Friday, June 26, 2009
Cream Ruminations on the Persecuted (and Prosecuted) Artist
Posted by Tracy Moore on Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 11:31 AM
If Facebook is any indication of the popular consensus, some folks were stunned and saddened by the news of MJ's death yesterday. Others remarked something to the effect of, "I was sad until I remembered he was a pedophile."
It got me thinking about the age-old conundrum: how to feel about artists with outsize talents but overdriven urges. You know, all the persecuted (and prosecuted) folks: the Roman Polanskis, Woody Allens, the Phil Spectors, even the Joan Crawfords and James Browns--the convicted murderers, the suspected pedophiles, the known wife-beaters, the absent fathers, the abusive mothers who happen to turn out brilliant works of art. It forces a little moral relativism on the part of us fans--sure, he beats his wife, but his life is troubled, and damn that man can sing. Or he seduced a girl he ought to be playing a father figure to, but are his films not some of the truest explorations of the human condition? Their lives are not like our lives. The very art they make often succeeds because they are able to exist outside of the banal tedium of our everyday morality, one could argue. They are pushing artistic boundaries, so we must accept that their lives are in some ways a kind of working through those very boundaries to arrive somewhere the ordinary human never would.
Michael Jackson was an abused child who never grew up, and he happened to have the money and fame to indulge that arrested development. The world praised (or mocked, but always remained fascinated by) the kind of childlike naivete he possessed, but only when it made for good art, and not so much when it made for a complicated life. Sometimes I think those two things, in terms of Jackson's art, were inextricable.
Or maybe that's just bullshit. Michael Jackson was never officially charged with molestation the first time around, and he was acquitted of the charges the second time around. But we all know perception has a way of becoming fact. And now he's dead. So the world has already begun to revise our last perception of him as an increasingly bizarre, absurd figure. In the long term, his art will transcend his transgressions.
But what I'm curious about is where people--fans--draw the line. What's a deal breaker? Exactly how great do you have to be, or precisely how ultimately forgivable must your crime be to still come out on the right side of respect? I think it's a complicated thing all around and there's likely no easy answer. But in the end, I guess, guiltily, I'm mostly kinda greedy for the goods. I'd still take a Michael Jackson over a Bono (sorry, Gold), no matter how many third-world countries' debt he wants to erase. I'm simplifying the choices here, of course, because there are plenty of artists who make great art and turn the crazy on themselves, only victimizing themselves, or who are able to maintain what we'd consider acceptable moral boundaries.
Thoughts?
Comments (8)
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I think the Thriller album is worth the molestation of a couple kids, thereby justifing Jacko's existence. I mean, if it were like 100,000 kids then maybe the line would have to be drawn, but when it's just a handful I guess I can look the other way, get my groove on to "Billie Jean" and ponder whether or not "PYT" was about Emanuel Lewis.
On the flipside, he probably should have been prosecuted for writing "Heal the World."
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The one thing I would say to all this is to echo your "He was never actually found guilty" sentiment. MJ always struck me as a troubled and strange individual. But I never saw him as dangerous. I hate that there will always be that specualation, and complete morons who have taken the hearsay as fact. There's a great article at Paste about the cultural significance Michael Jackson that's worth a read. Click here to read it.
I think history will remember the whole package. Van Gogh's art is still plenty appreciated despite the fact that he's also remembered as a crazy fuck that cut off his own ear.
Fuck the haters. people love hitler (neumann mic's and audio on tape anyone?), are facinated by manson, and I still love mutt lange even though he cheated on shania. I will love phil spector(who is as crazy as it gets) till I die. I'm convinced that that he wasn't TRYING to kill that broad, but I don't really give a fuck. Its a good story. Be my baby, folks. Michael was never convicted, and whatever. I don't care. We killed him. He was too sensitive to handle the kind of fame that was thrust upon him at a rediculously early age. The dude was a serious mother. Period. There is a reason he's got to top 8 slots on itunes. Shalim shalamalay! We are the ones to make a brighter day, so let's start giving.
i dont have the heart to say that im glad someone is dead, but i can say that i am thrilled to think that his poor kids might get a little relief from whatever kind of fucked up life he subjected them to (and of course im speculating; no one knows what happens behind closed doors- but i think i have a pretty good idea). its a horrible thought to imagine that someone might be better off without their parent, but i truly believe those kids, as some other kids, really are better off.
but yeah, i fucking love mjs music. yeah, i feel sorry as hell for the horrendous abuse and over-exposure he endured as a child/adult. but, like i said, im SO happy that those kids might finally get some peace.
Questions like Tracy's get a whole lot easier when someone is dead, as a whole lot of the musicians whose work I buy are. When I buy a CD of music by Spade Cooley today I'm not paying money to a guy who tortured his wife to death while their daughter watched, because he's dead now too. Same for Pat Hare, who brought to life his song "I'm Gonna Murder My Baby," or Ike Turner, whose crimes weren't at the same level, as far as I know, but who has plenty to answer for. (Of course, a lot of old blues guys never got any royalties anyway--if Ed Gein had been a blues singer in the 30s you would have been safe in assuming that your 79 cents for his record would never see his pockets.) I guess now Michael Jackson is in the same category as Spade and Pat, except that his alleged crimes were a whole lot different and I always felt more sorry for him than anything else.
That aside, if I buy a record, it's not an implicit statement of support for the musician who made it. I just want the record because I enjoy it. I don't worry much more about his morality than I do about the butcher who ground the hamburger I bought or the janitor who did a good job cleaning up my office. Maybe a little more, since you do have to mentally engage with a record in order to use it, and you'd like to think the person you're letting into your mind is a decent human. But I don't care all that much, and that's because to me the record is an artifact that has its own existence separate from the musician. The blood on his or her hands isn't on the record, unless the record is demonstrably a reflection of a badly led life--or maybe a foreshadowing of it, which is why "I'm Gonna Murder My Baby" does give me the creeps. (I don't like songs like that anyway though.) It's probably easier for me to say this because I'm not particularly interested in the idea of a record as a personal expression of the musician. The record sinks or swims on its own intrinsic merits, and biography is irrelevant. Often a producer has a lot more to do with a record's quality than the "artist"; a bass player or an engineer or maybe even the guy that brings the coffee might too. Obviously a writer who is not the same person as the featured performer may. I don't care where the record came from. If it's a good record it's a good record, and if I have something against the performer as a person, hell, I'll just buy it used.
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