Jun 26 2009
More Tactful Than I
Kate says it all about Michael Jackson.
A “tragic childhood” is a 4 year old in Bangladesh with retinoblastoma. A “tragic life” is a Russian teenager sold into the sex trade.
Michael Jackson did not have a tragic childhood, nor did he have a tragic life.
He had the life he chose.
To excuse his behavior as though it was simply a pre-programmed result of his years as a child performer is not just intellectually lazy, it’s an insult to every individual who has overcome true childhood hardship, deprivation and/or abuse to emerge as a functioning member of society.
Michael Jackson was no bobbing cork on the sea of circumstance - he was a multi-millionaire with the means to choose any lifestyle he wanted. “Functional adult” was one of the options. He chose otherwise.
Celebrate the music if you like, but for decency’s sake, don’t celebrate the man.
No tears or sadness here at all. My only question, really, is whether he died wearing his burka.
3 responses so far
And, given that…where is he today? And what’s the temperature there?
I’ll bet Mark Sanford is a happy man.
Eh, I hold no brief for him, but it’s a bit much to say that he chose his life. He became a pop star when he was what, eleven? That was chosen for him. Everything else tended to follow from that.
Eh, he was either a victim of great calumnies, or a repulsive failure of a human being. Either way he was a monster - a moral lesson made flesh, showing how great fame warps what it does not destroy.
Interesting to read what Lisa Marie Presley had to say about him: he actually talked in a normal voice, cursed, etc. The boy-child persona was a fake- but we knew that, didn’t we?