Michael Jackson has been on TV for many reasons, on the news because of his sometimes bizarre lifestyle, he appears on music channels with his music and he has even been ridiculed on TV by many different comedy acts. Even his trial has been ‘reconstructed’ by actors on Sky One. I think that the target audience for this program is adults because it is shown late at night, when most children have gone to bed. Also, would you want your children watching the portrayal of a trial, in which a pop star is accused of child molestation? I know I wouldn’t. I think this type of media is very wrong because, I feel the publicity deprives not only the defendant but also the accuser and any witness’ of any kind of privacy and anonymity. I understand people have an interest in the outcome of the trial, but in a sensitive case such as this, people should be protected from the ensuing media frenzy. If any, only the charges and the verdict should be brought to the public’s attention. I know that if I was in court I wouldn’t want the public to know all the details. I feel that Michael Jackson’s right to privacy has been taken away.
In the newspapers and on the internet there has been a string of cruel cartoons/caricatures. They have taken his main features and emphasized them out of all proportion, not only that but they have blown facts out of proportion also. For example, a quote from Macaulay Culkin was: “My nights of fun with best pal Jacko”. This was used as a headline and it implies lewd acts, instead it was a description of just a pillow fight. The writers cleverly put the headline in big bold letters, but when I read the entire article the actual facts were in smaller writing below. To me the media seems to be biased against Michael Jackson and were making him into a ‘modern day Frankenstein’, but instead of being made of pieces of people he is fashioned from pieces of plastic surgery. This could have an impact on his court case because the people were seeing him in a comic way, not taking him seriously or treating him as not human, but his charges were not to be laughed at.
He has been through many changes in his physical appearance. First he is said to have bleached his skin, but he states that he suffers with a rare skin disease that changes the pigmentation of the skin. He has also had obvious plastic surgery on his nose and cheek bones, but he denies that too. This could have an influence on the trial because if he lies about that he could lie about other things also. I don’t know why someone would do such a thing. By changing his facial features and the colour of his skin so drastically, I think that he is taking away his cultural heritage. The question is why does he dislike himself so much that he would want to take away his history and change who he is? Maybe being identified as a member of a famous group at a very early age somehow prevented him from realising his own identity and stopped his social awareness skills from developing fully.
In a recent issue of ‘Q magazine’ they had two articles on Michael Jackson. The first was a positive article about his past successes in music, including ‘Billie Jean’ and ‘thriller’. The second was a negative article on the subject of his marriage with Lisa Marie Presley and how un-successful it was, but was it saying how bad he is at relationships or is it showing us that he is just normal? To me this seems as though the magazine is contradicting itself, first praising Michael Jackson and the next second ridiculing him. I think the magazine should choose which side of the trial they were on.
Michael Jackson first started in a band of children called the Jackson 5. The Jackson 5’s first started in 1968 and went on for many years but Michael Jackson eventually went on to become a solo singer and launched his first single ‘Ben’. He soon went on to release some great songs like ‘Billie Jean’ in 1979 and then in 1982 he brought out a great follow up album that everyone has heard of, ‘Thriller’ that would make him arguably “the biggest artist in the world”. At first the media was saying that he was a child prodigy but as time has gone on it has completely changed and it now says he is a child molester.
After looking at all this media coverage it leaves me asking four questions. The first is simply ‘is the media biased?’. In this case I definitely think that the media is biased, and instead of informing the public about need to know things like terrorist attacks the media has turned into a ‘rumour mill’ about celebrity ‘gossip’ like who’s had who’s baby. The second question is ‘whether this is good for the public?’ I think this is bad for the public because people should be able to read the facts of a story, so they can make an informed opinion themselves. Also the public should be able to read about current affaires not just celebrity love affairs. The third question is ‘what is the role of the press?’. I always thought that the press was a place to find useful information, but instead you find the opposite, like Brad Pitt has had an affair with Angelina Jolie, do we really need to know this, or should it be between the two celebrities? The fourth and final question is ‘what effect has this had on me?’. I think this has had some effect on me and the way I view media. It has left me asking questions for example: why did Michael Jackson pay off Jordie Chandler, and why was it publicised that he had done so? What is the media’s motive behind there publications? Even with these types of questions I still don’t think Michael Jackson is guilty. I think he never had a chance to experience his own childhood and I believe he is just trying to help others less fortunate than himself to experience their childhood in the best possible way.