For those of you who haven't heard: Michael Jackson, King of Pop, has died.
Also, for those of you who haven't heard: I envy you.
You know, before he died, I really had no real beef with Jacko. Despite the scandals, he made some good tunes, and this is coming from me, someone who hates many forms of pop culture. Strangely enough, though, the King of Pop could always get my head bobbing to the beat. The guy could dance, too, for sure. No one denies that.
Michael Jackson also donated a lot of money to humanitarian causes. No one will deny that such generosity is a good thing.
So far, we can establish that MJ is 1) a hugely successful entertainer, and 2) generously donates money to humanitarian causes, which many successful celebrities do. Okay.
Now we come to the whole child-molestation-thing. The allegations that weren't settled out-of-court for millions of dollars were not proven to be true. Fervent MJ fans (especially the ones who like to put his image as their Facebook profile now that he's dead) emphasize and harp on this.
However, even if we assume that Michael Jackson in no way, shape, or form molested or harassed any boys, his behavior certainly requires some explanation and raises some doubt.
Jacko spent a huge portion of his fortune on Neverland Ranch, which was part home, part amusement park, and part petting zoo, apparently. He considered himself (or at least likened himself to) Peter Pan, and, to top it off, invited loads of kids and allowed them to sleep over at his "Ranch", even sharing his bed and room with them. Even the most ardent MJ apologizer has a hard time defending that kind of ludicrous behavior. The guy liked little boys and liked to be around little boys, seemingly more than he liked being around women and friends his age. That's an uncomfortable fact no matter what the verdict of the trials was.
Some people might claim that these behaviors merely describe how much Michael Jackson loves children in general, and how he's a "kid at heart". If that were true, then that love and that heart condition clearly don't translate too well into the parenting factor. Ranging from keeping his kids' faces covered in veils when they were out in public all the way to dangling his infant child from a balcony window for all to see, Jackson's parenting tendencies weren't quite up to par with his "love for children".
And finally we come to the ever-changing appearance of Michael Jackson. For the sake of avoiding all the "YOU HAVE NO PROOF" screechers out there, I'll assume that Michael Jackson legitimately did have universal vitiligo and lupus. Fine; even if there’s no proof of those illnesses, either. Let's say that he bleached his skin in order to get an even pigment all around so the vitiligo didn't look quite so unsightly. Fine; I'd say that plan backfired pretty hard, but fine. The guy still molded and sculpted his face until it was nearly beyond recognition. If he had gotten all that plastic surgery at once, even his biggest fans wouldn't have recognized him. Only the fact that the surgeries were spread out and that the change was gradual allowed MJ's transformation to be monitored so that he was still marginally recognizable. Jacko clearly molded his features to match his newly-whitened skin, and did so to the point of absurdity and even grotesque self-parody. If his sister Janet had bleached her skin too, the two would look like clones (except for the boobs, of course, but who knows? Jacko could have been planning on adding those, too). Thus was MJ’s transformation from a young black man to an androgynous white man.
Apparently he transformed his genetic makeup, too, because his black genes and a white woman’s genes mixed to create some very white children. Three times. Genetic anomalies? I think not, ladies and gentleman. Michael didn’t have enough European blood in him (or enough bleach and vitiligo) to make three very European-looking children. I won’t speculate as to how exactly this happened, but clearly something’s wrong with the recipe here, if you know what I mean.
And so, on June 25th, 2009, Michael Jackson died in circumstances that are now being investigated by our tax-funded Drug Enforcement Administration. I’m so glad that a portion of my work effort is going to find out how Jacko died. Oh wait.
Jacko’s death has induced a sort of worldwide media solar eclipse at a time of very important and significant events both around the world and in the United States. I wish I was exaggerating when I say that the world is treating MJ’s death as the second death of Jesus Christ himself. Every major news outlet is on full Michael-Jackson-mode; it’s Defcon One for the media; it’s all Michael, all the time. Celebrities, news anchors, journalists, politicians, and world leaders are sparing no expense to shower the late entertainer with unending praise and laudation. It is now July 7th (12 days later), and the media frenzy has culminated in a public memorial service, complete with the whole gamut of public figures mentioned above. An article published on the news site of Yahoo said today that “the world paused to remember Jackson”. I want to take this opportunity to demonstrate why this seemingly-harmless six-word statement sums up how truly ridiculous our society is becoming.
Ask anyone in China, Honduras, Afghanistan, or Iraq if their world paused to remember Michael Jackson. Ask someone in either of the Koreas or in Pakistan if their worlds stopped to remember MJ. Ask the recent multiple victims of the serial murderers in South Carolina and Pennsylvania and their loved ones if their worlds stopped to remember Jacko. I think the answers you will get will be a resounding “NO”.
If you’re asking yourself right now what happened in any of the aforementioned areas or what is happening there now, then you are part of the regressed society of which I speak.
I think the world (and by “world” I mean the world which did NOT “stop to remember Michael Jackson”) proved very effectively the absurd, hyperbolic nature of the recent Michael Jackson phenomenon. There are literally millions of people who will claim that Jacko “changed their lives”. I hate to ask what these people’s lives were like before they discovered the entertainer’s music; they must have been pretty empty and superficial. Music can be a very powerful medium of expression, but can any of us honestly say that one artist’s music changed our lives? Or did the condition of our lives previously lead us to explore and discover music that we enjoy? Some people actually broke down in a blubbering mess on camera, gnashing their teeth and tearing their clothes because the King of Pop died. Really? Did your life really revolve around Michael Jackson so much that it now has THAT much less meaning than before?
Before anyone throws a fit: I’m obviously not talking about Michael Jackson’s loved ones; they obviously have good cause to mourn the loss of their friend and family member.
The most vocal Michael Jackson supporters will go to great lengths to emphasize his innocence in the molestation trials and to excuse his strange, inexplicable, and at times inexcusable behaviors. From what I can tell, these seem to be the same exact people that were so quick to condemn and damn the priests who molested children (or who were accused of molesting without conviction). Many of these people were clearly ones who most likely called for the imprisonment and castigation of these priests, no matter if they were convicted or acquitted in the same manner as MJ. Some of these people probably even used these sad examples of priesthood to condemn Christianity and religion as a whole.
For the record, I too condemned the priests convicted of molestation. I support very harsh punishments for child molesters, no matter what their profession. The difference is that I apply my scruples and morals to everyone, and you zealous apologizers of Michael Jackson are damnable hypocrites. If a priest had a home with carnival rides, petting zoos, and other attractions clearly intended to entertain children, would you let your child serve as an altar boy for that priest? No, you say? Why not? For that matter, would you let your kid or grandchild go to Neverland Ranch to sleep over, even if you excuse Jacko’s behavior? Would you vote for a politician with all those playthings and toys at his house, a politician who also let kids sleep over his house, even in his bed? I’d bet dollars to donuts to diamond-encrusted white gloves that you sure as hell would not.
At MJ’s memorial service, Reverend Al Sharpton told Jackson’s kids that “there was nothing strange about [their] daddy”. I want to know exactly which distant planet this man lives on. Michael Jackson embodied the term “strange”, no matter what “strange” things he went through. I can name a lot of people who went through worse things than Jacko did, and yet exhibited none of the questionable behaviors as MJ did.
Michael Jackson lived both an exciting and a sad life that seemed to come to a short end. His musical accomplishments should be remembered; his humanitarian efforts should be commended. But the man was not a deity, nor a hero, no matter what his fans say. He was the King of Pop, and that is all. But the ridiculous reaction of so many people and the major media shows how threadbare and superficial our society is becoming. Robert McNamara passed away the other day, too; he was the Secretary of Defense during much of the Vietnam War, and affected many people’s lives much more than Jackson ever did, but how much did you hear about that in the news? Agree with McNamara’s actions or not, he was much more significant in American and world history than an entertainer, and yet his passing was completely overshadowed by the ongoing Michael-Jackson-fest. How did this happen?
It happened because people in the media decide what’s important for Americans to know and what is not; it happened because many Americans couldn’t tell you who Robert McNamara was, or what he did, but ALL of those people could tell you who Michael Jackson was, name their five favorite MJ songs, sing them word-for-word, and could even dance a passable moonwalk.
And people wonder why the United States has been on the decline in the past half century; people wonder why that decline has accelerated to a full-speed collapse under George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama. Maybe we need to start teaching our most honest politicians to breakdance and write hit songs to institute real, positive change in our country.
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