Rethinking Michael

Yesterday’s memorial service for Michael Jackson at the Staples Center in LA, most of which I’ve seen by now, took me by surprise – in what it said, literally and symbolically, and how it made me feel – emotionally, spiritually and politically.

Ever since Jackson’s death on June 25th at the age of 50 (apparently from cardiac arrest with some still-foggy details about drugs and negligence yet to be clarified), the mainstream media have been having a blood feast, with All-Michael-All-the-Time coverage that has been alternately honoring, exploiting, condemning and celebrating this genuinely unique entertainer and human being.

As the weeks passed and the constant Jackson coverage began to divide into two distinct categories – celebrity worship and celebrity trash – I started to get pissed off. Health care was on the Congressional table, the President went to Russia, the election in Iran turned into Tiananmen Square, Sarah Palin went underground, Al Franken finally won the title, unemployment rose to near-Depression levels, a few other significant people died, and a dozen other vital issues were on the line, including increased carnage in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet with only brief interruptions, Michael Jackson’s death was still the Top Story. It all began to feel more outrageous than usual, because we’re living in Post Economic Collapse America and we don’t have the time or the luxury to engage in this kind of tear-jerker tabloid media when real crisis, tragedy, and social/political phenomena are all around us.

But now I'm wondering if, crappy media notwithstanding, we needed this Princess Diana-style catharsis to re-awaken our sense of what's really important, particularly in this period of great social re-evaluation of our core values. And watching the memorial, I found myself (a) periodically bursting into tears and (b) having a series of epiphanies about social activism, race, and gender issues.

For starters, the always-controversial but increasingly salient Rev. Al Sharpton spoke powerfully and at length, and made important points I hadn’t really thought of before about the way Michael Jackson’s popularity and achievement significantly paved the way to success for many other black people in all spheres of endeavor, public and private. I had never thought of Jackson as a social/racial trailblazer, but he was.

Then at one point, Sharpton addressed Jackson’s children directly and said “There was nothing strange about your Daddy; what was strange was the way he was treated.” I balked at that at first, thinking, why can’t we honor him and still acknowledge that he was indeed an odd duck? But as the tribute continued and numerous photos/videos of Jackson illustrated the program, I began to think about his physical appearance in a new way.

According to which rumor mill you listen to, Michael was gay; no, he really was straight; no, he actually was a pervert who got off on kids; no, he was truly a case of arrested sexual development and more asexual than anything else. The make-up, the plastic surgery, the skin-lightening, the crotch-grabbing as an integral part of his dance style, the weird outfits, the glove, the masks: what did it amount to, what did it mean?

I don’t know, and I don’t know if the public at large will ever know. But I do know that it bears noting that it’s only in relatively recent years that the LGB community has acknowledged, accepted and championed the “T” population in their ranks, the transsexuals. I’m not saying Michael Jackson was a transsexual or even a transvestite (although, as Jerry Seinfeld would say, “not that there’s anything wrong with that…”). But I do think that one might consider that he was a “trans-gender” person in a literal sense, that he sought, creatively and perhaps personally, to literally transcend gender, to be neither and both in an effort, maybe conscious, maybe not, to be a person with no particular (or particularly clear) sexual identity in order to embody/personify humanity as a whole. Was he really that “deep”? Who knows? But now, in supposedly more-enlightened, educated, and broadminded 2009, might it not be time to re-examine his persona/appearance and consider him as original, ahead of his time, legitimate on his own terms, and purposeful?

Purposeful to what end? To spread a message of universal love and an acceptance/celebration of our one-ness. I should explain at this point that I was working full-time in entertainment p.r. when We Are the World was created and released – and as such I was cynical and dismissive of it as both a musical and social/political endeavor. I thought it was musically banal and I knew more than I needed to about why some celebrities were, and others were not, invited to “leave their egos at the door” for that mass super-star recording. Now, I think it’s entirely possible that Jackson was the only one who even tried to genuinely make his own fame secondary to a message he truly believed in. But at the time, who knew?

People in New York have been leaving floral tributes to Jackson on the John Lennon “Imagine” mandala in Central Park. Lennon’s song Imagine defined the credo of a generation and stands as an eternal anthem for the unity of humankind in every way, shape and form. Especially now, as a part of his legacy, can/will Jackson’s We Are the World and Heal the World, among some of his other songs, have the same power? Indeed, was Michael Jackson unfairly not recognized as the John Lennon of his genre? I loved Lennon and enjoyed much of his music, but Imagine, despite its impact and extant symbolism, ain’t Cole Porter in the category of sophisticated songwriting, it doesn't even have the raw melodic edge and poetry of Bob Dylan. It’s John Lennon at his sweet, hopeful, somewhat-naïve, and really rather "pop" best. So really, what’s the difference, since their message and the level of their celebrity were the same: love is all we need? And if there is no difference, isn’t that culturally and socially important – and heartening?

Which brings us back to race and politics, and leaves us at spirituality. There was a lot of God-talk at yesterday’s memorial, much of it specifically Christian, but with continual, deliberate efforts to be religiously inclusive. Surely this irritated the anti-religionists among us, but it seems Michael Jackson was a deeply and sincerely Christian man, and his belief in the importance of spirituality in any and all of its forms was apparently a central part of his creative message, as well as his personal ideals. To be honest, I hadn’t picked up on that years ago in the midst of all his sequined moon walking, but maybe I just wasn’t paying attention. The very diverse crowd of thousands at the Staples Center yesterday certainly were, and I think that’s a good thing.

So, what I'm thinking now is that between the impact of Michael Jackson’s life, work, philanthropy, gender-defiance and death, along with the impact of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and now his presidency, White America is seeing more black people who are not poor, ignorant, or stereotypically dangerous, than it ever has before. It is also witnessing a blending of races and an aspect of racial transcendence (there’s that “trans” word again) that it either feared or never imagined would come to be - but one way or another, some people are starting to think differently in racially-positive ways.

And the rest of the world – a world of many colors – is watching. A lot of the world is mourning Michael Jackson as much as it is celebrating Barack Obama (who, not incidentally, is now heading for Africa). In some important respects, it’s a whole new ballgame. Which is a good reason to rethink who, what, why and how Michael Jackson was and may continue to be a powerful reinforcement of some very interesting change and understanding, currently in progress.

Touchstones

This was the final week of life for three notable celebrities: Johnny Carson’s eternal sidekick ED McMAHON, Charlie’s Angel FARRAH FAWCETT, and a pop icon who embodied what the word icon really means, MICHAEL JACKSON. They were very different from each other and had distinctly different impacts on the lives of the public. But what they share is that each in his/her own way helped define both the realities and the fantasies of their particular niche in show business, and each of them came to a tragic end in personal darkness after years in the stinging light of fame.

For Baby Boomers, our parents, and some folks younger than we, Ed McMahon was our bedtime TV teddy bear, the easy-going and importantly innocuous human wallpaper on Johnny Carson’s desktop of celebrity. He was a sort of maître d’, straightman, fall-guy and mirror for Carson, who, his predecessors notwithstanding, truly defined the tone and format of late night television.

Before Leno and Letterman downsized sidekick duties, dividing them between their band leaders and announcers, there was Ed, the “second banana,” the constant on the far end of the couch who laughed loudest, but quietly made each guest still feel special as they shifted downward to make room for the next star in the hot seat next to Johnny. Yes, Ed did commercials live with dogs who upstaged or shamed him; yes, he went on to hawk that silly Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes that gave brief, cheap, hope to millions of everybodies who dreamed of problem-solving fortunes; and finally, he became an elderly, almost-forgotten, but nonetheless cautionary tale about the consequences of squandered wealth. He died broke and shriveled, and it was a sad moment for those of us who remembered the comfort of his hearty laugh and perpetual presence, even on Johnny’s nights off.

Farrah Fawcett became famous for the oft-imitated backward flip of her starlet mane, her broad expanse of teeth that were whiter than anything that really exists in nature, and the curse of being a beautiful, curvaceous blonde. Naturally, what she really wanted was to be taken seriously as an actress. She was the Betty Grable Pin-Up Girl of her time, a role she accepted but never relished. She was also famous for her relationships, first her marriage to the now-hardly-remembered Lee Majors (aka The Six Million Dollar Man), which made her Farrah Fawcett-Majors for a while, then her decades-long relationship with Ryan O’Neal, who was with her when she died and had announced just days before that they would marry as soon as she was better.

Fawcett, the Bombshell of the 70s, was the antithesis of everything the women’s movement of that era stood for, and the epitome of everything that little girls who still played with Barbie dolls wanted to be when they grew up. She finally got to show her true stuff in the 1983 Off-Broadway play Extremities, about a fighting-mad rape victim who gives her attacker as bad as she got, and won a Best Actress Golden Globe for the 1986 film version. And she struck a powerful blow on behalf of battered women (and won an Emmy) for her performance in the 1984 TV movie The Burning Bed. But she died too sick and too soon to create the seriously-regarded career she longed for.

And Michael Jackson – poor abused, confused, brilliant, sweet, demented, super-superstar Michael Jackson. When I think of the 1980s, the first images that come to mind are Michael Jackson and shoulder pads; they both defined the decade. I always liked his music, although I was never a wild fan. But I enjoyed him, I appreciated his energy and distinctiveness, and I liked that for black people especially, he was a true icon who transcended race and crossed over with more clout than Harry Belafonte, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., Jimi Hendrix, Ray Charles, and Lionel Richie combined: their own true Elvis, the King of Pop. To anyone who loves rock`n’roll, he created a sound and style both powerful and unique.

He was equally famous as a generous, discreet humanitarian and, unfortunately, equally infamous as a childlike child predator – charges never proven, but which colored his reputation as darkly as he himself tried to lighten his skin through countless plastic surgeries and chemical treatments. I was pleased to see in a recent photo with announcement of his imminent comeback, that he was looking pretty good – in his own peculiar way (love him or not, there's no denying the eccentricities of his appearance). I'm sorry that we're not going to get to see and hear what Michael Jackson, older, long in exile with time to have revived and reinvented himself, would have presented to us. It's a double loss.

Like many a genius – and I think he deserves to be called one – his demons became stronger than his talents. From hereon in, when I think of Michael Jackson, I’ll be reminded of Judy Garland: both of them exploited child stars who were rendered unable to cope with adulthood, stardom, real life, or themselves; both loved by millions and who yet [apparently] felt supremely unloved and, ironically, unlovable; both dead way before their time.

Celebrities – by which I mean show biz folk, not writers or scientists or politicians or even the renowned leaders of major social movements – become the touchstones of our lives, whether we realize it or not. It isn’t that we all adore them, but like it or not, we tell social time by their existence – and when they go, time stands still for a moment, leaving us disoriented and displaced. And when time moves on again, it’s not the same, something is off kilter in the ticking away of seconds, and we ourselves not only grow older but grow differently (see Dividing Lines).

Thank you, Ed, Farrah, and most especially Michael. You wanted to touch people’s lives. You came to matter in our hearts.