Michael Jackson’s Final Audience
Fans to pay their last respects at memorial amid a media spectacle
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Michael Jackson: a spectacle in life and death.
Hundreds of thousands of fans are set to pay their final respects to Michael Jackson at a memorial service in Los Angeles’ Staples Center today – marking a lavish public sendoff fit for a King of Pop amid a media circus appropriate for a scandal-scarred man who never grew up.
While Jackson often was compared to Peter Pan in life, the hoopla surrounding his memorial service has more of a Willy Wonka golden-ticket feel: Of the 1.6 million fans who entered an online lottery, only 11,000 will walk into the Staples Center, with another 6,500 relegated to the overflow section next door at the Nokia Theater.
Los Angeles police were bracing for gatecrashers amid reports that 1 million people could descend on the Staples Center, creating as much of a spectacle outside as inside where the likes of Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey and Lionel Richie are expected to pay tribute to Jackson. But anyone with TV or Internet access will be able to see the service unfold beginning at 10 a.m. PT, shortly after Jackson's relatives and close friends gather for a private service at Forest Lawn Memorial Park where many Hollywood legends are buried. Major networks and news channels were planning live coverage of the public memorial, an honor usually reserved for heads of state – not entertainers with tarnished images.
The arena, where Jackson rehearsed two days before his death, seems an appropriate choice to salute the superstar, who was on the verge of a comeback that could have either solidified his legacy as the greatest entertainer of his time or relegated him to permanent status as a shamed has-been.
The Staples Center, a reminder of Jackson the electrifying performer, is a long way from his private refuge, Neverland, a symbol of, at best, his disconnect from reality, and at worst, unspeakable abuse. Depending on whom you believe, the Peter Pan-inspired ranch was a child’s paradise brimming with amusement park rides and a menagerie of llamas and a chimp called Bubbles – or a house of horrors where no child should have been left alone.
Whatever the true story of what went on behind Neverland's gates, emblazoned with the words “Once upon a time,” there can be no happily-ever-after ending for Jackson, who died suddenly June 25 at age 50.
The 90-minute memorial follows a dozen days of mourning for the superstar singer, who burst onto the music scene 40 years ago as a boy who provided the vibrant lead voice for the Jackson 5 and would go as an adult to create “Thriller,” an album that changed pop music and broke all sales records.
Laurels, in the form of endless retrospectives and fan tributes, have come hand-in-sequined-glove with constant reminders of the freak-show Jackson’s life became, trailed by everything from bizarre changes in his appearance to never-proven allegations of child molestation.
The sendoff also comes in an age where the deaths of major public figures – whether celebrities or world leaders – are increasingly treated with similar pomp, giving a media-fueled, outsized form to an age-old need to mourn, together and in public.
Tens of thousands lined train tracks from Washington to Springfield, Ill, in 1865 for a glimpse of the funeral cortege of President Abraham Lincoln, who ended slavery and reforged our nation in blood. The country’s mourning of the energetic, young President John F. Kennedy was magnified by the power of television and the power of imagery, in John-John’s solemn salute to his fallen dad. More recently, blanket media coverage followed the 2005 death of Pope John Paul II, which drew four million followers to Rome.
Some celebrities, particularly those taken young and unexpectedly, seem to inspire a deeply personal kind of mourning.
John Lennon’s murder set off an outpouring of sadness at gatherings around the world, including New York, where more than 100,000 fans jammed Central Park for a vigil days after his death.
An estimated 3 million people flooded the streets of London after the 1997 car-crash death of Princess Diana, leaving more than one million bundles of flowers and other tributes in front of her gated Kensington Palace home.
Both are figures who transcended the vehicle that carried them to fame – in Lennon’s case, music; and in Diana’s case an eventually loveless marriage into the rusty remnants of royalty. The former Beatle gave both voice and song to the peace movement: “Give Peace a Chance” and “Imagine” remain powerful anti-war anthems. Diana became an ambassador in the fight against AIDS, pushing for awareness, acceptance and action.
Jackson, who will be buried in a gold-plated coffin, logged some accomplishments beyond pop success, most notably co-writing “We are the World,” the star-studded single that raised millions for starving people in Africa. He also bridged racial, ethnic and international boundaries like no other artist before, helping pave the way for the crossover success of Hip Hop.
But in death, he’s in danger of being remembered along the lines of another king of music, a performer whose daughter Jackson even married: Elvis Presley.
Like Presley, he died unexpectedly and relatively young, amid whispers of too many prescription drugs and too many handlers unwilling to tell the emperor – or, in this, case king – he had no clothes.
There’s talk Neverland could become another Graceland – a tourist attraction that turns death into a business – unlike, say, a simple public memorial like Strawberry Fields in Central Park. But there was never anything subtle about Michael Jackson.
Strong reactions to a favorite performer’s death represent a sign of people mourning in part for their own lost youth. Perhaps that feeling is intensified with Jackson, whose major life theme is youth: he was the child star robbed of a childhood. As a man, he lived like a child – and may have irreparably damaged young lives.
In the end, nothing, not even a Neverland memorial will mean a return to eternal youth for Jackson – just as building a fantasy playland, undergoing endless plastic surgery and surrounding himself with children, appropriately or otherwise, couldn’t melt away the years or make up for lost time.
For some, Jackson’s name will always be synonymous with the victimization of youth. For others, the only thing with a chance of keeping him forever young, at least in memory, is his music.
But the slings fired over the last dozen days by his many detractors, the flood of tributes from his fans and throngs expected at his memorial combine to prove one thing: love him or hate him, Michael Jackson, even in death, can draw a crowd.
Hester is founding director of the award-winning, multi-media NYCity News Service at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. He is the former City Editor of the New York Daily News, where he started as a reporter in 1992.
Copyright NBC Owned Television Stations
Posted Friday, Jul 17, 2009 - 11:39 AM PST
