The South Wing

Before the rising star began to fall again, before the invention of the boy band, before I learned how to read, I followed in my brother’s footsteps as a Michael Jackson fan.  Instead of going to our bedrooms, we would sometimes dance around in our footie pajamas to songs like “Thriller.”

“Thriller” is a product inextricably linked to the era it helped define; it is a movie in miniature from when music videos could be interesting in their own right.  I remember I found it hair-raising as a five-year-old, and I find it funny now; but I like it no less.  In the early nineties, when the M in MTV still mean “music,” the A in SAT still mean “achievement,” and the C in KFC still meant “chicken,” there would be top-10 music video countdowns almost daily after school, sporting such standbys as “November Rain,” “Livin’ on the Edge,” and, of course, “Thriller.”  The producers must have known that kids like me were watching the same videos over and over.  And that we would continue to do so because they were, and “Thriller” in particular was, fun to watch over and over.  I was not really a committed fan of Michael Jackson’s, but I suspect there are quite a few of us who did not actively follow his career–either in its early years of bamboo-like growth or the later years when it started to sway–and yet can point to at least one or two moments in our lives directly influenced by him.  And I bet most of us–fans and casual listeners alike–wish we could retain the uncomplicated adoration we had for him before he started to get into trouble.

It’s always a difficult matter to separate a man from his art–to question one but esteem the other.  I won’t presume to do that here, least of all with a case as complicated as that of the late Mr. Jackson; whatever his moral standing, it is a matter for him and the people he hurt and the people who hurt him.  But I will say this: if all unstable pop-stars went to hell, that would mean that there were no live rock-concerts in heaven.  And how could that be?

Rabbi Moses Maimonides identifies as on of the “13 Principles of Faith” of the Jewish religion, the belief that, when the Messiah arrives (said arrival being another of the 13) that the dead will rise.  And Michael Jackson will perform “Thriller” again.

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