When a famous person dies, it’s always interesting to see how important the news media thinks they are, based on how much other news they displace. So yesterday, Michael Jackson died, and that fact outweighs the importance of economy, Iran, and North Korea put together.
Today, people talk about his iconic status, his music, the scandal of abuse allegations and addiction. But they are all shying away from the one thing that I think is most obvious to everyone. In recent years, every time we saw him, he looked a little more sculpted, a little more plastic, and ultimately not even exactly human anymore.
It’s like the elephant in the room. I’ve always wondered exactly what happened, why he did…whatever he did. Was there a medical reason, or was it just because he couldn’t stand the thought of growing older? But why the change of skin color?
Well, maybe the media are right to ignore it. Charity to the deceased. Certainly I’ve spent all morning debating whether it was appropriate to blog about. But ultimately I decided to write it, because I think he must have been a very wounded soul, to mutilate himself as he did, and the wholesale ignoring of that wound is in itself a mark of disrespect.
Mind you, I’m not speaking from any informed position (another reason why I debated writing about it). But it seems to me that a child, then a teenager and ultimately a man who spent his entire life on a stage, even when he wasn’t performing, has to have sustained injuries to his psyche. The talk about drug abuse, the way he apparently holed up inside a childhood fantasy ranch…all indicators, I think, of a person who was suffering. Physically, it manifested itself in an almost Dorian Gray-esque transformation of his person.
When we’re little, we all think we want fame and fortune. But in adulthood, a lot of us change our minds. Fame and fortune are frequently very damaging forces. We have set up our entertainment industry as an idol, and we don’t allow the people who entertain us the basic privacy and dignity with which we expect to be treated. Some celebrities manage to stay grounded, at least partially. I think of people like Harrison Ford, and Morgan Freeman (just two examples), who seem to really have it together, who stay off the front page of US and the Enquirer. But it’s far more typical to find entertainers tripping over their own weaknesses—as we all do—only the fall for them is so much farther, and proportionally more damaging. Then, instead of being able to confess, reconcile, and move on, they get exploited to feed our insatiable demand for celebrity gossip.
And I guess I’m feeding into that, too.
Most of all, I think about the three kids—beautiful, beautiful children, whose faces are splashed across the news today, and probably doomed to be at the center of a custody battle that has far too much to do with money. I pray, and I hope others will join me in praying, that somehow, someone can keep these kids grounded…shield them from the gossip craze…from the scourge of too much money and fame. I pray that somehow, those who care for them can give them the chance to reach adulthood healthy and whole.
Kathleen M. Basi 