Michael Jackson: Grasping the Spectacle - Chris Smit (ch. 12 & 13)

1. Name of author, name of essay/chapter reporting on:

Christopher Smit, Michael Jackson: Grasping the Spectacle, chapters 12 and 13

2. Your articulation of their thesis:

Chapter 12 describes the religion of Michael Jackson – how Michael himself came to be almost a religious symbol in the world, with his many acts of humanitarian aid, but also how his personal religion affected his image, choices, and career. The author explores what it means to be religious, quoting a source that claims that “we can never escape a religious interpretation of the world.” It is certainly easy to describe Michael in religious terms – his personal religion led him to write music that would inspire his audience, to drive himself as hard as he could to perfect his performances, and to behave in what he would consider a “godlike” fashion. The author of chapter 12 in essence argues that one cannot look at Michael Jackson’s life without considering his religion and the way religion/religious imagery/language fashioned his life.

Chapter 13 posits that after Michael’s death, his memorial service was an attempt to revise any odd, unusual, ‘wrong’ things in his life – after his death, the people in his life trying to erase parts of his identity to perfect it and turn it into something more easily-consumable. Thus, they offered to the audience a morally-perfect kind of Christ figure – even in his existing strangeness, he became a sort of sacred figure to society, immortalizing him in his uniqueness and portraying him as existing on a transcendent plane.

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

1. The author of chapter 12 describes Michael’s religion using the term ‘bodhisattva’ to describe him. I didn’t know what this word meant, so I looked it up. While the author doesn’t try to argue Michael as a Christ-figure at all, and thinks that that position is simply one extreme that it’s possible to inhabit on the spectrum (the other extreme is Michael as the Devil), I thought this use of the word shows a lot about how the author really feels about Michael – the author saw Michael as a man who was undergoing a lot of stress and persecution and judgment so that others wouldn’t have to, and that sounds a lot like Jesus to me.

2. The author of chapter 13 describes how Michael appealed to his fanbase so well because of his striking difference from the “majority” of society – he was strange, and odd, and abnormal, and this appealed to others who felt the same way. This strongly reminded me of another pop star who’s pretty famous these days: Lady GaGa. Lady GaGa is such a decidedly abnormal individual, yet she has a gigantic fanbase. The author would argue (and I think I would agree) that these fans identify with Lady GaGa because they don’t feel normal and/or accepted, either. Lady GaGa has given her fans their own social-networking-type-site on the internet where they can exchange their stories and what makes them “Little Monsters” (the title her fans go by).

3. In chapter 13, the author mentions that, in his memorial service, the different speakers all emphasized how “real” Michael was – how normal and unremarkable he was. I feel like this happens to celebrities all the time – people (for whatever reason) assume they must be different from non-famous people somehow, but really they’re just like everybody else. The most recent example of this that I have seen is a tweetfrom Liam Payne, a member of the biggest boyband in the world, One Direction. After meeting Jay-Z, Liam tweeted that he ‘met his biggest idol and couldn’t even look him in the eye.’ Awww! Celebrities get nervous when they meet famous people, too – no matter how famous you are, it’s still exciting and nervewracking!

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

1. The author of chapter 12 quotes a writer who states that “we can never escape a religious interpretation of the world.” Do you agree with this (or does religion sometimes simply not play a part in some aspects of the world)? (Perhaps a better place to start might be by asking what the author of chapter 12 means by “religion.” How does he/she define it?)

2. The author of chapter 13 discusses different crimes and their varying depths of unforgivable-ness, illustrating to the reader how sexual immorality is much more easily-forgiven than pedophilia, and pedophilia is even more difficult to “forgive” than murder is. As a Christian, do you think it should be equally easy to attain forgiveness for any sin? Should there be sins that are more difficult to forgive/atone for, or that are simply unforgivable and impossible to repent for?

Michael Jackson: Grasping the Spectacle - Chris Smit (ch. 3, 4, 5)

1. Name of author, name of essay/chapter reporting on:

Christopher Smit, Michael Jackson: Grasping the Spectacle, chapters 3, 4, 5

2. Your articulation of their thesis:

Chapter 3 talks about the way Michael queered (or bent the accepted norms regarding) different things: age (with his lifelong passion for Peter Pan, leading to his construction of Neverland Ranch and his many cosmetic surgeries), gender (with his androgynous clothing choices and, again, cosmetic surgery), race (with his shift from black to, if not white, then at least not-black), and sleep/dreaming (with the way he did all of his work at night, had acute insomnia, and wanted to make his audience be unable to sleep after seeing him perform).

            Chapter 4 discusses the issues that Michael faced as a black man in a white-dominated world and the lack of a real  sense of “self” because of this. He was torn between trying to fit into a very white world and trying not to “betray” his African-American roots and the accusations from critics that he wasn’t “black enough.” He ended up almost raceless, somewhere halfway between black and white, with such an ambiguous race that it was qualified as inhuman – without a box to put him into, he lost his appeal to both white audiences and  black ones. He couldn’t pass for white because of his underlying “blackness” – no matter the color of his skin, he couldn’t assimilate into the culture, so he ended up rejecting race altogether.

            Chapter 5 focuses on the duality of the images projected by many celebrities, especially Michael: the good and the bad, the art and the person, the victim and the hero. The stars sell each part of themselves equally, and fans become invested with the same duality – they become equally invested in the star’s failures and successes, consuming each with the same voracity. Either unconsciously or purposefully, Michael inserts this split into his art and his performances, with contradictions in his music and movies. He attempts to sell himself as a good person, fearing judgment and rejection, leading to a split – his fans want the good person, but they also see the bad aspects because of his desperation to cover them so thoroughly.

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

1. Chapter 3 described (among other things) Michael’s genderqueering through his body type, multiple cosmetic surgeries, and androgenous clothing choices. Everything that the author discussed reminded me strongly of Lady Gaga and the way she opposes social norms for the female gender – she wears outrageous clothing often (her infamous meat-dress being just one example), and has no problem queering gender norms in other ways, such as dressing up as a man for the MTV Video Music Awards.

2. The discussion of race in chapter 5 reminded me strongly of Barack Obama’s struggle with the black community in his 2008 race for president, as portrayed in the movie By the People. Obama struggled with convincing the black population of the United States that he was truly an African-American – that he was “black enough,” and that he would advocate for their benefit. Michael underwent the same type of thing – the black community rejected him for being too white, while the white community did the same for being too black.

3. In chapter 5, the author describes a split in the attitude of fans toward celebrities; on one hand, they want the star to have fame, be successful, and achieve happiness, but on the other, they want to be spectators on the sideline of their crashing, burning failure. To me, the reality TV show Wipeout is the perfect example of this: we’re rooting for the different, quirky, odd contestants to win against the obstacles and the gamemakers, but on the other hand, we love watching them plunge into the muddy water below the obstacle structures!

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

1. The author of chapter 3 concludes that one cannot be fully queer in today’s world – to do so makes one otherworldly. What does it mean to be utterly, completely queer – does one simply not fill any expected roles in any areas of one’s life? Do you think Michael Jackson achieved ultimate queerness?

2. Why do we need people to fit so nicely into “boxes” (black, white, heterosexual, homosexual, male, female, etc.)? / Why are we so uncomfortable when we can’t fit them into one? (Is it because we lose our ability to relate to them? How can this be, when a person is so much more than their individual parts?)

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!

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?