Bummer day. B-U-M-M-E-R.Today two huge icons from my childhood took off into the great beyond. Yeah, people die every day...people who very likely did more good in the world than these two combined. But still...no one (and I mean NO ONE) made music like Michael Jackson. And even though I was only five years old in 1976 when Farah Fawcett hit the small screen (and the walls of millions of adolescent boys), her feathered hair and toothy smile will always--like disco, roller skates, and frosted blue eye shadow--be an integral part of my memories of the 70s.
Seems to me, the death of a celebrity isn't just about the loss of a person. I mean, we don't know these people from a hole in the wall. We're sad they've died and sad about how they died. But when we mourn the loss of someone famous, I think there's a bit more going on:1) We're reminded quite suddenly of our own mortality ("If this famous, larger-than-life superstar can simply drop dead, I can too")
2) We're revisiting the memories connected to that person's music, films, etc. and mourning our irretrievable pasts
I was on the cusp of adolescence when Thriller debuted on MTV. I watched it over, and over, and over. I memorized the moves, the lyrics. That video and song are permanently linked with the year we left Georgia and moved back to California. That was a tough year. But Thriller kept it real.
So long to poor, confused Michael Jackson and the lovely and perpetually underrated Miss Fawcett.
I'm surprised at how upset I am about Michael Jackson's death. Definitely for the reasons you suggest as well as the tragic nature of his life.
ReplyDeleteThriller came out when I was a sophomore in HS. Every cheerleading squad had a pompom routine to at least one of the hit songs. By my senior year, our marching band won the State and several regional drum corps competitions largely due to our rockin moves to and musical rendition of a Thriller medley (yes, they had it on sheet music by 85).
ReplyDeleteAnd as for Farrah…well, at the time I wanted that feathered hair as much as the next pre-teen but I was cursed with a mother who refused to let us bow to hairstyle fads. It was probably for the best given the reality of my stick straight hair. It really wouldn’t have worked.
Thriller was the last time MJ even appeared to be normal. The great curse of celebrity is not a loss of privacy, but a loss of any kind of a reality barometer. They love me, I am great, I am a god, I will live forever, is not nearly as damaging as a change in the personal pronoun, when the inevitable posse kicks in: they love you, you are great, you are a god, you will live forever. The isolation of adulation always leads to the tragedy of fat Elvis, the high flying Joplin, and now the bleached Michael Jackson.
ReplyDeleteWIth all that money and fame, the one thing these tragic figures have in common is the conspicuous absence of one real friend. You know that one most important person who is always there to tell us we are full of shit!
ps
If there ever was a year that you were owed better, it was that year!