Michael Jackson - Smit (introduction)

Name of author, name of essay/chapter reporting on: Christ Smit, Michael Jackson: Grasping the Spectacle – introduction

Your articulation of their thesis:

            Smit starts this introduction by establishing that although Michael Jackson may be deceased, his spectacle will live on. The most famous thing about Jackson was always the image, the act, the show that he put on, and this will live on without him, perpetuated by media, record companies, and even his own family. Everything he did was about the spectacle, and this reflects back to us, the consumers – when he died, our grief was as large a spectacle as his life was, making his death almost seem like a performance. Then Smit breaks his introduction down into different points of focus on aspects of Jackson’s spectacle; what it meant to “know” the man himself, the different layers that made up his spectacle, and how to understand where this persona/image came from.

            “Knowing” Michael Jackson was almost impossible. Everyone had a notion of who he was, what he stood for, etc. etc. inside their heads, but none of them truly knew the man behind the music – the human behind the depersonalized spectacle. Indeed, it became an impossibility to ever get to know this person, because Jackson began to exist solely as a spectacle – he created his own system of reality in which he was not defined by culture, or his own personality or anything that we regard today as the basic definitions of celebrities and/or people.

            The layers of Jackson’s spectacle were deep, confusing, and difficult to travel down through. His spectacle was made up of many different images, stories, myths, etc. that described his origin and his current existence. For example, we know that Jackson underwent extensive plastic surgery and body modification, but we don’t know why – was he perhaps disabled? What was this (and/or these) disability (disabilities)? Was it a side-effect of his spectacle, or part of the cause, or neither? Past the purely physical layers of the spectacle lay even more questions – about Jackson’s identity, culture, and psychological state. Smit argues that the most important layer of this spectacle isn’t the layers pertaining to Jackson personally, or the physical layers – it is the layer of music and video creation. As Smit says, “To know Michael Jackson’s music was to know Michael Jackson’s image.”

            The last, and most complicated layer, is death. Jackson’s death is the layer through which we must look at all of the other ones, adding genuine feelings and reactions to what was formerly simple performance and emotionless spectacle.

At least three links (websites, blogs, articles, music) or images that illustrate the ideas of the article:

1. This short clip from the movie Shrek shows a scene in which Shrek, an ogre, is talking to his friend, Donkey, about the nature of ogres. He attempts to explain ogres using an onion to show all the different layers that ogres (apparently) have. On some childish level, this seems similar to Smit’s points about Jackson and how his life was arranged in layers of importance, popularity, accessibility, etc. Perhaps Shrek’s last layer wasn’t death, but I really quite prefer this image when it comes to trying to picture Michael Jackson with all of his layers of spectacle.

2. Smit talks a lot about Jackson’s fans, and how while they mainly only “knew” Jackson through his music and performances, they still found themselves greatly attached and felt as if they knew him on an intimate level. These are the same fans who, when Jackson died, took the news hard, and personally. Smit especially talks about the outcry on the internet and social networking sites – expressions of grief, fear, sorrow, etc. were very common. I myself have many social media accounts, and while I was not one of the people posting emotionally-charged entries on the internet after Jackson died, I was curious to see what would happen if I put ‘michael jackson’ into Twitter’s search bar. I found a twitter account for a dead man. It appears that Jackson’s fans are so dedicated that he cannot be silenced, even in death, and that fans obviously feel they have some sort of special bond to Jackson – they still need more from him, whether it be a few tweets or a tribute performance.

3. Smit talks at length of how so many people felt that they knew Jackson, but how they really didn’t know anything about him. Jackson existed solely as a spectacle, as entertainment – there was no dialogue between him and the world, only a monologue of the things he produced and the world’s consumption of them. It was not a mutually beneficial relationship, but a give-take one – where Jackson did all of the giving and the world did all the taking. Thus, nobody really ever knew Jackson. This assertion immediately reminded me of a song by The Weepies called ‘Nobody Knows Me At All,’ which has the same basic idea – although with the implied undercurrent of sadness and depression. Perhaps this was true of Jackson, also, but it cannot be denied that there were very little (if any) people who truly knew Jackson on a deep, emotional, meaningful level.

At least two discussion questions that will help your reader develop the ideas of the article:

1. What do you think made Michael Jackson so special for so many people? It’s not like he really tried to connect with his audience on a personal level – he really mostly just made and performed music. Why did so many people feel such a strong connection to him, leading to such an enormous public outcry at his death?

2. What do you think of the idea as Jackson as a monetary value – specifically, the way his family, record label, etc. have been essentially selling the rights to his life to the highest bidder? Do you think Jackson would be happy to see his legacy continuing, or horrified that even in death people can’t seem to leave him alone?