One thing about the death of someone as famous as Michael Jackson (and really, is there anybody MORE famous?) is the collective grief his death brings. You can learn a lot from observing people at a time like this, and one thing I've come to learn is that when someone so closely connected to the psyche of a culture dies, the response is to run towards youth. Let's be honest, as horrified as we are about Michael's death, the fact is that his dying has caused a lot of us to reflect on the decades that have passed since our own childhoods - we all remember the first time we heard Michael sing, the first time we saw him dance. When Buddy Holly was killed, the question was "what did rock n roll miss out on?", ie what would Buddy have come up with next? The day the music died, nobody reflected on the "glory days" of 6 months before; the shit had just happened too quickly. But with Michael, we all now have a chance to check back into when we first met him, and thusly have a return to our youth. I maintain this by noting that if I've seen 15 Michael Jackson YouTube "tributes" on blogs, 10 have been of him from the Jackson 5. What does that tell you? We're horrified for Michael, but we're also horrified for the loss of our youth. Even I, the second I heard he was dead, went to a picture from Thriller. Was MY youth, my first icon. I didn't seek a recent picture, and neither did you.
Another unique thing about Michael Jackson is the sheer spread of age of his mourners. I mean, there are people who are 70 years old today that are sad; and, likewise, there are ten year olds. AND EVERY SINGLE FUCKING AGE IN BETWEEN. That's a spread of 60 years; I cannot fathom a wider spread. To use the Buddy Holly example again - the ages impacted by that were probably 12-25, if that. Number one it was as a sudden death, plus that generation did not lend itself as easily to young music as we do today. A good case study is my mother - a devoted Elvis fan, she was 20 years old when the Beatles came to America in February 1964. But I never heard her mention them once; in her mind they were "after her time."
It'a astonishing to think that he's dead. It's even more amazing to think of ourselves.
1 comment:
My nephew who is 17, (Downs Syndrome) was HUGE fan and had memorized Michael's dance moves from Thriller. Of course he was saddened about his death, but shocked to the learn that Michael was "once a black man" (strange because I thought he was somewhat black in that video). Anyway, the following night was a dance with this club Dan is in and my sister requested the DJ play Thriller.- Dan cleared the floor.
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