How does one go about distilling the memory of a man once he’s no longer here?
We eulogize, we mythologize, we grasp at ways to neatly and succinctly sum up a person’s existence; what it meant to them, what it meant to us, what it meant to the world. They become the hero or the villain. We categorize them, we need it to be neat. It’s just easier that way. But people in their truest forms are more complicated than that, their lives a jumbled confluence of contradictions, a melding of noble intentions and inherent flaws—the sinner and saint all wrapped up in one messy package.
And Michael Jackson’s life just may have been the messiest.
As we celebrate what would’ve been the King of Pop’s 60th birthday on August 29, nine years following his untimely death thanks to acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication at the hands of an enabling physician later convicted of involuntary manslaughter, one still wonders how best to consider him: the iconic, unparalleled performer or the complicated, tortured soul underneath? Can you have one without the other? And should you even want to try?
Dedicated to the ideals of equality and world peace, Jackson spent much of his career donating millions of dollars to charity, penning hits like “We Are the World” explicitly to aid the poor across the globe. In 1992, he launched the Heal the World Foundation, with a stated mission of “improving the conditions for children throughout the world” by fighting world hunger, homelessness, child exploitation, and abuse. He was also one of the first artists to publicly throw their weight behind efforts to bring attention to the HIV/AIDS crisis, publicly pleading with President Bill Clinton at his inaugural gala to give more money to charities and research.
“The thing I like most about being on stage is making people happy.” – Michael Jackson pic.twitter.com/NtT5XIXDpS
— Michael Jackson (@michaeljackson) July 15, 2015
And then there’s his sound, his dancing, his style, his approach to celebrity, his breaking down of racial barriers—all of it revolutionary, all of it influential to a younger generation in ways both massive and minuscule. In death, he remains the record holder for the world’s best-selling album of all time (Thriller, with an estimated 66 million copies sold). He was the first and only artist to ever have five albums sell over 30 million copies worldwide. Guinness World Records has recognized him as the Most Successful Entertainer of All Time.
At the time of his death, Jackson was in the process of mounting his biggest comeback yet, a concert series eerily and rather aptly entitled This Is It. After years of negative headlines, it felt as though this was the performer’s big swing to bring the attention back to what, in his eyes, mattered most: The music, the craft, the spectacle, the art. Dying just three weeks before the first sold-out show, Jackson never got that chance.
Iconoclast. Humanitarian. Father. Child.
He is all of these things and yet, on their own, he was none of them. Without one, you don’t have the other. He was man, he is myth. He was the King of Pop. And he is missed.
Source:Â www.eonline.com