Critic at Large: Is Jackson mania real empathy or maudlin diversion? Sunday, July 19, 2009

Critic at Large: Is Jackson mania real empathy or maudlin diversion?
Sunday, July 19, 2009

Michael Jackson’s death is old news, stale news. Still, people of all ages sob when they hear his voice, swoon when they see clips of his moon dance, devour tabloid accounts of feuding families and dreams demolished.

It is American melodrama at its most intense, a high-pitched, hysterical display of grief, epitomized by the registration of 1.6 million people eager to get one of 17,500 free tickets to Jackson’s memorial service.

The reaction is not unprecedented. When Rudolph Valentino died in 1926, mourners flocked to his funeral and later to his gravesite. Then, there’s Elvis. The beat goes on, and it seems that the passionate adulation for a pop idol is directly proportionate to the pleasure he gave us in our youth.

In a way, the reaction to Jackson’s death (Elvis’ too) is part of a complex grieving process; we are crying not only for the victim but for ourselves. Jackson’s death is a reminder that our youth is gone.

Yet, there is more to this. Something disheartening and even vulgar. I agree with those who view the maniacal press coverage as obscene. Twenty-five minutes of a half-hour newscast devoted to a fallen pop hero? That’s NBC.

And it went on and on, day after day. And if I may add my two cents, Jackson may have been the most electrifying performer of our time, but that does not mean he was a great artist in the class of a Frank Sinatra or Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington.
Reaction out of whack

I confess. I was as nosy as many of you to get details. But considering its value in relation to other newsworthy events, the Jackson coverage turned into a virtual carnival of woes — excessive and insensitive when placed in context of happenings in the world around us.

Is excessive media attention surrounding Jackson’s death more newsworthy than coverage of errant American bombs obliterating at least five wedding parties in Afghanistan?

That’s only a fraction of deadly damage sure to alienate natives and create fertile ground for terrorists.

With this consequence in mind, are these deaths less significant than the demise of a pop idol?

We are citizens of the world, and it seems to me that the insane media coverage of a pop hero’s demise reflects, at least in part, our callous indifference to the pain suffered by so-called foreigners. But really, who cares? Citizens in Iraq and Afghanistan don’t bleed like us Americans.

When I interviewed Jerry Falwell in 1980, he said that considering our riches, “God loves America more than he loves Mexico.”

Reflecting on the war in Vietnam, Gen. William Westmoreland said: “The Oriental doesn’t put the same high price on life as does a Westerner. Life is plentiful. Life is cheap in the Orient.”
Relief from reality

Things are not going that well in our country. It would be nice to have a relief. Two weeks of weeping and wailing over the death of a fallen idol supplied that relief, quenched our thirst for melodrama, as we ponder burning questions like who gets custody of Michael’s kids or who supplied him with drugs.

The more we are pummeled with Jackson mania, the more reason to suspect that the outpouring of grief is less a sign of genuine empathy than it is a maudlin diversion.



SOURCE: http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2009/jul/19/0719_criticatlarge/