Michael Jackson and How the Media Betrayed Him - Assignment Example

Michael Jackson and How the Media Betrayed Him The media has betrayed the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, throughout the final years of his life, generally placing emphasis on his financial concerns, legal problems, and odd behaviours. He has been given unusual names by the media on several instances due to his behaviours and habits, like going outside with a surgical mask, wanting to purchase the elephant man’s remains, and napping in the oxygen chamber (Hadley, 2009). The media has not habitually been sympathetic to Michael since 1993, the year when his first molestation case came out. They have flooded him with remarks about his gender orientation and affairs with young boys. A large number of interviews and news columns was publicised which have indicated Michael was a paedophile. Michael suffered the disparaging and debasing media charges and criticisms and persistently implored the media not to condemn him because his guilt was not yet proven (Barris & Gray, 2006).But the media kept on depicting the King of Pop in the most damaging way possible. Although the media has claimed their reports were for the public’s entertainment, the scathing media reports have constantly burdened and troubled Michael. For a media that flourished on generating images of Michael which depicted his life’s undesirable facets; the media coverage has been less disparaging in portraying the death of the King of Pop. His demise did not generate the burst of images normally depicting a famous icon’s passing away. The sole media image being shown is Michael’s ambulance snapshot while an EMS specialist was trying to revive him (Lee, 2009). It is somewhat unexpected that the media has easily acknowledged the verification of Michael’s death from law enforcement and family members. It is actually worrying because the media has constantly projected an ‘investigative’ character when it referred to current events or controversial personalities, particularly regarding the King of Pop (Hadley, 2009: 37). However, the media has not once challenged or looked into the legitimacy of Michael’s demise. They have been accommodating of family’s verification of Michael’s death and the unintentionally ‘disclosed’ coroner analysis of the cause of Michael’s demise (Campbell, 1994). The media has tracked and monitored Michael for roughly forty years, but they were not knowledgeable or informed of the degree of the alleged substance addiction of Michael. This is puzzling and incredulous a media quite meticulous in giving viewers photos and updates of Michael and his children going abroad wearing surgical masks, being manhandled in a wheelchair, and going to establishments late at night (Sartore, 2000). So what would explain the media’s ignorance over Michael’s substance addiction? This is a reasonable question for a media regarded to be the most informed information source on famous personalities.Michael has cleverly applied his understanding of the media to endorse himself and his musical work, and he became a more than successful icon, a brand that companies like Pepsi remunerated generously to relate themselves to. He became an icon of adoration. Within this background, his odd routines or habits have been seen as being either an indication of his remarkable kindness and generosity or the oddities of a whiz (Lee, 2009). But the media invalidated all of these. Ever since The Jackson Five became very popular in 1969, Michael was a fixed object in the media. His media popularity heightened over the succeeding years, and he came to be a legitimate pop sensation by the 1980s (Lee, 2009). Contrary to the overpowering cultural and popular acclaim given to him for years, the relationship of Michael with the media became chaotic at best. For the final years of his life, his image in the media was undoubtedly and constantly bad. Charges of an odd public behaviour, financial problems, sexual violence, and excessive plastic surgery made Michael a target of mockery and ridicule in the news. A National Enquirer’s cover story released on August 1996 stated “Jacko’s Nose Drops Off—Now His Docs Scramble to Fix It” (Smit, 2012: 208). In its October 2006 column The Daily Mirror declared a ‘showbiz exclusive’ with a feature story claiming that Michael underwent a sex change surgery. A 2001-2002 series of columns from Rolling Stone narrated Michael’s purportedly escalating financial difficulties, stating that “the Jackson empire is in disarray,” (Smit, 2012: 208) referring to the pop icon’s extremely lavish lifestyle, unattended concerts, and unpaid investment and legal charges. Likewise, Vanity Fair reported that Michael took part in voodoo ceremonies that had him soaking in a lamb’s blood to clear his debts (Borsboom, 2011: 126). These are only a few illustrations of how the media depicted Michael as a pop icon misfit. The King of Pop has had numerous problems and misfortunes over the final decades of his life which have brought him a great deal of agony and sorrow. The media has betrayed and mocked the singer on every opportunity that arises. The media was swift to broadcast the molestation charges and court hearings and his oddities in a merciless way without consideration of whether the singer was guilty of the accusations or if his alleged oddities had a reasonable justification or not. He endured massively from the media reports and they forced him to become a loner or seclude himself rather than let the media keep on making a show of his life. The molestation accusations made Michael suspicious of children and their families for it revealed the susceptibility of the singer to ‘opportunists’ who exploited his kindness to children as a way to gain monetary benefits (McNamara, 2011).Michael discovered and understood that while he valued being in the company of children his actions may have been misunderstood by the public as objectionable and thus, although he felt obliged to show his affinity for children to the people, it was not proper to build the intimate relationships or affiliations with children not related to him because of the misgivings attached to these relationships and the beliefs that he would behave sexually with the children (Millman, 2006). Hence the King of Pop secluded himself and removed himself from the limelight to be with his own children without the past sympathy for other children. Michael has been thought to be odd by numerous people because of his several anomalous behaviours. These supposedly strange behaviours have blemished his celebrity image and reputation and pushed a lot of people to start doubting his capability to perform on stage as superbly and admirably as he did during his younger years due to the strangeness of his behaviours (Barris & Gray, 2006).He was also charged of strange spending practices which are thought to have resulted in his financial collapse. In a sole spending binge the singer shelled out millions of dollars for art works. He was used to fortune and had almost no idea of the effect his spending on his economic standing. He habitually paid millions on products and services when purchasing from a department store. Aside from his retail purchases, informants have reported he was shelling out sizeable amounts of money on plastic surgeries and other medical services. Ever since his demise, certain doctors and pharmacies reveal Michael’s massive debts (Hadley, 2009: 38). Everything was reversed on the 25th of June 2009. With the death of the King of Pop, media representation of Michael became less disparaging and more empathic (Smit, 2012). All of a sudden, the emphasis of the media was not on the oddities of the singer, supposed sexual immodesties or physical look, but instead on the cultural effect of his artistic performance, his archetypal image in the 1980s and his historical legacy and importance as “the greatest entertainer of all time” (Smit, 2012: 209). Every media report of his demise was most frequently presented in a compassionate, positive way. Rolling Stone and People referred to Michael’s final days ‘broken’; the cover of Vanity Fair proclaimed Michael a ‘tragic icon’ and said goodbye to “a fallen king” (Smit, 2012: 209-10). This was an interesting, puzzling change. For almost two decades, Michael was the media’s iconic chopping block. And then all of a sudden, most of the depictions of Michael revered or idolised rather than reprimanded or criticised him, and conventional media were not the only ones. This sudden turn of event may be vividly and realistically described as follows (Smit, 2012: 209-10): Twitter, Wikipedia, Google and TMZ all experienced site crashes due to droves of Web visitors seeking information on Jackson’s death. Days after his death, sales of Jackson’s back catalog skyrocketed, culminating in his Number Ones collection ranking as the third biggest seller of 2009, while he topped year-end tallies of best-selling artists. In the period after his demise, tributes for Michael burst forth all over the nation. Just like in the 1980s, the music of the King of Pop yet again became unavoidable for the whole of summer. All places and people from all walks of life allowed Michael’s songs to regain a sense of universality following his demise. Just like the media, the people as well had abruptly changed their view of Michael from uncertainty or disapproval to respect and admiration (Millman, 2006). The media representation of the King of Pop and the unlawful activities which were attached to him ever since the sexual abuse charges stopped him from being the individual he was in the past who sympathised greatly and showed concern for the children and the environment. The problems and misfortunes had troubled the singer and ruined his capacity to perform as a celebrity or entertainer and as an ordinary citizen. The sexual abuse accusations, as well as, the oddities had pushed Michael to re-evaluate how the public saw him and whether as the pop sensation he can keep on contributing to or helping the world become a better place. Conclusions The persistent, determined pursuit of the King of Pop by the media denies or reverses both his insistent outcry for stardom and the articulated yearning for privacy. Unsavoury reputation certainly reduces likelihoods of full privacy. Once journalists or tabloid reporters disrespect boundaries or limits, liberty to acquire a photo or story is true persecution and betrayal. The King of Pop had serviced the world with his soulful and moving music, which an artist like him is supposed to do. His achievements were the triumphs of the music world. But all these admirations completely vanished once he was charged of molestations and odd behaviour in public. The media took advantage of this and focused only on those that adversely portrayed Michael. Such negative media representations of a pop icon is a high level betrayal for it showed the world only one side of the story, which is what the media are very good at. References Barris, M & Gray, H (2006) “Michael Jackson, Television, and Post-Op Disasters”, Television & News Media, 7(1), 40-51. Borsboom, J (2011) Michael Jackson: The Icon. New York: Lulu.com. Campbell, L (1994) Michael Jackson: The King of Pop’s Darkest Hour. New York: Branden Publishing Company. Hadley, M (2009) Michael Jackson Master of Illusion. New York: Xlibris Corporation. Lee, J (2009) Celebrity, Pedophilia, and Ideology in American Culture. New York: Cambria Press. McNamara, K (2011) “The paparazzi industry and new media: The evolving production and consumption of celebrity news and gossip websites”, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 14(5), 515-530. Millman, S (2006) Understanding Michael Jackson. New York: Lulu.com. Sartore, R (2000) Media Responsibility. New York: Xlibris Corporation. Smit, C (2012) Michael Jackson: Grasping the Spectacle. UK: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Read More