I am experiencing a rather weird feeling – three cultural icons whose flames burned brightest during my own youth have all been extinguished in the same week. First Ed McMahon, who, for years has been but a caricature of himself, died, essentially of old age, at 86. Not a big surprise, except I wonder how someone who was so vibrant when I was a teen managed to get that old?! A friend pointed out that deaths like his make her feel old, and I get that. But so do the deaths of Farrah and Jacko today – at least for me. Because I can still remember believing that only old people lose contemporaries in any large number – and perhaps because we lost a mom at my oldest daughter’s school to ovarian cancer this month – I’m feeling a bit too close to death’s doorway.
I was never a big fan of Farrah, but I know several men who, as boys, would glaze over just staring at her poster on their bedroom walls. She and her fellow Angels were early purveyors of girl-power – except it was the toxic kind, a power that came primarily from great bodies, beautiful faces and big hair. Oh, and yeah, they could kick butt against the bad guys, of course. Theirs was a cultural impact similar to Barbie’s – a completely unrealistic picture of femininity to strive for, girls! But still, they were women in formerly man-held roles, and they were part of my girlhood, for better or worse. Farrah, of course, was always the top angel. Not a role model, although back then some tried to paint her as such; just an icon, replete with faults that became more apparent as she got older and the media more intrusive. Like her or not, I am saddened by the long suffering she had to endure up to her end.
As for Michael Jackson, I simply don’t know how to feel. Over the last several years, he’s become the poster boy for creepy – and the accusations of pedophilia only made his bizarre appearance and behavior that much more disconcerting. But there was a time when he was brilliant, giving us fantastic music and mesmerizing choreography. His changing face over the years, hacked away by plastic surgeons with more greed than good sense, seemed to characterize inner demons edging toward his surface, taking him over, replacing a genius with a disfigured freak. His talent usurped his childhood, and the residual dysfunction rose up and usurped the rest of his life.
Still, his “Off the Wall” album defined a 24-hour drive to Scottsdale, AZ, for a carload of sorority sisters during my junior year, and ‘ABC’ et al were some of the first “pop” songs I ever heard. I loved them. More recently, though, I haven’t been able to get past his bizarre parenting and the possibility that his fantasy Neverland-childhood life was a cover-up for the abuse of little boys. Sad that I’d feel that way, since he was cleared of those charges – but in my mind, the questions remain. And sad that for some of us, the oddity of his later life has, for years, overshadowed his arguable genius. Whether you liked his music or not, he had the potential, once, for greatness.
Perhaps now that he’s gone, his songs will once again define him. Now that we are no longer waiting for the next bizarr-o sighting of “The Gloved One,” we can let go of those images and remember him for his real legacy, his music. Unless, of course, you were one of the little boys.
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