The Pied Piper, once again
Monday was his hour of reprieve and joy shared spontaneously by the tabloids and not so readily by the broadsheets.
Dasu Krishnamoorty
Monday was a day of celebration for the world of pop music. A court at Santa Maria declared Michael Jackson innocent. This is the man who created a borderless universe of dance and music and lorded over it with progressively dwindling authority till a cranky mother slapped charges of child molestation against him in December 2003. Monday was his hour of reprieve and joy shared spontaneously by the tabloids and not so readily by the broadsheets. The tabloid celebration was natural because the King of Pop led a life that at once became mandatory content for the tabloids. Yet, there is no denying that the weird hero of the swinging classes was front page for the world of print media. The venerable New York Times yielded him the lead space.
Despite the ‘trial of the century’ swinging perilously between hope and doom, all newspapers in the US agreed that the all-white jury was extremely fair and even humane, some of them sobbed at the post-verdict press conference, to the sick and stumbling defendant. A major question the media raised was "What next for Jacko." Many of them were despondent about his future but some did research and found that he is not really broke. CNN makes a mention of how during the trial prosecutors made much of Jackson`s decline, saying, "there`s no question the singer`s musical popularity has nosedived since its peak in the 1980s. Even the New York Times thinks that MJ’s career has been in decline for a decade as he seemed to "retreat more into his own private world with each passing year." Sales of Jackson`s albums have slumped since the explosive success of 1982`s "Thriller," which at 26 million copies was the second-biggest-selling record in United States history, behind a greatest hits album by the Eagles. His last studio album, "Invincible," sold, according to NYT, just 2.1 million copies domestically after its release in 2001.
Not broke, really
The media are worried about the pop king’s comeback, though it does not seem to be as dismal as they fear. Most newspapers agree that a lot of what he has might go to compensate his defence team. The Times says, "Jackson, 46, must surmount a library`s worth of tabloid history that has cast him as a weakened, out-of-touch dance-pop relic -- not to mention the prospect of losing control of his music-publishing interests as he struggles with debts recently estimated at $270 million." "I think Michael has to get to a point where he just focuses and makes a great record," Rolling Stone magazine`s Anthony DeCurtis told CNN. He added that Jackson should take the opportunity to relieve himself of the pressure of repeating his overwhelming `80s success, including creating "Thriller," one of the best-selling albums of all time.
Lenders fear the huge fortune of the pop star could be at risk as his legal and other bills mount. He is not broke, he is still asset rich -- he has assets of value, says Brett Pulley, senior editor at Forbes magazine. Those assets include music catalogs. Jackson owns half of Sony/ATV Music Publishing, which controls 200,000 songs, including most of The Beatles` and Elvis Presley`s hits, CNN reported. Those alone are worth more than $500 million. However, like so many people, the King of Pop has a cash flow problem, the report said. According to USA TODAY, the pop singer’s supporters point to healthy revenue streams and assets, including perennial Thriller sales, his music publishing holdings and Neverland Valley Ranch, valued at $100 million. Rev. Jesse Jackson says, "The singer, whose assets are two-thirds greater than his debts, is not sinking into poverty and the crisis erupted only because of a gap between arrival of royalty payments and the loan deadline."
Most American media compared the Jackson courtroom hearings to the drama of O.J.Simpson’s trial. The New York Times said, "The courtroom drama had profound implications for Mr. Jackson`s life and career but did not rise to the level of legal spectacle offered by the O. J. Simpson double-murder trial a decade ago. The nature of the crime was different, Mr. Jackson`s career was already in decline and the judge in this case, Rodney S. Melville, barred cameras from the courtroom and imposed a gag order on all participants." Seth Stevenson, writing for the Slate.Com wrote, "When this trial began, we geared up for a circus. That’s not what we got. The jurors approached this whole thing with utmost seriousness. I watched them take copious notes, stay attentive during deathly boring testimony, and keep poker faces all time. Again, this was not like the OJ trial - where deliberations for a months-long case lasted less than four hours."
Several newspapers also thought that Michael was lucky that the jurors overlooked a history of Jackson that really had a bearing on this case. The Daily News wrote, "Jackson probably did at least part of what he was accused of. And his brazenly public acknowledgment that he likes to have children share his bed was not only sickening, but foolhardy. Stevenson recalled that when he first attended the trial, his sister had commented, "I’m completely certain that he’s molested some children in the past - just maybe not particularly this child. Michael did bad stuff before, but this kid is faking it for money." But the defence argued that Michael was at heart an emotionally stunted ten-year-old.
The media believed that it was the aggressive behaviour of the mother of the kid, alleged victim of Jackson’s advances, that tilted the verdict in favour of Jackson. "During a post-verdicts news conference, attended by all 12 jurors, many expressed a strong distaste for the mother of the accuser. They said they were offended when she snapped her fingers at them, doubted the values she had taught her children, and, especially, disapproved of her decision to allow her son to share Jackson`s bed,"
reported the Los Angeles Times.
According to the New York Times, the mother appeared to have lost the jury with her "rambling, incoherent and at times combative" testimony. She argued with Jackson’s lawyers and lectured the jury. A woman juror said that she disliked it intensely when "she snapped fingers at us."
India connection
The ageing singer has a big following of devotees in the metros and urban centers of India too. While Jackson was page one for nearly every newspaper, the Hindustan Times was first to honour him with an editorial. The Hindu followed suit not before it carried a news analysis in its opinion page, reproduction of an article by Jeff Leeds from the New York Times. Most newspapers carried agency reports barring the Indian Express and the Times of India. The Express report by Elana Ashanti Jefferson discussed Jackson’s chances of a comeback and cited experts in the music industry radiating optimism. Editor-in-chief of Blander magazine Craig Marks said in the Express report that the latest legal turn could boost Jackson’s prospects. The Times of India (net edition) report is a listing of the highs and lows of the singer’s undulating career. The fifty words of the Hindustan Times editorial available on the net talked of the reversal of defence and prosecution positions. For the Hindu, Leeds quotes Londell Macmillan, a longtime music lawyer, as saying, "Culturally, he will never be the Michael Johnson we all know him to be. One thing we do know is his voice is permanently ingrained in the minds of most music listeners. But he will never be the kind of trendsetter and icon he used to be."
Will the future take Jackson to India, close to his millions of fans? Amit Banerjee wrote in HTTabloid.Com (31 March 05) that the pop singer had acquired 250 acres near a nondescript ashram in Haridwar, a deal he had signed when he visited India in 1996. An ashram official told Banerjee, "We have heard from his (Jackson’s) agents last month. They said Michael was very upset at the way the West had treated him and wanted to sell off all his assets after the California trial was over. He would move permanently to India and use his money to set up orphanages in different parts of the country." According to Banerjee, large-scale construction is already "happening" at the Hanuman Sevak Ashram. One may wonder at the premonition of an ashram resident who told Banerjee, "He (Jackson) has Swamiji’s blessings. Nothing can happen to him."
The Official Indian Michael Jackson Fan Club quotes an old Cine Blitz report on Jackson’s last visit to India, confirming Jackson’s love for children: "When he was being driven out of the airport in his 20-car motorcade, he stopped his Toyota, got rid of his security guards and stepped out to meet the urchins lined up along the highway to catch a glimpse of him. He picked up several children and hugged and kissed them. He then spent a few minutes with them before he proceeded to the Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray’s residence, Matushree." Here, Vir Sanghvi tells (Rediff.Com 4 Jan 99) an interesting anecdote. "Apparently, Thackeray now points proudly to the toilet that Michael Jackson used at Matoshree, Thackeray`s Mumbai home. If he sees any contradiction between objecting to lesbianism and in hosting a crotch-grabbing alleged paedophile, Thackeray does not let on."
The King and his devotees are inseparable, physically and emotionally. They were there, men and women from all over the world swelling the modest population of Santa Maria. Add to them around two thousand journalists who came from 30 countries to witness and report back the critical hour. In New York, hundreds of people thronged the Times Square where a giant screen showed the jurors reading out the verdict count by count. After his acquittal the great showman left a message on his web site comparing his reprieve to the fall of the Berlin Wall, to the birth of the Rev. Martin King Luther Jr. and the release of Nelsen Mandela from prison.
It hardly needs mention that the court verdict was the lead story in all American newspapers including the New York Times which carried four big stories occupying two entire pages. The tabloids, the Daily News and the New York Post began with an appetizer on the front page covered with the troubled face of Jackson and surprisingly gave the same heading "Boy, Oh Boy" in poster size types. The singer claimed ten pages of the Daily News not counting another half page on page 35 devoted to Opinions. The Post allotted seven pages to the Santa Maria story and a half page for comment by Liz Smith. The Wall Street Journal pushed the courtroom finale to page 1 of its B section. The America edition of the Financial Times relegated the story to an inside page. But the USA TODAY made it the lead and devoted four pages in the A section and another three pages in the D section. TODAY also wrote an editorial.
Contact: dasukrishnamoorty@hotmail.com