I wrote this on facebook just minutes ago:
I have to admit the Michael Jackson I knew before he died was a freak; an eccentric middle age man who was constantly unhappy with how he looked and tried relentlessly to look like a person he wasn't; a re*arded father who dangled his baby son over the balcony. It is only after some (toilet) reading of newspaper review of his life and some youtube search of his old videos that I realise he is a legend (on stage)!
and one of my online friends immediately replied he loved the old Jackson, the one who was his original self and not the man who was troubled and constantly caught the media's eyes for the wrong reason.Celine Dion talked about Michael Jackson on the breaking news right after his death. I thought what she said on how Jackson fell from his stardom was spot on:
"I thought it was so unfortunate, Larry(the news broadcaster), because ... he was under pressure. I think we all live under pressure differently. We live under pressure because we want to give the audience and the fans what they look forward, what they expect. We wanna do a better album, we wanna do a better show. I think Michael Jackson lived under pressure all the time, since he was five years old, wanting to please his family, his fan, and putting the bar so high... that even like, he needed to be surpassing his own belt. And I think it's so unfortunate that the pressure was so tremendous, I am so sure that if you only live under pressure and you don't have something, your family, your husband, your wife, your children, I mean, he probably had so much but he didn't have the balance."
Michael Jackson said he was used to being beaten by his father when he was a young boy on Oprah Winfrey's show. Michael Jackon began his journey to stardom back when he was a five-year-old boy, performing with his brothers. To me, the sentiments he showed when singing those hits were not expected from a pre-puberscent boy. They were not lullabys, not songs like Old Macdonald Had A Farm...the songs were about heartbreaks, about anger, about love. These are undoubtedly emotions of an adult. He had outgrown his age. He was literally....an adult singer notwithstanding his age.
What came after his peak were a series of events which put him under constant criticism from the mainstream media. He seemed unhappy to be a black and changed his physical appearance through plastic surgeries (he looked like crap after that, to me at least), he was accused of paedophilia, and child abuse when he notoriously held his baby son over the balcony etc. Sadly, these are what definine Michael Jackson to me. I see Michael Jackson as a freak, a weirdo, an outdated celebrity, a mentally retarded monster. It is until his death when I read all the news review and listened to his music on youtube that I see the reason behind the huge population of fans of his worldwide - you've got to admit that he is a star, no matter you like him or otherwise.
I strongly believe that his early rise to the limelight is what took his life, not just "life" in the sense of the ability to breathe, but also the normalcy that you and I take for granted all the time. From what I can see from the omnipresent reviews on Michael Jackson's life journey, he was not normal. He didn't have a normal childhood, teenage years, marriage, adult life ... Just like how Celine Dion puts it, he didn't have the BALANCE to everything he had: fame, celebrity status, admiration, expectation from his fan ...
Coincidentally I was having this conversation with a friend on how people have different intelligence level and whether this is 'fair' as intelligent people tend to work less hard and score better academically. Michael Jackson's life story tells me something: God gives all of us different gifts. Some people may have more gifts than the others. However it is up to us to use what we have to sketch our life journey, whether that means an exceptional roller-coaster ride with highs and lows or an ordinary track with simple happiness, or a delicate balance between the two extreme end of the continuum. It is never a question of 'fairness'. There is always a trade-off to everything.
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