A Look at Media Frenzy » The Music Mag

A Look at Media Frenzy

In the 21st century, death sells. From papers to albums to television ratings, death is a much more lucrative money maker than sex was in the 90s. You just have to look at the passing of Michael Jackson to see evidence in action. While the death of Michael Jackson was always going to attract media coverage (what with him being one of the biggest musical icons of all time and that), it was magnifed ten fold because of the timing; on the verge of a huge money-making (and let’s not forget that was precisely the reason for these tours) tour, one final trip around the globe before settling down. It was certainly something to look forward to, even for those who weren’t the biggest Michael Jackson fans since Jackson in his prime, was a stage show and live act to behold; the very best dance routines, inch-perfect pop tunes and pitch-perfect performances rightfully made him a household name and critical darling. But, a week following his death, we have been robbed of what could have been a swansong to remember. Or it could have been an embarrassing pratfall for everyone involved.

Regardless, he passed and left a legacy that is largely untouched by many pop acts. The biggest selling album of all time, revolutionary albums, a fanbase to rival Beatlemania and a media frenzy that makes the Jade Goody outbursts seem tame in comparison. It’s understandable in this case, however. The respect for the music is something very much well deserved (the respect for the man is another case but I won’t drag this down into that mire) but the notion that music lost a shining star rubs me the wrong way.

Ever since the release of ‘Dangerous’ in 1991, Michael Jackson’s musical output wasn’t good. In 2009, he was not the creative force he was 25 years previous and we didn’t lose a creative visionary. We lost a man that had spent the last 15 years of his life, vilified in pop culture at every turn, fighting court cases and building up a debt so large, he had to organise a massive tour and sell his possessions to attempt to pay it off.

As always with the media, it’s the great hypocrisy and irony that, I’d assume, does not go lost on the newspaper editors around the world; Michael Jackson died of a cardiac arrest and some people are pointing to massive stress as a possible contributing factor to it. Has anyone took a step back and realised that the media circus surrounding, a quite clearly mentally unstable man, heaped more stress and unrest on to what was a traumatic period in his life? Let’s just examine the last 10 years or so of his life; the media frenzy surrounding the 2005 trials was almost unreal in the sense it didn’t feel like this was a real man under the microscope. It felt like a character, dreamed up by the New York Post to sell some newspapers then set up to be dragged through the mud. Let’s not forget the same papers that have been hailing him a great man, once pointed the finger of pedophilia toward him. The same papers that have held his name in such high regard, were all too quick to stamp on it years previous. The inherent hypocrisy does not surprise me, or even alarm me anymore; those who were once vilified can be redeemed to sell papers. Especially if they wrote Thriller.

It’s not the media that are creating a faux outrage though; the common public are very much to blame. You know the ones; people who laughed at a Michael Jackson joke before his passing are suddenly standing atop the moral high ground. The ones telling us to respect him while sitting watching an emotionless and frankly digusting and exploitive memorial service and buying tribute issues of OK Magazine. These people are hollow husks, riding a wave of popular opinion, wearing death as the latest accessory piece to go with the hypocrisy handbag and irony sweater and their opinions shouldn’t be counted as valid.

But, those whose opinions, perhaps could be considered valid, need to take a step back and consider the hyperbole. At the memorial service, Al Sharpton said that Michael Jackson had created the environment in which Barack Obama could be elected President; in the immediate aftermath of his death, Michael Jackson has done more for race relations than Martin Luther King. Sharpton, again seemingly unaware of the irony, has lashed out at the media for creating the frenzy around his death, has is one breath, hit out at the circus while, in the other, has contributed to it more than any other; standing at a disrespectful memorial service, talking into the TV cameras about respecting the dead.

As for the revival of his music, that is the one part of this circus I can respect and agree with. It’s sad that it took his death and reinvention as an idol to introduce a whole new generation of people to some of the greatest pop music ever written (and I say that without hyperbole). But, where were those people during 2005, when he needed the support and, arguably, the money? They were disgusted with the notion of listening to his music, disgusted at listening to a man portrayed as a child molestor in the newspapers they were reading. The circus that killed him is keeping his legacy alive.

This whole thing should leave a sickly taste in everyone’s mouth; I was always told to respect the dead and this is exactly the opposite. This is dragging a man’s legacy through the mud, holding his life up to a lens and using it to sell his death as a lifetime-defining event. Maybe we’ll see “Where Were You When MJ Died?” t-shirts on sale in the foyer of the Staples Centre as his family is paraded to mourn for the cameras, as his grieving daughter is wheeled up to cry photogenic tears for the next day’s newspaper. Maybe, it’s just me. Maybe, I’m the only one who finds it disrespectful that you can pay a little bit extra to keep a concert ticket as a “memorial”. Maybe I’m the only one who finds it disrespectful that you could visit a man’s memorial service by putting your name in a lottery. I find it disrespectful that cameras are inside a man’s personal property, only days after he died, to find an insight. I find it disrespectful that the Motown label are releasing and releasing albums to capitalise on a man’s death. I find the whole thing repulsive and not at all how you should respect a man’s passing. We shouldn’t be dolling up his family and friends and pushing them out to mourn, we should be letting them grieve in their own circles. We shouldn’t be laying out a dead man’s personal secrets for the whole world to peek into and more importantly, we shouldn’t be buying the papers that simply lie to us so they can sell us a story. Pay the man some real respect by admiring his art and letting him rest.