After seeing "This Is It" I was left with conflicted feelings and an overall sadness. in the film, Michael Jackson is both brilliant, and at times, artistically incoherent. At 50 he is still a more talented dancer than the ensemble cast 1/2 his age. He was mesmerizing, yet failed to connect with his audience on an authentic level. In life he was meek and soft spoken, while onstage he was a raging tornado of ambiguous, androgenus sex. Beloved as a child megastar, we watched him morph into a ghoulish character; fragile and troubled, who had legions of sycophants, but not a single trusted friend near him when he died. He was a driven perfectionist, putting himself on a self-proclaimed 'King of Pop' pedestal from which he was doomed to fall. Icons like Michael Jackson are destined to self-destruct because they simply can't live up to an inflated image that is never supported by a fulfilled, and filled life.
Looking at Michael Jackson's last swan song was bittersweet, for not only did we see, after many years absence, a trendsetting artist making a remarkable comeback, but we witnessed the end of a life, the stilling of a voice that made us dance as we grew up together. We look at 'Stars' and think that they have everything. Michael Jackson was just another in a long line of megastars that were caught in an existence without grounded reality or inner substance. Watching MJ, I couldn't help but mourn that darling, sparkling little boy who had such a bright future ahead of him., but who instead became a victim of the isolation and darkness that so often comes with fame. I'm choosing to remember Michael as that uncorrupted kid, still fresh and untainted by a dream gone wrong.
