a very tangible and devastating way.
it is not like being gay, which leads people to seek relationships with other adults.
Of course, I don't think pedophilia is like homosexuality in any respect other than the fact that I believe sexual orientation is determined by deep, subconscious factors over which the individual has little control, and that is just as true for pedophiles as it is for homosexuals, or heterosexuals for that matter. That doesn't change the fact that homosexuality is based on consensual relationships and pedophilia is probably based on an exploitative relationship and for that reason one should be socially acceptable and the other should be illegal. But it does give me pause before rushing to judgment or coming up with over the top histrionics describing what I'd like to do to punish pedophiles for their crimes. If you take a moment to ponder the actual life of the pedophile, I think it is important to have some compassion, even in the face of moral judgment.
I was reading the posts on Michael Jackson yesterday. I wish I had more time to write a better post, but I do not. Anyway, call me naive, but I don't think that Michael Jackson was a child molester. I mean, he was found "not guilty" in a court of law, among other things.
Anyway, Borton (above) said it far better than I ever could.
His criminal acquittal notwithstanding, there's ample reason to believe that Jackson was guilty of many of the allegations against him. I certainly believe that. Too, too much smoke for there not to be fire.
But I do think he really, genuinely had no understanding of the nature of the crime, or that his actions were criminal. I think he just didn't "get it." If you watch his interviews on the subject (e.g., with Martin Bashir), when he's asked directly, "did you molest that child?," he responds over an over again, "I would never hurt a child. I love children." And I think, in his own mental pathology, that's right, that's truthful. He wasn't dodging the question; he simply didn't understand it as the rest of us do. He was a child himself in that part of his mind, and I don't think he ever understood his actions as abusive, or even very inappropriate. That doesn't excuse the behavior, which was absolutely criminal, but I do thinks it's of a piece with the rest of his psyche. Unfortunately, his wealth and fame -- and the sycophantic entourage of enablers that came with it -- allowed him to live in his own Neverland (figuratively and literally) where he had free rein to indulge his twelve-year-old psyche.
Where's the "ample reason?" Look at the cases. In the first Jordan Chandler and his father instigated the charges. Jordan's mother said nothing happened. Jordan was taped saying something to the effect that he was going to get everything out of MJ, and that there was no way he would lose. The father and son approached MJ for money. As soon as they wrestled a financial settlement out of it they dropped the accusations.
In the second case MJ was acquitted in a court of law. The accuser was Gavin Arvizo, and the charges revolved around sleeping in a bed with MJ. Elizabeth Taylor, who had been there for some of the sleep overs and in the same bed, said they were completely innocent - similar to staying up in your parents' bed or that of an older sibling and watching Disney movies (this is what they were doing). The psychiatrist who evaluated both MJ and Gavin testified that MJ did not fit the profile of a pedophile. A regressed 10 year old, yes. But not a child molester. All charges were dropped.
Other than these two cases all you really have is LaToya making a temporary accusation that he was a pedophile (during the first case, later retracted, she wasn't a picture of stability herself), and the fact that he was abused when he was a child.
I suspect that most people who are convinced that he was a child molester are operating on a very small number of assumptions - namely that he looks and acts weird, and therefore the charges must have been true. They've heard the peripherals, and have made their judgement. Too lazy to even go to WikiPedia or use teh Google to fish out some background. Definitely too lazy to read an effing book on the subject. Granted, the latter seems pretty weird, something reserved for hardcore MJ devotees. But it's a hell of a lot more admirable than just saying "there's ample reason to believe that Jackson was guilty of many of the allegations against him" because you're too lazy to do some homework and balance actual facts against your own ignorance and prejudice.
It sure looks like you didn't read anything past the first line of my post. I was making exactly the point you cite -- his psyche (and I believe, his actions) are that of a child, not a conventional molester.
As for the did he/didn't he question, I suspect that will become much clearer now that the threat of litigation by MJ himself is a lesser concern. There will be lots more allegations, witnesses (real or otherwise), and evidentiary documents coming to light now. While I don't expect that new information will sway die-hard believers on either side, there will surely be a more complete picture forthcoming.
People are entitled to their opinions about MJ especially when it comes to the child molestation charges, but do we really know what happened? At worst yes he did molest child(children), at best he exhibited incredibly poor judgement, but committed no crimes and only had good intentions as misguided as they were. He was a celebrity and a target of ridicule who rarely received good advice from his closest advisors so he was an easy target whether he suffered at the hands of people looking to take advantage of him or due to his own actions. Talk about poor judgement, what were those parents thinking, letting their kid stay with him? That's equally disturbing. It is my sense that we withhold judgement given how little we actually know. In addition in the worst case scenario that he did molest children, in the spirit of holding him accountable for that we should account for the fact he suffered a great deal of abuse as a child and that his actions later in life were in all likelihood a reflection of the abuse he suffered as a child. MJ's legacy could be to help our society look more holistically at how the cycle of physical and sexual abuse turns victims into predators and might help our society to treat this destructive sad condition. MJ needed help. He need counseling. He needed to be able to talk to somebody who could understand what it was like to grow up and live the life he did. There was nobody for him to do that with. He was alone as the King of Pop and fell into isolation. This in part is why his death is so tragic for me. His obsession with children and childhood came out of the longing he had for his own childhood that never was.
This isn't the best time to say this but I'll say it anyway. If Cole Porter, Richard Rogers, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, et al were songwriters (and they emphatically were), then M. Jackson was something different okay.
I think this is a complicated thing for people (me included) to sort out. Our heroes are human. Most people who do very strange or hurtful things have suffered them selves, which of course does not excuse their actions. But I do think that we have to recognize the complexity of human beings.
People came to like and admire Michael Jackson for his talent. People grew up with his music, and they have sentimental feelings for Michael from before he got weird on us. As he became more and more unrecognizable and perhaps committed crimes, some people definitely lost their love and admiration for him. His death makes some of us come to terms with our conflicted feelings. He was a great artist and he was an f-ed up dude - it is possible to hold those two thoughts in one's head at the same time. Also I can't help but think that in a way his death is giving some people permission to really remember and express how much his music meant to them.
Some of us just don't believe in burning in hell.
If he molested children, under law he deserves to be punished. Debating the merits of the case doesn't matter now. But it seems to me he was a suffering man, who perhaps made other people suffer, including children, and that is just incredibly sad.
I've felt for awhile that Michael's life was lost, with the surgical creation of his "mask," the child molestation case. Somehow it seems that there was nowhere else for him to go now, but that doesn't make me happy or say "good riddance."
"I don't have much use for evaluating who deserves the sword, and when they should get it."
TNC, I don't think you planned it, but your blog has had a theme running through it in the last couple of weeks: the pitfalls of pride and self-righteousness. You and I and a lot of people seem to be working through these issues right now, and I believe it's because of the example set by Barack Obama. The man doesn't have a self-righteous bone in his body. After 16 years of prideful, self-deluding presidents, this is something to welcome. I think we all notice how Obama is different, although many of us haven't quite named the difference: The man is humble. And that is a very attractive quality.
Very good point.
I remember when I first moved to Boston as a Ravens fan, and I quickly found out that Ray Lewis was a lot less innocent in other parts of the country.
Anyway, I think that the legal system has its flaws, and I'm fine with people calling him a child molester. I know I have, and he may very well be. If he wasn't, then things were at best inappropriate. However, while I believe in personal responsibility, I do have to think that the abuse he suffered as a child (mostly by his father, but the Tatum O'Neal thing was pretty fucked too, as well as being in the same room as his brothers while they were having sex) made him lived in a completely warped world. There is a small part of me that just thinks this man really did just want to be a child, and there may have been nothing sexual about it. So pity is what I'm feeling right now more than anything. If we are to take away something from this culturally, hopefully it will be a more open acknowledgement of the life-long effects of child abuse.
I think it gets easier the more famous a celebrity is to ask callous questions like the record store lackeys of the movie High Fidelity: "Is it better to burn out or to fade away?" Should pop stars just burn out and die at their peaks so that we're all spared the spectacle of their shameful personal lives and shameless new material that never matches their glory days? Would it have been better for Michael Jackson to have died right after his 1993 Super Bowl appearance, letting us remember him as the King of Pop and not the cringe-inducing sideshow he became?
Put another way, it's easy to be like Frodo in the Fellowship of the Ring when he says "It's a pity that Bilbo did not kill Gollum when he had the chance!"
That's when Gandalf makes your point perfectly: "Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo's hand! Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death and judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."
TNC, I'm with you: this is a point of religion. Snark and pettiness are easy, but genuinely charitable pity is tough as hell and worth every effort. Sending a wealthy, famous celebrity to hell for misdeeds (real or alleged) is easy, but it takes some doing to feel real compassion for a guy whose downward spiral probably started in his teens. We would all be better to follow Gandalf's lead.
I just have to say that I don't understand very much about Michael Jackson's personal life - other than that his father appears to bear a heavy burden for screwing up his youngest kid - but the layering of so much weird shit in so many aspects of his life and the fact that he lacked anything resembling an engaging or interesting personality or conveyed anything in his life other than clueless self-absorption made it impossible for me to react to him with much more than a shudder for most of the last two decades.
I've seen or heard very little over-the-top "I hope he burns in Hell!" dismissal and an awful lot of over-the-top obsessing over what an all-important cultural figure he was and why all of the creepy stuff wasn't what he should be remembered for. Sinatra was an asshole of the first order, Elvis was a basket-case by the time he died, Marvin destroyed himself and his family, and on and on. But I can't think of any top-tier cultural "icons" who just plain gave me the creeps to the degree that Jackson did. He really piled it on. I don't get the defensiveness around him. I get the feeling that we really aren't "welcome to our opinions" if we don't buy into the hype feel "empathyed out" after all of these years. (I was appalled by all of the sanctimonious bullshit around Princess Diana too, for the record. Guess I'm a bad person. Time to renew my People magazine subscription and start Tivoing Oprah.)
TNC, I think we may have to agree to disagree on this one. There have been some horrible people in this world who have brought nothing but misery and death. But, my main point is that your response to Thefoulness is really a strawman. It appears that you are ignoring the primary point of his comment, namely, that for all of Jackson's musical greatness, he had some serious "flaws" that should be a very large part of this conversation as well. Instead, you change the conversation to one of "righteousness" and being an arbiter of who does and who doesn't deserve to die. Additionally, I believe you help make this point by your rationalizations on Jackson.
Does this apply to those who are living as well? I'm sure George W. Bush, Cheney, et. al. were traumatized by 9/11, and this trauma (internal torture) played a huge role in their myriad transgressions after the attack. So, notwithstanding the hundreds of thousands, or perhaps millions of people killed, and the millions displaced, along with torture, illegal wiretapping, elimination of habeus review and other Constitutional transgressions, should we take this same introspective approach, forgive and forget? Yes, we all sin. However, I don't think that prevents us from calling out others.
I think this is another strawman as I don't see where anyone "insisted" that you, or anyone else, must believe what they do about Jackson. An opinion was shared, just as you do on your blog every day. Are you "insisting" that folks share your opinion simply by expressing it to others on your blog on a daily basis?
I've been reading you blog for about a month or so and I love it! Keep up the great work.
It's worth reviewing the original comment:
I gotta object to all this...love for the man. I dig the music as much as anybody, and long live the music, but as for the man, good riddance. T
Then:
Then:
And then considering your argument:
Now, you may think that calling for someone to "burn in hell," is merely requesting that Mike's issues be "a very large part of the conversation." But I think it is what it says it is.
Fair enough. Withdrawn.
The problem is that we play this game with celebrities. Michael Jackson, basically, was an awesome singer and dancer. He was not a king. Elvis was not a king. Ray Lewis is not a real hero because he runs fast. Mike Tyson was not truly made of iron. But if you rooted for Tyson, that's exactly what you wanted him to be. We want linebackers to "save us" and when they do, well they must be called saviours and heros. Michael Jackson made us love music, so he can't just be a man who made songs and videos.
That's because you never admired the art in the first place. That sounds harsher than I actually mean it. You say Tyson "demolished" Berbick, because it was more than just a sport competition for you. I think we connect such real life events with our imaginations in order to aggrandize them. To make them epic, to bring the great stories and tragedies into our own lives. In order to admire art, we must give it a place in our consciousness first. And this place is our own. It's a place with kings, legends, heros and villains. And when they die, they leave the real world as well as our own.
Eh, check out the post on MLK from a couple of days ago. No doubt we construct narratives that aren't exactly reality, not just in celebrity terms, but in our personal lives. I still think its possible to believe the narrative and the more accurate version of things though, as long as you take the narrative what it is, literally--a story.
I wish we could just leave this alone for awhile.
He was a creative genius, and like most geniuses he had his eccentricities. He was abused and troubled. It doesn't excuse him for what he's done (if anything), but its someone else's job to judge him now.
Think about all the good things he did for kids in this world. He was a true humanitarian.
I agree that he did do some good, but, in my mind, you're making the same flawed argument as TNC, namely, that we didn't walk in his shoes so it's difficult for us to judge him now that he is gone. That strikes me as somewhat of a dishonest and hypocritical argument to make as our righteousness is on display all the time for both the living and the dead. We castigate Bush for what he did over the past 8 years, but he also did some good. Should we simply forget and wait on his eternal judgment after death? It just seems duplicitous to me, essentially saying that for those we like let's reserve judgment but excoriate those we do not.
Sad though this all is you, you know who gets away scott free? The parents of the children that were allowed to stay over at his ranch. Would I allow my son to stay over at a reclusive pop star's home overnight, when that person's "tastes" are one of the world's worst kept secrets? Don't be ridiculous, of course I wouldn't, and no sane parent would. If you ask me they were knowingly pimping their children out, hoping that a bit of fame might rub off on them or that they could cash in a la Jordan Chandler's parents. And yet no-one mentions them. Pretty disgusting if you ask me... and Jackson's "tastes" may have been as a result of his utterly messed up childhood... I'm not excusing him but there are clear reasons for his behaviour. Most of the parents, I assume, don't have any such reason.
Personally, I do go a bit with the "good riddance" theme. But I'm not interested (for personal beliefs reasons) in the whole "may he burn in hell" stuff. I just think: it's a good thing that there is one less person messing horribly up children's lives. And I know he's not been convicted of anything, and that plenty of innocent people have gotten convicted (although not quite as many when they can afford the best lawyers). Still, fairly or unfairly, I think he has done pretty bad damage to more than one kid. That is (would be) regrettable, and I'm glad there's one less person people have to worry about in this regard.
One annoyance of mine is this whole "doing something good negates something bad." No, it doesn't. Somebody isn't less guilty, or his actions less disgusting just because they happened to be good at something you enjoy. Phil Spector's crime is no less horrible than that of some talentless janitor (cue wall of sound was a worse crime than anything else he could've done jokes). Sure, it makes it easier for people to sympathize, or to refrain from demonizing, but it's absolutely irrational. And it's very unfair. It's basically some glorified version of "people I like can't do bad things, because I like them."
I've never been clear on why there's so much resistance to accepting the very simple fact that people do things that usually cover a pretty wide section of the good-bad spectrum. There's no "good people" or "bad people," there's just people. And people sometimes do good things, and sometimes do bad. Sometimes do mostly one kind or the other. But there's no permanent objective classification (usually supported by what some imaginary dude in the sky has to say) to which people belong that is unshakable and perennial. People are the sum of their actions, and that's it. Michael Jackson very well could have done horrible things, as well as really marvelous things. And when it's time to "remember" somebody and the effect his or her life had on others, the only way to be fair (not to mention truthful) is to take everything into account.
I think that's the main complaint from the "but he was a monster too! zomgs!" camp. Yes, he did some cool stuff, but for the love of god, could you all stop acting like he was a saint?
Of course, I don't know if that's a fair statement, I've not been following the media coverage, nor intend to. But I'd say there's way more to the "burn in hell" characterization. At least, there's people for which that's true.
One last comment (in regards to MJ): For me, this is mostly tragic. A kid who could sing like no other kid I've ever heard, so horribly affected by an abusive father and a life in the spotlight, becoming something (for me) painful to watch. I don't mean to trivialize the suffering (again, going with the assumption that he did it) of the people he affected, it doesn't excuse it. But what happened to the dude, the way his life evolved, the choices he made, what was imposed on him. That's just plain tragic and sad.
Full disclosure: Although I was a kid during the 'King of Pop' years, I never really developed any strong feelings for him or his music or his dancing. Dont' get me wrong, I didn't dislike it or anything. It just never really did it for me. So I may be a bit out of place in this conversation.