Michael Jackson: Grasping the Spectacle - Chris Smit (ch. 1, 6, 8)

1. Name of author, name of essay/chapter reporting on: Christopher Smit (editor), Michael Jackson: Grasping the Spectacle, chapters 1, 6, and 8

2. Your articulation of their thesis:

Each of these chapters addresses something different about Michael Jackson’s career and spectacle: the first chapter discusses Michael’s beginnings and what motivated him to be such an amazing success as a musician, dancer, and all-around showman. The author describes how Michael starts out as a simple musician and progressed to a “freak” through his changing skin color and exposure in the media. She explores how his Peter Pan-esque outlook on life affected his performances and career and the way he sold the “backstage” parts of his life to his audience, who eagerly consumed everything he gave them. Chapter six focuses on the image of Michael in popular art – the way he is portrayed by artists and to the world, and the different images of him that were consumed most heavily. The author argues that Michael’s fame was as much due to his music and talent as it was on the image that he projected to the world – the decadence, the sparkle, the fascinating life. His image, as with Madonna’s (as we talked about in class) also changes over time – as it becomes less and less effective to just show the public side of his life (and as he experiences more and more scandals and less-celebrated issues), he shows more and more of the “behind-the-scenes” aspects of his life. He lets his audience into his day-to-day, personal activities, and they eat it up like cake – audiences love to know things about celebrities, perhaps even especially when the star is a bit disgraced, a bit fallen, a bit dirty. Chapter eight focuses on the 17-minute long movie Captain EO, analyzing the utopian values it exemplifies and exploring the history and meaning behind it. The author argues that Captain EO was a more culturally-relevant text than any other Disney attraction and many other movies in the cinemas of the time, mentioning specifically the themes of utopianism and the apocalypse that make themselves known in the film.

3. At least three links or images that illustrate the ideas of the article:

1. The author of the first chapter talks quite a bit about Peter Pan and the way Michael Jackson identified with him so strongly. Peter abandons his mother after she replaces him, and Michael says that he doesn’t trust anybody; sometimes not even his mother – the similarities don’t stop there, and Michael took Peter’s storyline so much to heart that he had read everything written about Peter Pan. Peter’s big ‘thing’ is never growing up, and the author describes how Michael filled his houses with stuffed animals, toys, and extravagant play structures – embracing his inner child.

2. An idea that especially interested me in chapter six was the desire of the audience for images of Michael – paintings, photographs; any sort of visual representation was immediately seized upon and consumed voraciously. I have noticed this phenomenon with the band One Direction, also – it honestly astounds me literally every day precisely how many paparazzi candids, photoshoot pictures, fan snaps, concert videos on hand-held cameras, and fanmade videos edited together from footage from DVDs there are of these five boys. Every single day, if one of the boys leaves their house, they are photographed. Liam went for a stroll down to the corner store? There are 10 paparazzi (and probably some fans) taking pictures, and they’re online within minutes so every one of his fans can track his every movement. The same thing, the author of the chapter tells us, happened with Michael, culminating in the release of the monstrosity of a photo album that is The Official Michael Jackson Opus.

3. The eighth chapter was very thick, with lots of information, but mostly what I thought about while I was reading it was music videos (not that Captain EO was really solely a music video) and the meanings that they hold – some songs’ music videos are clearly meant to be political, social, and/or religious statements, but others simply tell the story of the video or are simply clips of footage of the artist singing the song. I think a music video is a great way to convey information in an attention-keeping way that can be full of meaning without being too intellectual or difficult to swallow. One such music video that I have seen recently is Katy Perry’s music video for her song Wide Awake – I can’t profess to completely understand it, but Perry is clearly conveying a message (perhaps about youth, protecting childhood innocence, remaining true to one’s younger self?) and that message is communicated very well through the medium of a music video.

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

1. Why are people so fascinated with “freaks” and people who are different? What is the draw on watching their lives (it is escapism again)?

2. Michael was obviously an intriguing spectacle during his life, but what is it that makes us so faithfully interested in (and consumptive of) him so far past his death? What about him is so interesting that some of us actually consumed him more after his death than before it?

3. Why are audiences so interested in the daily lives of celebrities? They do the exact same things we do, in general: wake up, eat breakfast, wear clothes, etc. Is this another extension of how we see them as sort-of Gods (like ourselves, only better), or is it something else? Perhaps we’re trying to learn from them somehow: How to be the Perfect Celebrity in 10 Easy Steps!