I'm with you 100% on this, Roy. I have always found Michael Jackson the person very hard to take. The latest revelations are not revelations at all for anyone who has paid any kind of attention over the last 30-odd years.
But his music remains what it has been all along--innovative, energetic, by turns delightful and enlightening about how pop-music fluff can also be so definitive of (and yet reflective of) pop culture. The man who made that music was badly twisted and needed all kinds of help (and maybe a law-enforcement intervention) along with way--help he did not get from the enablers around him. But the music made by that man is still iconic and amazing.
'As you know I’m a professional asshole,...' Not from my perspective, Roy.
I am however, a cranky old coot and M.J.'s descent into the grotesque annoyed the crap out of me. Like so many talented people before him he advertised his craziness, in his case with his gradually bizarre physical appearance. When the sordid truth started to leak out I wasn't surprised for a microsecond.
His music is separate from all that, however. Quincy Jone's arrangements, orchestrations and recording/mastering were a huge part of it. Rod Temperton wrote large sections of Thriller. Numerous others were involved in composing/ lyrics/playing especially Louis Johnson who played (composed?) the bass riff for 'Billie Jean.'
Jackson was hugely talented but monstrously flawed. His music is discrete.
This. I don't think MJ was as world-historical a *singer* as others seem to, nor was/is his music epochal. As a vocal stylist he was unique and I'm not sure that influential. The greatness of Thriller (the album) is more Quincy and the writers than Jackson. (And let me be the first, at least today, to say that the song "Thriller" is mis-named. The song and the video are about horror, not a thriller.)
But as a dancer he was phenomenal. (Although Fred Astaire was reported to have said, while watching him, "that is an angry dancer." With cause, sez me.)
All that said, yes: between the breathy voice, the facial surgery, the whiteness of the skin, the fantasyland "ranch," the holding-the-baby-over-the-balcony, the sleepovers, etc., etc., who can have been surprised by the pedophilia? This by you is a normal person?
Speaking for myself only, but I'm surprised. . . that anyone was surprised. I mean, this has been *known*. The ranch, the "Jesus juice", Blanket, the Liz Taylor fetish--*known*. A deeply talented, deeply flawed man, like many artists.
(Richard Pryor used to say that cocaine was God's way of telling you you had too much money. Some did cocaine, some did Elephant Man.)
I agree. The music of his that resonates with me was largely before his descent into bizzarerie, and it was foundational in defining my revolt from straight male performance. I loved it because I knew I was different. That difference does not change because MJ is more widely suspected of abusive predilections.
If we were throwing over great art and ideas because of the ethical reek of their makers then the list would be long. As a teacher it seems important to me to contextualize the bad with the art and think about how and why we decide these pieces of art are great in the first place (since that's completely a political decision). Sit in one of my classes on Edmund Spenser, author of one the English language's most perfect poems, but a witting functionary in Irish genocide. The contradiction is heart-breaking, but important to note.
I guess part of the problem is our culture's need for Geniuses and dominant spirits of an ethos. We raise heroes up too high and eventually must tear them down when we learn they are just human after all.
That being said, I have no problem with no one ever listening to R Kelly ever again. But he was never my idol. So there...
Forgive me one thing: Spenser's genocide and MJ's molestation are not just human foibles, but something far worse. I didn't mean to diminish them in any way. These are special cases, but ones that must be addressed and not ignored. Contexualized and not shoved under the rug.
But also, every person should decide for themselves what to do with the products of these artists.
"Was it the lack of victim testimony that the documentary has now supplied?"
What makes this current reaction particularly ludicrous is that there has been plenty of victim testimony over the years, including indictments and a $23 million settlement back in the early 90's, a lengthy trial, and a constant stream of lurid accusations; it just wasn't on HBO I guess.
As an amateur asshole, I'm in total agreement with the professional view stated here. They still play Wagner's music despite his being, unlike Ilhan Omar, an actual anti-semite, just like Eliot, Pound, Degas, et al. Lots of great art has been produced by racists, misogynists, jerks, and scumbags (in non-artistic realms, people still buy Fords, or use Scrubbing Bubbles from the same folks who gave Vietnam napalm and Agent Orange, among a zillion other examples). It's an obvious distinction, but if Wagner wrote an anti-semitic opera, or Jackson a musical celebration of pedophilia, then there would be good reason to reject them for their art, not the other way around.
I guess this last case is what makes Gary Glitter's "Do You Wanna Touch Me" a particularly sticky case, as its lyrics are pretty creepy given our knowledge of Glitter's own pederastic tendencies. Too bad, because I really love Joan Jett's cover of that song.
Actually, there are definite anti-Semitic tropes in the "Ring" cycle and "Parsifal"; the Nazis may have made more of them than they were, but they didn't have to exaggerate much (as they had to with Nietzsche, whose anti-Semitism paled before his anti–anti-Semitism, and for that matter anti-German sentiments).
My father wrestled with this most of his life… Wagner being played on his way into the Kriegsgefangenenlager didn't help. (…though the Italians had got him first—he was shipped north during Salo—and he rather liked "Giovinezza", maybe he had learned it earlier in Betar.)
Maybe people were too willing to give him the benefit of a doubt for too long because they were willing to believe that a man so uniquely talented—or so the dogma went—and uniquely damaged (viz sup.) might be uniquely twisted, in this case twisted away from the usual pædophile to something creepy but not horrible*. I'm certainly perhaps-too-willing to believe that of Charles Dodgson due to my love of maths and appreciation of the "Alice" books. (…and no evidence of inappropriate physical contact, though I know that could be due to shame and fear of embarrassment.)
*'Because killinʼs reprehensible/But it's something you can ʼstand'
I didn’t care for him or his music, but I never confused the two. This seems too much like the pseudoconservatives’ take on art that you’ve so rightly critiqued.
Lately there's a troubling pseudoliberal take on the arts as well. Earlier this week I stumbled across a well-meaning tweet to the tune of "In the dating world, when people say their favorite book, which books are a red flag that mean there will definitely be no second date? I'll go first: Lolita." And I thought, fuck, Lolita might be the best novel of the 20th century. It's for sure up there. But the replies were full of people agreeing that Lolita was a dealbreaker -- as were a few other remarkable artistic achievements (slagging on Hemingway, Salinger, etc). These were all tweeters I bet would consider themselves open-minded lovers of the arts. But really they were all philistines and politicians each, gavel bang, case closed.
As for MJ... I remember a "making of Thriller" documentary when I was 12 or 13 (Thriller was new) and there he was, giggling away like a kid half my age. I realized then that this dude was not right. Anyone claiming to be newly upset about him in 2019 is... hard to take seriously.
Was just thinking about this because I found myself extra disappointed in Felicity Huffman, now indicted for participating in a bribery scheme to get offspring into college. Sure, it's disappointing that anybody did it, but Lori Loughlin doesn't disappoint me because she wasn't on my radar, while I've been aware of and impressed by Huffman's body of work. And I should know better. I was involved in science fiction fandom in my teens in the 70s, and got to meet an assortment of writers whose work I admired. I learned pretty soon that someone being good at their job doesn't make them a paragon of virtue. Some were mensches, some were mean drunks, all were at best human, and that's all we can expect of people based on their work. [If we believed that Jackson's good work was *built on* molesting young people, different story; I kinda think that Jerry Lee Lewis would have been as good a piano player whether or not he married his underage cousin, and Chuck Berry's guitar ingenuity isn't built on installing hidden cameras in bathrooms at his night club, so enjoying the music doesn't make us complicit in the bad acts.
I always dredge up Caravaggio in these discussions. He killed someone in a tavern brawl -- that's murder two at least, or manslaughter anyway -- so does that mean he wasn't a great artist, and we should trash his paintings? Of course not. If Michael Jackson were alive, there'd be a great case for jailing or committing him, and there _might_ be a case for ensuring that he didn't continue to profit from his music; but he's dead, so who's getting punished if his music isn't played? Only the people who liked the music.
I'm with you 100% on this, Roy. I have always found Michael Jackson the person very hard to take. The latest revelations are not revelations at all for anyone who has paid any kind of attention over the last 30-odd years.
But his music remains what it has been all along--innovative, energetic, by turns delightful and enlightening about how pop-music fluff can also be so definitive of (and yet reflective of) pop culture. The man who made that music was badly twisted and needed all kinds of help (and maybe a law-enforcement intervention) along with way--help he did not get from the enablers around him. But the music made by that man is still iconic and amazing.
'As you know I’m a professional asshole,...' Not from my perspective, Roy.
I am however, a cranky old coot and M.J.'s descent into the grotesque annoyed the crap out of me. Like so many talented people before him he advertised his craziness, in his case with his gradually bizarre physical appearance. When the sordid truth started to leak out I wasn't surprised for a microsecond.
His music is separate from all that, however. Quincy Jone's arrangements, orchestrations and recording/mastering were a huge part of it. Rod Temperton wrote large sections of Thriller. Numerous others were involved in composing/ lyrics/playing especially Louis Johnson who played (composed?) the bass riff for 'Billie Jean.'
Jackson was hugely talented but monstrously flawed. His music is discrete.
This. I don't think MJ was as world-historical a *singer* as others seem to, nor was/is his music epochal. As a vocal stylist he was unique and I'm not sure that influential. The greatness of Thriller (the album) is more Quincy and the writers than Jackson. (And let me be the first, at least today, to say that the song "Thriller" is mis-named. The song and the video are about horror, not a thriller.)
But as a dancer he was phenomenal. (Although Fred Astaire was reported to have said, while watching him, "that is an angry dancer." With cause, sez me.)
All that said, yes: between the breathy voice, the facial surgery, the whiteness of the skin, the fantasyland "ranch," the holding-the-baby-over-the-balcony, the sleepovers, etc., etc., who can have been surprised by the pedophilia? This by you is a normal person?
Speaking for myself only, but I'm surprised. . . that anyone was surprised. I mean, this has been *known*. The ranch, the "Jesus juice", Blanket, the Liz Taylor fetish--*known*. A deeply talented, deeply flawed man, like many artists.
(Richard Pryor used to say that cocaine was God's way of telling you you had too much money. Some did cocaine, some did Elephant Man.)
I agree. The music of his that resonates with me was largely before his descent into bizzarerie, and it was foundational in defining my revolt from straight male performance. I loved it because I knew I was different. That difference does not change because MJ is more widely suspected of abusive predilections.
If we were throwing over great art and ideas because of the ethical reek of their makers then the list would be long. As a teacher it seems important to me to contextualize the bad with the art and think about how and why we decide these pieces of art are great in the first place (since that's completely a political decision). Sit in one of my classes on Edmund Spenser, author of one the English language's most perfect poems, but a witting functionary in Irish genocide. The contradiction is heart-breaking, but important to note.
I guess part of the problem is our culture's need for Geniuses and dominant spirits of an ethos. We raise heroes up too high and eventually must tear them down when we learn they are just human after all.
That being said, I have no problem with no one ever listening to R Kelly ever again. But he was never my idol. So there...
Forgive me one thing: Spenser's genocide and MJ's molestation are not just human foibles, but something far worse. I didn't mean to diminish them in any way. These are special cases, but ones that must be addressed and not ignored. Contexualized and not shoved under the rug.
But also, every person should decide for themselves what to do with the products of these artists.
"Was it the lack of victim testimony that the documentary has now supplied?"
What makes this current reaction particularly ludicrous is that there has been plenty of victim testimony over the years, including indictments and a $23 million settlement back in the early 90's, a lengthy trial, and a constant stream of lurid accusations; it just wasn't on HBO I guess.
As an amateur asshole, I'm in total agreement with the professional view stated here. They still play Wagner's music despite his being, unlike Ilhan Omar, an actual anti-semite, just like Eliot, Pound, Degas, et al. Lots of great art has been produced by racists, misogynists, jerks, and scumbags (in non-artistic realms, people still buy Fords, or use Scrubbing Bubbles from the same folks who gave Vietnam napalm and Agent Orange, among a zillion other examples). It's an obvious distinction, but if Wagner wrote an anti-semitic opera, or Jackson a musical celebration of pedophilia, then there would be good reason to reject them for their art, not the other way around.
I guess this last case is what makes Gary Glitter's "Do You Wanna Touch Me" a particularly sticky case, as its lyrics are pretty creepy given our knowledge of Glitter's own pederastic tendencies. Too bad, because I really love Joan Jett's cover of that song.
Actually, there are definite anti-Semitic tropes in the "Ring" cycle and "Parsifal"; the Nazis may have made more of them than they were, but they didn't have to exaggerate much (as they had to with Nietzsche, whose anti-Semitism paled before his anti–anti-Semitism, and for that matter anti-German sentiments).
My father wrestled with this most of his life… Wagner being played on his way into the Kriegsgefangenenlager didn't help. (…though the Italians had got him first—he was shipped north during Salo—and he rather liked "Giovinezza", maybe he had learned it earlier in Betar.)
Triple amen to this article.
Maybe people were too willing to give him the benefit of a doubt for too long because they were willing to believe that a man so uniquely talented—or so the dogma went—and uniquely damaged (viz sup.) might be uniquely twisted, in this case twisted away from the usual pædophile to something creepy but not horrible*. I'm certainly perhaps-too-willing to believe that of Charles Dodgson due to my love of maths and appreciation of the "Alice" books. (…and no evidence of inappropriate physical contact, though I know that could be due to shame and fear of embarrassment.)
*'Because killinʼs reprehensible/But it's something you can ʼstand'
My spouse and I have this kind of discussion regarding Bill Cosby’s 1960s ouvre (e.g. WONDERFULNESS, or his role on I, SPY).
I didn’t care for him or his music, but I never confused the two. This seems too much like the pseudoconservatives’ take on art that you’ve so rightly critiqued.
Lately there's a troubling pseudoliberal take on the arts as well. Earlier this week I stumbled across a well-meaning tweet to the tune of "In the dating world, when people say their favorite book, which books are a red flag that mean there will definitely be no second date? I'll go first: Lolita." And I thought, fuck, Lolita might be the best novel of the 20th century. It's for sure up there. But the replies were full of people agreeing that Lolita was a dealbreaker -- as were a few other remarkable artistic achievements (slagging on Hemingway, Salinger, etc). These were all tweeters I bet would consider themselves open-minded lovers of the arts. But really they were all philistines and politicians each, gavel bang, case closed.
As for MJ... I remember a "making of Thriller" documentary when I was 12 or 13 (Thriller was new) and there he was, giggling away like a kid half my age. I realized then that this dude was not right. Anyone claiming to be newly upset about him in 2019 is... hard to take seriously.
so you never got that second date, ... bummer
Much of this can also apply to Benjamin Britten, who had a thing for barely pubescent boys. Biographers seem to think it was not sexual, but still.
Was just thinking about this because I found myself extra disappointed in Felicity Huffman, now indicted for participating in a bribery scheme to get offspring into college. Sure, it's disappointing that anybody did it, but Lori Loughlin doesn't disappoint me because she wasn't on my radar, while I've been aware of and impressed by Huffman's body of work. And I should know better. I was involved in science fiction fandom in my teens in the 70s, and got to meet an assortment of writers whose work I admired. I learned pretty soon that someone being good at their job doesn't make them a paragon of virtue. Some were mensches, some were mean drunks, all were at best human, and that's all we can expect of people based on their work. [If we believed that Jackson's good work was *built on* molesting young people, different story; I kinda think that Jerry Lee Lewis would have been as good a piano player whether or not he married his underage cousin, and Chuck Berry's guitar ingenuity isn't built on installing hidden cameras in bathrooms at his night club, so enjoying the music doesn't make us complicit in the bad acts.
I always dredge up Caravaggio in these discussions. He killed someone in a tavern brawl -- that's murder two at least, or manslaughter anyway -- so does that mean he wasn't a great artist, and we should trash his paintings? Of course not. If Michael Jackson were alive, there'd be a great case for jailing or committing him, and there _might_ be a case for ensuring that he didn't continue to profit from his music; but he's dead, so who's getting punished if his music isn't played? Only the people who liked the music.