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Death, The Career Saver
Came across this hilarious (and pithy) graphic at the GraphJam site today:
It pretty neatly sums up how Jacko could go in one day from being the object of ridicule and scorn, if not outright disgust, into a shining saint through the simple act of dropping dead. Two weeks ago, record stores couldn’t give his records away and now they can’t keep them on the shelves.
There’s a real feeling of deja vu here as we see the media and Joe Schmoe alike go from passing along juicy gossip on the train wreck that was this guy’s life, to suddenly lifting him up as some kind of earthbound angel too perfect to linger among the likes of us. It’s the same ritual we went through with Princess Diana, who if she’d gotten out of that car alive would still be — as she was then — fodder for tabloids and their rabid readers eager to see who she’s sleeping with this week, but by dying has joined the “taken too soon” pantheon alongside James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and JFK.
I’m also old enough to remember the summer Elvis died. It was a major media event, even with only three networks and no internet to keep the self-feeding news cycle alive. A week before he fell off his toilet, the guy was on the cover of every tabloid in the supermarket, looking upwards of 300 pounds and sweating buckets in his Captain Marvel, Jr spandex with reporters tut-tutting how low the king had fallen and wondering openly how much longer he could possibly cling to life. Then when he died it was shock and disbelief all around, and within a couple years all evidence of Fat Elvis was airbrushed from history like a lapsed Communist from Joe Stalin’s photo album.
So it will be with Jackson, and it’s already begun. In America we make our own heroes, then we tear them down, but when they die before we’re through with them, we make them into saints, perhaps to ease our own guilt. So what’s the take-away message? How do we make sense of all this and move on? By remembering the words of a very wise man who said, and I quote:
Mama-se, mama-sa, ma-ma-coo-sa.
Indeed.
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On a related note, am I the only one that found James Brown’s death oddly anticlimactic? I figured he’d die in a spectacular skydiving accident, or he’d be carried into heaven bodily on a chariot of flame.
It’s extremely astute that you’d compare Jackson to Elvis. There’s a category of celebrity that so colossal they pass the boundaries of ordinary celebrity into a kind of global supercelebrity. Elvis was one, and Michael Jackson is another.
As for Jackson being demonized…sure the guy was tabloid fodder, and “History” was nowhere near as good as “Bad,” but I’d far from say Jackson was universally disliked. When I went through my phase where I was into heavy metal, even my friends that liked metal and punk rock had a copy of Thriller. That, my friend, is what superstardom looks like.
Though I understand what you’re talking about. The worst part of all is when unfunny comedians die and you’re bombarded by media outlets that do nothing but bombard us about how “he is the man that taught us how to laugh.”
For instance, when Johnny Carson died, the deification of that unfunny zombie began at once. Not to mention the death of Bob Hope, despite the fact his routines were as molded, dessicated and ghoulish as he was, the kind of comedy suited to terrifying infants. That undead revenant must have reminded soldiers of the greatest horrors and miseries that modern warfare has to offer in one person, in one show.
The idea Bob Hope made anyone laugh is unbelievable. I’ve never heard him say anything funny, ever.
Well “dislike” may be the wrong word, let alone “hate,” but it’s a borrowed graphic. I’d argue that if you add in “indifferent” the numbers are more accurate. The whole reason Jackson’s “comeback” concert series was planned for the UK was because his promoters couldn’t drum up any interest from American audiences. The long term plan was to follow up the 50 UK dates with an extended tour of Europe and maybe, maybe schedule a tour for the US after a rehabilitation of his image. Their estimate was it would take 3 years.
And yet, as soon as he dies the same people who wouldn’t pay to see him in concert are fighting each other to see his casket in the Staples Center.
And yes, the hyperbole is ridiculous. I was gobsmacked to hear Barry Gordy say, “He was the greatest entertainer who ever lived.” Really? Better than Charlie Chaplin? Fred Astaire? Billie Holliday? Heck, even Groucho Marx or Houdini? Frankly I don’t even think he was the greatest entertainer who worked for Barry Gordy. Plus I’ve heard tons of commentators saying, “his music and its influence will be with us forever,” and only one (on NPR) honest enough to say, “Sorry, I don’t even hear it today.” And he’s right; Jackson may have been the “King of Pop” (a title it should be remembered he gave *himself*), but pop by nature is ephemeral and fleeting. By the end of the 80s, hip-hop had already replaced his sound. As a certifiable codger, I listen to lots of 70s and 80s “oldies” stations and I don’t even hear his stuff there (except for the week of his death, and now it’s gone again).
As for Carson and Hope, my own theory is that the more footage the networks have in their files, the more “important” your death. I can just imagine the chaos behind the scenes as all those clip-filled “tributes” to Farrah Fawcett, whose end was anticipated, had to be shelved in the mad dash to assemble the Jacko tributes.