Paris Jackson's Speech the Creepiest Moment? Not Even

Jessica, though there were plenty of things to be creeped out by during the Michael Jackson memorial service yesterday, for me Paris Jackson’s short and tearful tribute to her father didn’t number among them. In fact (along with Brooke Shields’ speech and Jermaine Jackson’s vocally unsure but heartbreaking performance of “Smile”), Paris' appearance struck me as one of the day’s few uncreepy moments. Given that Paris and her brothers have been made to wear Halloween masks in public for most of their lives, I can understand why it might have been meaningful for her to step forward in public with her own face on.

Far ickier was the whitewashing of Jackson family dysfunction in the speech of Al Sharpton (has he ever said anything more demonstrably untrue than “wasn’t nothing strange about your daddy”?) and in that horrid occasional poem by Maya Angelou, read by Queen Latifah. In addition to being just an atrocious piece of doggerel (“now that our bright and shining star could slip away from our fingertips like a puff of summer wind …”), Angelou’s poem was awash in pious falsehoods: “Despite the anguish of life, he was sheathed in mother love and family love …” Obviously a funeral is not the place to probe old wounds, but give me a break. Joe Jackson’s ruthless careerism, and the allegations of abuse leveled by several of his children, are well known, and if Katherine Jackson really let all that happen, she must be a world-class enabler. (Joe’s self-defense is chillingly clueless: "I never beat him … I whipped him with a stick and a belt.”) In the looming custody battle between the Jacksons and her biological mother Debbie Rowe, Paris will need all the poise and courage she showed at the podium yesterday.

Photograph of Al Sharpton by Mario Anzuoni-Pool/Getty Images.

 

 

Comments

Oh Really?

By: Clearthinker | Mon, 07/13/2009 - 12:41

I hate to beat a dead horse...unless of course it suits me...but please note that Jermaine was so crushed by his brother's death that it took him all of three days after the memorial...to our knowledge, could have been earlier...to start trying to line up a Vegas gig for the Jackson 5 Reunited! Of course had this been brought up while Michael was alive, he would no doubt have said, "Over my dead body." And on that point, seeing as how it is becoming more and more obivous who is benefitting from his death, perhaps spotlight seeking sleuth LaToya might look a bit closer to home when she suggests Michael was murdered. For money!
Pathetic.

um, sorry

By: aprjoy | Wed, 07/08/2009 - 23:07

I wonder what kinds of funerals you have attended. Last I checked, the purpose of a memorial service is to celebrate the legacy of the deceased and to allow his or her loved ones to grieve. I don't think bashing someone's reputation or focusing on family tensions fits into that. And, really, who the hell are you to question the Jacksons' love for Michael? Even if his parents failed in many ways, that doesn't mean their relationship was entirely unloving. And I think it's even more questionable to deny the close bond he had with many of his siblings, including Janet and Jermaine.

The Jackson Circus

By: Clearthinker | Wed, 07/08/2009 - 20:16

Dana, having been a great fan of your movie reviews(and I still am, though I may disagree from time to time), it pert near broke my heart to have to take you on for your support of Hanna Rosin regarding Neda. But with your deconstruction of the Jackson Memorial, you are back in my good books even though you didn't go far enough. A few points:

1. I suggest the reason the siblings wore sunglasses...as disgraceful as that showbiz conceit was in the first place, given the circumstances...was to hide the fact that there were no real tears. This is a family of showbiz whores, who have sliced and diced eachother for decades, not least of all Michael, who by leaving them put most of them effectively out of business. The choked back tears(I was howling, truly...I have suffered catastrophic loss, and managed to keep my shit together to eulogize the day after...let alone a week) of Jermaine et al could only be sucked up by the empty-lived masses that make Star Trekkies look like sober attorneys.

2. Al Sharpton..what can we say? What a lowlife. I truly thought we saw the last of him and his sidekick(or is it the other way around?)Jesse Jackson when Obama was elected. Finally, I thought, black Americans finally had a true leader who cared for their interest rather than for his own shameless selfpromotion, for the first time since Martin. But no, here he is, imposing his criminal presence anywhere that black people congregate. Why doesn't everyone wise up, and rise up, and tell him to get lost and live off all that he has swindled out of his community?

3. Kudos to Liz and to Diana Ross for not showing, and contributing to, the whitewashing of Michael's reputation. If I hear again how tragic a figure he was, as a euphemism for his serial molestation of young boys(ok he was acquitted...so was OJ!), I will selfcombust. Even if he were the greatest entertainer of the century(was it Al who hyperbolized that?Maybe Wolf Blitzer?), which I would dispute..at best in the top 10...it would not excuse his behaviour. He seems to have gotten a politically correct pass. Poor Elvis(tell me Jackson's crotch grab was more of a zeit geist changer than Elvis' hippy shake?)was more criticized and derided for his weight and his nude wrestling proclivities..with of-age women, mind you...than Michael for his dermatological mishugas and his playful antics with underage boys.

That's it for now.I consider us kissed and made up.