Michael Jackson & the Death of the Icon

So yesterday, after news broke of the King of Pop’s passing, I turned to my 8-year-old cousin and asked if she knew who Michael Jackson was. She looked at me wide-eyed, confused for a brief moment, then flatly said, "No." I probably would have been more disturbed if she had answered, “Miley Cyrus," when I later asked her who her favorite singer was. But regardless, I was still a little unnerved. Jackson’s death signals the end of an era of icons as we know it. Or rather, the beginning of such an end. My little cousin's growing up in a very just-add-water age of pop commodities, where she'll never be able to cover her walls with the posters of girl groups and boy bands without being pressured to do so by American Idol, Nickelodeon, or the Disney Channel. Gone is Michael Jackson's moonwalk, Freddie Mercury's bad-ass aplomb, and even En Vogue's inimitable moxie. And I'm concerned. Not only for her, but for generations that'll come after -- and not know a world populated with bonafide idols and icons. It's safe to say that yes, with the King's death, America is now not only in mourning, but also in crisis.

Maybe one of the first things to mark the impending Rapture is this dissolution of the icon. Which explains why the only contemporary beast we’ve had that resembled anything iconic is Susan Boyle. But even she was short-lived and soon after got washed away by a torrent of parody and gallows humor. And maybe because we’ve become so cynical, it’s unlikely future generations will ever revel in hysteria tantamount to what people felt with Queen, ABBA, The Beatles, or The Supremes. They won’t even get anything comparable to either of the Jacksons, Madonna, Mariah Carey, or Whitney Houston. Shit. They’re even missing out on the two acts that best defined the rock-pop dichotomy of the 1990s: Nirvana and the Spice Girls. Their would-be icons—Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan for example—imploded with the force of their own celebrity.

It probably doesn’t help that these days, when musicians stumble into record label bear traps, they’re ensnared with only short-term profits in mind. So they’re groomed into the most easily digestible image possible. And the moment they fail to turn a profit, they’re chucked aside like used condoms. Not to say that this sort of cynicism wasn’t alive and well back in the Jackson 5’s heyday, but by no means was it so definitive and ruthless. Nor did it exist in such broad strokes and with such heavy force. But back then, and then gradually less so with time, pop stars were able to grow into their image. They were allowed a few missteps, thereby allowing for iconic symbols to emerge from their likeness, like MJ’s glove or even Ginger Spice’s Union Jack-emblazoned bustier.

Because pop stars are pieced together and groomed at breakneck speed and so perfunctorily, they tend to be incomplete and lack charisma. There’s no love anymore in the creation of a pop star. They’re hot for a minute, maybe three if they’re lucky. And then they sink to the bottom of the pile. These pop stars fail to leave behind any palpable legacy and rarely inspire nostalgia. I dare you to differentiate this and this and this. Maybe if luck remains on their side in the long run, these stars will score a Top 20 hit single somewhere in Central Europe three years later. But that’s it and then they’ll go the way of Debbie Gibson.

So who to tar, feather, waterboard, and subject to reruns of Love, Inc. for this demise of the icon? Well, understandably, it comes back to the way Jackson’s death was covered. Sure, blame the bloggers. Some of us were shameless in the horse race to break this news and all ensuing coverage. Others of us were pretty strident when the star was living. And then there were those who were just vile—and those aren’t bloggers, they’re deer ticks we should probably burn off America’s surface sooner than later.

Still, it’s not the online community people should be pointing fingers at. It’s the old-fashioned evening news. So desperate for ratings, eyeballs, and advertisers, there was something toxic spreading across television sets the world over last night. News agencies ogled and gaped at Jackson’s corpse. From the helicopter where a body bag emerged, to the van that was going to cart it away to a morgue. So at least for the bulk of his life, Jackson lived in an era when straight news wasn’t so yellowed around the edges—and was able to go in peace, most of his icon status intact. More unnerving is that now, in the wake of his death, his fans must live through the breakdown of his legacy and character. This doesn’t delicately deconstruct the idea of Michael Jackson the icon, it pulverizes it, until all we have left is Larry King’s crusty monotone needling Jackson’s eff-ups, when he should be celebrating his life, all while the camera is still focused on the van which now speeds down the highway.