So Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett are dead.
I really don't know where to begin about these two cultural icons. On the one hand, I have to wonder why Farrah was so big. I mean, I know she was sexy, but there are lots of sexy women out there. What was it about Farrah that caught the public's eye? I was never a fan of Charlie's Angels, even at a younger age when I didn't know better and loved such fare as The Dukes of Hazard, The A-Team and MacGuyver.
These shows which I so enjoyed on my youth, when looking back at reruns only carry nostolgic value for me. They don't hold a candle to that which came after, like Lost or Buffy, or to that which came before like The Twilight Zone.
In spite of her fight with cancer in recent years I cannot think of one thing about Farrah Fawcett that qualifies her celebrity. She hasn't done anything but guest and host spots since Charlie's Angels. In fact, the one notable thing beyond the show and all those posters in the 70s wasn't a movie or a new series. It was a Playboy video she appeared in in the 90s.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not making light of her death, I wouldn't make light of anyone's death. But does it really need to be commemorated in this way?
"Mom, I’ve accepted that you’ve had sex. I am not ready to know that you had Farrah hair."
Buffy Summers, Buffy, the Vampire Slayer
Now, as to Micheal Jackson. I cannot say that I am saddened by his death but that is only because I view death not as the end of a journey but hopefully as a beginning.
One of my first memories of music in general, of handling an album and reading the lyrics, was of Michael Jackson's Thriller. His music was a large part of my life well into the 1990s. I have always enjoyed a diverse selection of music from The Beatles and Miles Davis to Fall Out Boy and Eminem. Michael Jackson has always been on my playlist, even when he was accused of child molestation.
I have never been convinced that any of his actions, whether it be allegedly playing in pajamas with or allegedly sleeping - like actually sleeping-sleeping - in the same bed as a child, was sexual in nature, if any of it happened at all.
I can only hope, to paraphrase what friend and producer Quincy Jones said, that the music, and not the man is what is remembered.
Godspeed to both of you, Farrah and Michael.
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Comments
Regarding Ms Fawcett, you were born too late to remember the impact she had on the mid-70s television landscape, not to mention her effect upon society in general.
According to fundamentalist religious schmegeges (for whom the '70s were just spring training), all mankind was doomed to eternal hellfire and damnation because ABC-TV allowed this woman to appear on primetime television braless; apparently, no actress had nipples until "Charlie's Angels" was produced by what self-righteous Christians called "that lascivious Jew-bastard Aaron Spelling" (I'm paraphrasing here).
I never considered Farrah a serious actress, and neither did anyone else, until her tour d'force performance in "The Burning Bed", a true story she felt compelled to tell on behalf of battered women everywhere. The made-for-TV movie's success led legislators and jurists across America to see spousal abuse for what it truly is -- vicious criminal behavior.
Farrah followed that with the real-life portrayal of a woman who murdered (fortunately, not with complete success) her children just so she could have an unencumbered sexual relationship. The name of that TV-movie escapes me, but once again her expose` of one woman's horrendous descent into a personal hell made America look beyond the surface of such tragedies.
In my opinion, she did more to correct societal ills in four hours than Michael Jackson did in forty years (I cannot think of one cause he championed).
As for Jacko, all I can say about his passing is: "Every man's death diminishes my own."
Farrah Fawcett is far more deserving of all the attention that's been wasted by the mainstream media on MJ.