Repulsive

[fpb]

Once upon a time, celebrities who were shown to have acted repulsively in public retired from the scene. Sometimes, legend says, they shot themselves; more often they went abroad. Anyway, a man who had embezzled funds or, like Byron, had sex with his own half-sister, was certainly never welcome in his country again.

And that was once upon a time. I think we may confidently certify that there is no such attitude any more - not for any reason whatsoever. Paedophilia used to be the last limit, the one thing that would make a man a pariah, not to be spoken of or to; but Michael Jackson's repulsive appearance in London from his brief exile in Bahrein shows that that taboo has now fallen. I do not have the evidence that Jackson actually corrupted children; but he has behaved throughout as the guiltiest of guilty men, and while courts need evidence - which can be dealt with by clever lawyers and the liberal application of handy cash - public opinion only needs reasonable certainty. Michael Jackson should never have shown his freakish, manufactured face in a Western country again.

What drives this is primarily TV. There are, of course, diehard fans who will not believe that their idol has clay feet - is, in fact, clay all the way to his armpits at least. But these are freaks and not very numerous - certainly not numerous enough to drive a change in mood. But to TV, celebrities once made are permanent fodder for the fabrication of news and events. They cannot afford one of them to vanish abroad. The thoughts of every television executive from Moscow to Tokyo and back are today on an exclusive hour-length interview in which the freak's news value can be exploited worldwide. The greed for ratings - that is, for dollars - trumps any feeling of shame.

Comments

[ani-bester.livejournal.com]

The greed for ratings - that is, for dollars - trumps any feeling of shame.


Honestly, I think you need to look no further than many reality TV shows to see how much of a hold greed as on this country.

It seems networks sit around and decide what is the most moral debassing thing they can get people to do for money, and the sad part is, not only can the usually find people to do it, they can sometimes even find enough people to watch the show to keep making it.

But yes you are right, there is no accountability for celebrties anymore, only a desire to make shows and profits off their degredation.

[super-pan.livejournal.com]

I'd rather he be in the States where hopefully his access to children would be denied. I can not believe any parent ever left their child unattended with him.

[pandoraculpa.livejournal.com]

Michael Jackson is a sideshow freak. His behavior is truly disgusting and disturbing by any account, and yet I'm perhaps a little more bothered by OJ Simpson's newest mockery of justice. Surely you've heard about his new book? That must surely be the pinnacle of grotesqueries.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I'd hoped the court case would end his career, and that someone would rescue his poor children from the masks and weird lifestyle!

[jennilee.livejournal.com]

There are no words for that.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I would agree with you were I sure that he is in fact guilty. But I cannot argue the point, I'm sorry to say, because the article that made me doubt his guilt is buried under a mountain of other newspaper cuttings in a box I am always promising myself to put in order. But I would still say that Simpson behaved less like a guilty man than Jackson did; there is no evidence of bought witnesses in his affair.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Not just in your country. Reality shows, which were invented in the Netherlands (one of a million reasons why I am racist about that country), are a pestilence and a plague all over the world. I gather there is one even in Iran. I only ever watched half of one episode, in Italy, because it happened to feature the showgirl Pamela Prati, whom I find stunning; and I was revolted by what I saw. It did not help that all the other participants were clearly ganging up on Prati, nor that, from what I could see, she was behaving nicely and decently and had given them no reason at all to torment her. But what seemed clear to me is that the whole revolting display was designed to make participants turn on each other, dog eat dog, and rewarded the kind of behaviour which would, in real life, have been the most disastrous. Perhaps they had turned on Prati exactly because she was nice and decent; or perhaps because her astonishing beauty and towering height (six foot in her bare feet) made someone feel inadequate. Anyway, I was sick, and I never watched anything else of the kind again.

Even so, there is sometimes some kind of sardonic justice about the proceedings, which can provide you, if not with a laff, at least with a grim smile. Do you know who is taking part in one such show in Britain right now, with all the attendant humiliations? None other than David Gest, Liza Minnelli's two-minute husband! Talk about reaching your natural level.

[bufo-viridis.livejournal.com]

I was never a great fan, but he was not bad in his own right: pitiful how a man can sink so low. And how he can be still "propped up" by yet another award and whatnot. Truly, they'd wave a rotting corpse for more cash. Wait, they're already doing it...

On the other hand, having the displeasure to glimpse on his recent photo I had an idea: with this mug, only with a small change of make-up, he'd make an excellent Voldie!

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Well, but, even if he is not guilty (which I think highly unlikely. I was sure he had done it; granted the evidence was circumstantial, it was cumulatively very strong.) Even if he were truly innocent, he is still exploiting the deaths of a couple of human beings, and the pain and suffering of their families, for fame. I find that absolutely despicable.

As for Michael Jackson, I think he is nuts, poor soul, and I would not want any child I had to do with anywhere near him. But he has not killed anybody, nor is he trying to rack up notoriety through trading on pain, death and bloodshed.

Just my two cents.

It is all over

[johncwright.livejournal.com]

The rot goes deep, deep. Even without the media factor and the money, the general consensus these days is that everyone should Do Their Own Thing, and no one should be judgmental or condemnatory because to have standards is repression and oppression.

It started with Freud. The modern notion that all standards are mere opinion, are moral rules merely abitrary started earlier than this, but the notion that any desire, no matter how sick, merely by existing at all, had a right and a duty to be expressed, has its roots in the Freudian heresy.

Re: It is all over

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You assume, of course, that Freud began something. My thesis (I am a historian and one of my long-term projects is to do with the history of popular culture) is that he did nothing of the kind; only offered a refined version of existing trends, refined in the sense that crack is refined cocaine. But popular scribbling about sex in a scientific-like tone had been going on at least since the early seventeen hundreds.