The Private Life of Fame

The storm of media attention surrounding the same-day deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett has probably already hit saturation point. Some will read more than coincidence into this, others will conclude that it was another spectacular publicity stunt by Michael Jackson to go out in style with the former vixen queen of the 70’s. Whatever the case, the inundation of media gossip and tabloid-style overkill has already started raging forth and one can only duck to avoid the sheer breadth and speed of the coverage. Death’s ever-present shadow poses a merciful boon to ratings in the dumbed-down, hyped-up pop-culture “Neverland" we are living in. A place where we can find permission in Michael Jackson's Peter Pan syndrome, to linger in our own juvenile fantasies. Yet "Death" still comes knocking at the gilded gates of stars' estates and pushes through the undigestible clutter of mass media with its bleak finality.
Michael Jackson was arguably a “captive persona” of stardom. A product of this continuous production line of celebrity idols yet never able to fade away quite as forgettably as most and determined to let his freakish persona rival and then eclipse his talent as an entertainer. Is it possible Michael Jackson was a casualty of his own forever-morphing and cartoonish image? He was undivisible from his own celebrity, and in a sad sense, it was all he had, and it devoured him. In these waning moments of the Hollywood-American empire the obsessive effort to mass-merchandise youth and beauty has doubled in recent years - as if to show to the world that America is still the young land of hope, prosperity and remade has-beens. And as the ouverture of the final movement swells in its cacophonous soundbite babble and desperation presses itself up against the glass outside, the grimace of used-up fame and shattered myths are locked up securely in steely celebrity vaults. We are taken by the pitiless storm, the synthetic replaces the organic, and the juvenile and the profane are held onto as safe illusions masking a vitiated and self-indulgent culture in rapid decline. There is a compelling resonance here between the stretched-over grin of greedy success and Michael Jackson’s disappearing nose. A scalpel wielded by a quack plastic surgeon is no different than a pen wielded by a fraudulent real estate broker. It’s the illusion that sells.

All of this dead celebrity spectacle of course is compelling because it tugs at our elbow and catches the corner of our eye with a stark sense of unease. It serves as a wider ontological frame of reference for our own fleeting time. These public display of mass mourning for dead celebrities are completely mired in some atavistic need to congregate and observe ritual. Indeed, occasions like this that are inflated to such magnitude (Princess Di’s death is a fitting example,) approximates the ersatz sacred or ceremonial in a cultural landscape of pre-fab subdivisions and Twitter. It is a phenomenon that can’t be easily dismissed or avoided for that matter. This type of public hysteria and outpouring of grief over the deaths of strangers save for their pop-icon status, reveals a confused and childlike public craving for Godhead wherever it can be found. More importantly, there is a proprietary aspect to all of this. Michael Jackson, Princess Di, Elvis, Marilyn were not merely symbols -- they were trademarks – the property of millions and destroyed by the pressure of the spotlight. Could it not be argued that the adoring public holding these mass "orgies" of grief, are registering their sense of betrayal? Of having their beloved icon torn from their grip only to reaffirm the shocking truth that mortality is the great equalizer? More on this in the next blog.