The world hardly needs another Michael Jackson tribute. There’s probably billions online in every language in existence. But let’s get it out of the way: yes, he wrote some fantastic songs, the best being Billie Jean. Yes, his dancing was poetry in motion. Nuff said.
But looking at the scores of tributes in the media, you would have thought Michael Jackson died 16 years ago, like his life from summer 1993 onward never happened. Like he dropped dead shortly after setting ratings records in America with his Super Bowl Half Time performance, which nearly 100 million American televisions displayed.
It’s like Michael Jackson never was reviled for over 15 years as a pedophile. It’s like Michael Jackson’s media coverage wasn’t limited to bad Jay Leno jokes and people debating if his face could handle one more plastic surgery on Entertainment Tonight. It’s like Michael Jackson didn’t release two epic flops for the ages, 1995’s HIStory and 2001’s Invincible that cost Sony Music an assload of money they never recouped. It’s like critics never gave him mediocre-to-terrible reviews on Bad onwards. It’s like people weren’t only interested in his Madison Square Garden masturbatory self-celebration in 2001 just because it was so freaky and the tip of his nose possibly fell off while performing. It’s like the public opinion wasn’t that only absolute mentally ill freaks of society came out to the court he was at to support him during his 2004 child molestation trial. It’s like the public opinion after Living With Michael Jackson aired was always “Martin Bashir is evil!” and not “Wow, Michael Jackson’s mental state is so far gone he honestly doesn’t realize what he’s doing.”
All of those were totally opposite opinions on June 25th, 2009 before the announcement of Jackson’s passing was made.
When someone dies, especially a celebrity we didn’t have to deal with in our lives on a day to day basis, all of their wrongs are instantly erased. So here are some cold, hard truths. Marlon Brando was a morbidly obese megalomaniac who let his erratic behavior overshadow his film career. Tupac Shakur was not viewed as anything but a run-of-the-mill gangsta rapper in his lifetime. Brandon Lee was a B-movie actor who was always going to be a B-movie actor. Selena’s posthumous English album was far too generic to have made her “the new Madonna”. Marilyn Monroe was never going to get close to winning an Oscar. And coming out as a Michael Jackson fan prior to his death got close to the same reaction coming out as homosexual to a bunch of bigots would get you.
Real Michael Jackson fans were a loud and proud tiny subculture during his 1993-2009 era as entertainment media’s most beloved freak of nature. They, along with their idol, endured persecution and mockery by the rest of the world that gave them almost proud martyr-complexes not unlike Jackson’s. They all honestly believed the constant accusations that Jackson was a pedophile were a media conspiracy character assassination because the white media couldn’t stomach seeing a successful African American richer than they were, more famous than they were, holding the ultimate white-boy high water mark creation of the Lennon/McCartney catalog in his possession. They were the same type of people who will fiercely debate you about the government’s knowledge of UFOs landing in the United States, even though you never consented to said debate. Trust me, if any of you recent MJ converts attend any public service memorials around the country, you will be going out of your way to avoid being in the presence of real Michael Jackson true believers.
Michael Jackson spent half of his life as a beloved entertainer and the other half as a despised sideshow. He lived a very sad life. He was forced into the public eye before he was old enough to understand what they meant, and therefore never had a clear grasp on reality. Sometimes he looked like he loved being in the middle of the spectacle that even going out to the store to buy a carton of eggs would bring him. Other times he’d release a single called “Leave Me Alone” and decry the tabloid obsession that reduced his life to staying in a bizarre fantasy amusement park nearly 24/7. But it was common knowledge his people would plant outlandish stories to the tabloids to keep his name in the press, which Jackson would always deny. When other celebrities have pulled the “PAY ATTENTION TO ME......OMG HOW DARE YOU KEEP PUTTING ME IN TABLOIDS!” doublespeak, they’re instantly shutdown as frauds. Jackson got away with it for years. Because he was the first true new era tabloid icon. Sure, his good friend Elizabeth Taylor had gotten similar treatment before he was old enough to sing “ABC”, but I doubt anyone will ever be such a permanent fixture in tabloids as Jackson was. And unlike most celebrities, his tabloid coverage increased as his stardom faded. His last burst of National Enquirer headlines revolved around the belief that he was dying from Emphysema in late 2008, which his people denied. If Jackson got even a tiny royalty on tabloid coverage, not only would his financial problems never have occurred, but he’d be giving Bill Gates and Warren Buffet a run for their money on the Fortune 500 list.
So now they’ve got one last chance to wring every drop of sideshow ratings/sales boom out of him as the run-up to his memorial services and debate on how he actually died continues. You just know every tabloid outlet is looking for a way to bribe some hospital worker to swipe some of his autopsy photos for the ultimate selling issue. Because you know those are going to be so disturbing you must gawk. One unconfirmed report out of Australia says under his wig he only had “peach fuzz” for hair, he weighed around 100 pounds, wore a bunch of make-up to cover “13 plastic surgery scars” on his face, and his arms were covered in trackmarks. But until they can get that ultimate exploitation dollar out of Wacko Jacko Inc. and have to face the public scrutiny and lawsuits, they’re doing a 360 and pretending like they actually cared. No, they loved his relationship with his children, they never called for them to be taken away from him. They loved his eccentricities, they never claimed he was mentally ill. They’re devoting the most coverage of any celebrity event in history because they cared about him and want to help his family find the true cause of his untimely death, not because they’re going to get a fortune and a ratings bonanza out of it.
So for the time being, Jackson is getting a state of adoration that’s possibly more than he ever received during the Thriller years. Right now history looks like it is about to re-write him, definitely on Elvis Pressley’s level if not The Beatles as a musical innovator. The truth is Jackson was smart enough to see the MTV revolution coming and jumped on it, making eye catching videos with huge budgets in MTV’s infancy when a simple performance miming piece was good enough for most music videos of the day. And taking Jackson on as MTV’s first “black music” airplay experiment was only an impressive risk taking maneuver to MTV. Jackson was already a superstar the day they decided to play Billie Jean, as Off The Wall was a multi-platinum hit popular with white people as well, and he had been in the public eye for nearly 20 years at that point. He was also arguably the most non-threatening African American male in music history. They had a chance to push Rick James as their first black video star, who was more of a traditional rock star in attitude than Jackson ever was, who made an album equally as good as Thriller. But James was dangerous to lily white people. Rick James didn’t care that you knew he was on drugs, and if you didn’t like it, he’d fuck your girlfriend. Michael Jackson was asexual, polite, probably didn’t even drink a glass of wine until years later. Sure, he was a handsome guy with smooth dance moves that white women had crushes on, but you knew he’d politely turn them down; whereas Rick James would have invited as many of them as he could fit into his suite for a wild coke-orgy and written a awesome song all about it. And there was a ton of great, innovative hip-hop being produced at the time that MTV wouldn’t embrace until years later. Playing that would have been risky. Michael Jackson.....a surefire hit.
But Michael Jackson did one thing not even a terrorist attack, death of a former President, election, Super Bowl, World Cup, celebrity sex tape, or any other world event could do: he shutdown some of the biggest sites on the internet: Wikipedia, Google, YouTube, TMZ, and every blogging and social networking site in existence for upwards of hours. Not to mention put a strain on all the major cellphone carriers as friends called and text messaged friends to discuss the news. His legacy will be written as a man who, for a brief time, united a large chunk of the entire music listening populace together with one album. In death he united a large chunk of the internet surfing populace to see if his demise was true or another internet hoax. And they said the internet peaked with Rickrolling.
In all sincerity, though, I wish the best for his children. And more importantly I hope when they’re old enough they realize what celebrity did to their father and don’t stumble into the same fame pitfalls.
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