reflections

The death of Michael Jackson is something that can be learnt from. I know that we have all possibly felt one of three emotions, disbelief, dismay and awareness of the scope of the man's work and reach. For some it may all seem like much to do about nothing. He was not on the charts in the way that he was in the 70's, 80's and 90's. But for most of us in the world, he represented a standard of perfection, that sometimes could not be looked at. I know for me, that his physical transformation bothered the hell out of me. I wondered how much further could he go, and whether he could reverse all of it after a time?
The child molestation cases did not help his image either, and I fought hard to understand whether he was guilty or innocent of those charges. Yet, amidst all of the ambiguity, his talent was unparallelled.
Michael Jackson impacted my life in an unexpected way, as impacts usually do. When his album Thriller came out, I remember being blown away by it. Like everyone else in the world. But what he did for me, was that he made me sit bolt upright and look at the media machine critically for the first time. He made me question the validity of art and he made me question the power of the god image.
It may be hard for some people to grasp the power and extent of this one album. I had never seen anything like it in my life. He had impacted the entire world. Little children and old people knew who he was. People have to understand that this was phenomenal! Then to top it all, he had this dancing style that just cemented the voice.
He had to be stopped.
He had to come down from that euphoria, that pulpit of ultimate power.
Familiar theme here, isn’t it?
It was almost obscene that one person could make such a gigantic impression on the entire planet. People talked about him in superlatives. I know that we see many singers and famous people today who we can say are great, and there is mania for them. But Michael Jackson was the first, the ultimate master of the media.
He did a music video and people raced home to set their VCR's. They sat around the television with their families and were spellbound by him. This was everybody in the family. Mom, Dad, grandma, grandpa and kids all screaming in the same excited way for one black man doing the moonwalk in celluloid.
I keep thinking that discussing him, listening for his music, checking out his dancing on U-tube, reading more and more, is just not healthy. The man is gone. He's out of our lives.
But then I think that someone so colossal, must be mourned. We cannot help but feel what we feel. Michael Jackson changed the world.
He changed the way we see ourselves. He showed us what is possible, so yes, he was god-like in that respect.
The awkwardness of this certainty comes about because it is rare. It is shocking to see that he was mortal. It is upsetting that we can no longer touch him and be moved by something new that he would do.
The mania is real, and we are all complicit in it, and again, he makes me look at the media machine, but this time, what he is telling us is, “feed yourself. Be the media machine. I am gone, and you have it in you, if you just move yourself.”
Shamon….