Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Michael Jackson is dead

Michael Jackson is dead. Poor boy. I remember how adorable he was as a kid.

I guess you can say that he never grew up, he only looked worse over time.



Ann

What's scary is mom finds me after Farrah Fawcett passes on, and says to me, "Hollywood dies in threes; who's the third going to be?"

Such a shame about MJ. At some point this weekend I will have to get up and do the Thriller dance.

JD

Ed McMahon was the third.

SQD

Ed McMahon was the first. I said the same to a coworker after he told me Farrah died. I didn't expect the third to be in the same day.

In all honesty, MJ doesn't bother me too much. As I told my husband last night, after all of the plastic surgery and legal battles, he was no longer the MJ I knew. Michael Jackson was already dead, and was just replaced by some... alien. It's sad, but I've done my mourning.

I thought Ed McMahon was second, after David Carradine.

It's weird to feel like I've lost an iconic piece of my childhood.
The special effects are kind of lame now, but this was always my fav MJ video as a kid. The dance moves are still badass.

While that one is my fav, this one continually blows my mind with how amazing it is.

I feel bad for Farrah Fawcett. Her death is so overshadowed now, and she suffered so much more, and longer.

I cried when I found out. MJ is my fave artist of all time. There's not one wedding that I've been to where I don't request Thriller and do the dance out on the dance floor (even if I'm by myself). Me goes to watch my VHS copy of Moonwalker. /sniff

David Carradine passed on June 3rd, so it's a little far away to be part of the trifecta. The three's usually come within the same week.

Although in recent years MJ, could i say became a little weird. There is no denying that he was a great entertainer. You wouldnt sell 750 million albums for no reason.

My heart goes out to his children, what will happen to them. I hope the media give them the privacy they deserve.

I was really shocked myself. I mean, fifty is not an age to die, is it? And all this talk about dying in threes just gives me shudders.


Celebs die in Threes?
or
Celebs don\'t die in Threes?
These two blogs do contradict, but somehow the notion, whether true or not, just seems weird in a not-so-nice way.

50 is not the age you'd think about for dying, but unfortunately death can strike any time. My cousin died yesterday; she was 41 (six months older than me). About two years ago one of my friends died; she was in her late thirties.

You just never know.

PJ

Pam - I'm sorry for your loss.

Like Karen, MJ sorta died for me years ago. I grew up listening to his music and I was in my early teens when learning how to moonwalk and breaking your penny loafers imitating him was the height of cool. Sadly, though, once he started to look so, well, freakishly odd, I couldn't watch the spectacle anymore. I still admire his talent and I hope he's finally found a small measure of peace.

I, too, am sorry for your loss, Pam.

Like others here, I couldn't relate to MJ after all his plastic surgery made him look so freakish. At the same time I could relate to the tragedy of his situation. He became a big star at what age, seven? He got all that attention and all that praise when he was a kid not only because he was a star, but because he was a child star. No wonder he would try to stay that cute and innocent forever.

But precisely because he was a child star and a hugely important bread winner for his family, MJ wasn't allowed to have a normal childhood. So not only did he learn to want to stay a child forever, he also started fantasizing about a much better childhood than the one he had really had. So he tried to give himself that kind of childhood once he had grown up and gained control of his own career and money. He tried to be a happy child when he should have been a man.

Michael Jackson grew up in an age when the United States was a lot more race-conscious than it is today. He must have grown up thinking that he was a cute kid, since everybody said so, but even so he must have thought that he would have been a lot cuter if he had been white. So he tried to become white through the aid of plastic surgery, but he only ended up looking weird and sick that way.

It's fun to watch child stars, but you have to wonder about the price they pay for their careers. Judy Garland, one of the first child stars, was certainly troubled and died too young. River Phoenix died at 23. Heather O'Rourke, child star of the Poltergeist movies, died at twelve. Macaulay Culkin of the Home Alone movies is troubled. And we all know about Britney Spears.

Becoming a great star before you have had time to grow up and and grow into yourself must be a punishing and possibly stunting or even fatal experience.

Even though Shirley Temple did well all her life.



Ann

Oh! I, too, am sorry for your loss, Pam.

I had a second cousin who died at seventeen , and though I wasn't close to him, his family never got over the loss. I'm sure everybody will have some or such sad tale to quote. I guess being a celeb is what makes MJ and the others more... well, highlighted.

I do agree with you, Ann. IMO, these people beget fame too early and have to strive harder than before to retain it. It must be a huge burden for small kids (still under their parents' care) who are forced by fans and family alike to live up to what name they've earned. The urge to keep on proving forever that they're still the *little stars* probably makes them wish for a different sort of childhood/adolescence than the one that they've had. And when they are on their own, they set out to achieve the one thing that they lost - better childhood. So that's why they probably end up being kids when other people of their age grow up.

Of course, I don't mean everybody. There are some child-stars there who've grown into really normal, untroubled people... but that, again, is the joint effort of the immediate family and friends and the person's own attitude, IMHO.

Pam, I'm also sorry for your loss.

In response to some of what Ann said:
MJ was 5 when he started performing with the Jackson 5 and I do agree that attention at a young age definitely can contribute to the child being "messed up" later in life, a lot of MJ's issus were from abuse by his father (physical and verbal) and his older brothers bringing women into their rooms (which Michael shared with them on tour) and having sex in front of him. This, I'm sure, contributed to his mental illness (he said as much in interviews and his biography). And although many people thought he was cute when he was a kid, his father (and other family members) told him his nose made him ugly. They also said this to some of the other Jackson children, hence Latoya and Janet's nose jobs.

I couldn't agree more. His lyrics to his song 'Childhood' pretty much sum up what you said Ann.

I'm sad that my children won't get to grow up with MJ like I got to, but at the same time, I'm glad that they won't see what he had become ~ they can know him only as he used to be.

I always heard that the change in his skin color was due to a rare skin disease--I don't think it's possible to change skin color through plastic surgery.

Darcy, you're right. He had white blotches that showed up on his skin, a disorder known as Vitiligo . Now I don't think ALL his skin turned white because of this disorder. I'm pretty sure that he did have some sort of skin treatments to lighten his skin so the blotches were not as obvious but it's been awhile since I read this so I'm not 100% sure.

Sorry for your loss Pam.

It's strange that everyone is saying how much they miss MJ now all over the internet, when a few years ago, he was Public Enemy Number One because he was accused of child molestion. Anyone else accused of that would get the following after their death, wheather they did it or not (I'm not saying he did or didn't); "Glad that f****r's dead." Hypocrites we humans are.

Liked the music though. Hope his family's OK.

I think most of the Internet hooplah are probably actual fans who stayed true (even during the trial) but the media is definitely hypocritical... but that's nothing new.

Well, there have been several people on this thread who've specifically said they were MJ fans *before* he went all weird and was accused of child molestation.

Being a child star is hugely hazardous to your mental health. Any sort of fame is, really; look at Susan Boyle or, well, most Hollywood stars. Being a celebrity often means having no limits, and that's character-destroying. But at least people who become famous as adults had that background of having to behave, whereas child stars often haven't, and then they self-destruct. And when famous people self-destruct they get a *lot* of attention.

Good thing there's nothing more important going on in the world, like people being massacred in Iran, or something.

PJ
(thanks for the condolences, guys, I appreciate it)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ChiefPam:
[qb]Good thing there's nothing more important going on in the world, like people being massacred in Iran, or something.

Yep. Quite right too.