Knowing how I have a penchant for setting the cable box’s DVR to time-shift selected programs – concerts, PBS documentaries, awards shows, Tiger on a red-shirt Sunday – my wife Elyse asked me a question of earth-shattering significance last Tuesday afternoon as we caught up with each other during the workday: In a hushed tone of reverence that resonated with raw emotion, she wanted to know if I had recorded the Michael Jackson Marathon – I mean Memorial. My reply was supremely solemn: “What, are you kidding?! Enough already. I could care less.”
Okay, so I made up the dramatic part about how Elyse posed the question, which she did in fact ask, only very matter-of-factly. (My family knows better than to upstage me as soap opera diva-in-chief.)
I enjoy Michael Jackson’s music as much as anyone. I just never realized that his cosmic halo was more blinding than Ghandi, Churchill, King, Kennedy, Ali and Rod Blagojevich combined. That is some heady company to be in, let alone to transcend. But, let’s face it, and reface it, MJ deserves all the accolades that The Today Show showers on him every minute of every day.
Now I’m home after a long day and tell Elyse I’m writing this, and that I trash the Today show, which she likes to watch each morning before switching channels to MSNBC before she leaves so I can watch Morning Joe (Scarborough). On such thoughtful if small gestures do marriages turn golden.
I ask my much better half, “What day did Michael Jackson die?” As a loyal Today Show viewer, she of course has this vital statistic burned into her braincells as indelibly as the NBC logo on screen, and instantly replies, “June 25.” There I go again: “Geez, Louise … I mean Elyse, geez, they’ve been doing this now for almost two weeks? It’s insane!”
Louise … I mean Elyse tranquilizes the maniac screaming at her by contending that the Today Show is only giving viewers what they want. I come right back with a sharp left jab: “Do you think that nobody would watch the Today Show if they didn’t have this wall-to-wall off-the-wall coverage of Michael Jackson?”
I then proceed to score crucial late-round points with the bedside judges when Elyse backpedals courtesy of fancy footwork to empathize with those poor megastars who must go through life fending off ga-ga fans everywhere they go. I don’t buy the rope-a-dope feint, and remind Elyse of her disdain for the celebrity-culture social media that impels people – like, say, her very social husband – to go on Facebook and Twitter and incessantly broadcast to the world “it’s all about me” every chance they get. (You mean it isn’t all about me? Wait a sec. I better go tweet that to everyone right now then.)
The bad news about the media meltdown over Michael Jackson’s predictably premature demise is the merciless reflection of our shallow culture that has stared us in the face since June 25. There’s a gaping chasm between appreciating a musical talent of seismic magnitude and elevating that mortal icon to an immortal deity. We lower ourselves by letting others rise beyond reason.
The good news? Maybe this overdose of undeserved deification will convince more people to watch less TV, especially those parts of TV that can’t be trusted to treat their viewers with even a modicum of respect because their lazy and loud and clear message is, “This is the only person in the world who matters right now, and the next day, and the day after that, and … .”
Those who think of Michael Jackson as a con artist miss the point if they think he conned anybody more than he conned himself. He was not only a show business great. He was the world’s greatest self-identity thief who never was comfortable looking at the man in the mirror. As a performer, he was the ultimate thriller, but if depression was his demon, he found the ultimate way to beat it.
