MJ ...Human Like Me?

Anyone who grew up with me knows that I am not someone who follows trends or fads. When something is popular to do or talk about I generally do not "jump on the bandwagon". For me to write this blog means that I did a little thinking about the man that people came out to say farewell to.

Let's put things into context for you. I was born in 1979, named after the legendary actor John Wayne, who died 4 months before I was born. Thriller came out in 1982. Which means by the time I had ever noticed the songs, the hype had died down. In many ways I missed out on what was the height of his career which would be the 70's-80's.

I'm one of those people who always wants to know the questions to "why" and "how". How did this boy of obscurity end up gaining the attention of respect of millions around the world? And how did he fall from that position of respect, then after his death would gain more attention and respect than ever before?

The one main fact that stood out was that at a young age his talent was put to use which put him in the spot light as the industry was changing which help to give him attention. He blended both music and dance with the dramatics to give a performance that many loved to see over and overg again. Many can sing, many can dance. But for someone to do both and to mix in a sense of stage presence and acting that gave it a full experience is hard to do.

What I found to be the most interesting part of his story was not his talent or personal life, but how the public viewed him. What I saw wasn't something unique to him but something that was the way we treat all celebrities, politicians and other public figures. We praise them for their great work but then almost demonize them for their flaws. People would comment that some of the things he did in his personal life made him "strange". Looking back some of his costumes today would have been seen as "weird" but in that time period could have been see simply as art. When his physical appearance changed people didn't just go "whatever" and move on with life. Instead people speculated. Rumors spread that he bought the bones of the Elephant Man and a machine to keep him young.

Then there were many other things that drew the public attention like the two divorces and the accusations that lead him to court. But then I started thinking to myself, "why do the divorces gain any attention at all?" It's not like he's the only one who has ever been divorced.

I could go on a rant on the accusations that brought him to court, but I'm not going to except to point out an interesting statement that a psychatrist made when evaluating him. http://bit.ly/n5PTu "Katz (psychatrist) said Jackson was a regressed 10-year-old, and did not fit the profile of a pedophile". What stood out to me was the comment about "regressed 10-year-old". Which made me want to watch a few of his music videos the other night. When I looked at the topics of most of his music videos, the uncomforability that girls had said that he showed around kissing, and other things gave me the impression that in fact he may have kept the mentality of a child with him throughout his life.

I looked at his emphasis on children, Neverland Ranch, and tunes like "We Are the Children" and I noticed that he may have kept the child-like mentality about him through his entire life. The sad fact is that with situations with recording companies like Sony it may have worked against him if he kept the child-like mindset. Children usualy have an idealism to them that the people are naturally good and want to do what is right. People in this world can actually do some very dispicable things in the name of selfishness....

But this is all speculation into someone who is not here any longer... my main point is how we view public figures...

It seems that we want them to always do a "song and dance" and not to also be human. People have layers... depth. There's more to a human than what we see on stage. We seem to take a public figures' talent and blow it up to be larger than life. We take their flaws and do the same. Like putting a giant microscope over their lives we make everything they do huge and over-exagerated... and this makes their lives hard to live.

Remember Mel Gibson who makes "The Passion of the Christ", which gained critical acclaim and a nomination for awards, then gets drunk and is caught making racial remarks about Jews. I'm not condoning his behavior... but how many other people out there in the world say stupid things when intoxicated?... Then he ends up with a divorce... and that becomes larger than life again.

It seems with our public figures we take any sort of rumor and assume to be true. The rumors spread like a wild fire and whether or not they are true we have already decided their fate. Instead of taking the position of "innocent until proven guilty" we take the impulsive atitude that people during the Salem witch trials did. Someone yells out, "witch" (or fill in blank whatever you accuse someone of) and we just assume to be right because they are a public figure...

My conclussion at the end when I saw bits and pieces of the memorial for MJ was that at the end of the day it's that he was a... "human like me". There are too many layers, to many motivations, too much that went on in his life for me to be able to understand who he really was or anything else. But isn't that what humans are?... Complex.