Random
I don't know why this came to mind, but I was just thinking about an episode of Good Times I saw a few days ago (hey, I was bored.)
Michael had gotten suspended from school for calling George Washington a racist. Everyone flipped out--how dare you say such things about the father of our country, blah blah blah. And the kid was like, hey, I'm just telling the truth! The guy owned slaves, hello? Emperor's New Clothes and all that.
We still do this. We still elevate famous people--whether politicians or entertainers or even just reality show stars--to some sort of higher plane, and people get really, really defensive when any criticism is aimed at them. It happened during the election, when Obama supporters attacked anyone critical of his lead balloon grasp of GLBT and women's issues. It's happening right now with people refusing to allow for criticism of Jon and Kate Gosselin, and the terrible way they're marketing their kids and their own personal tragedies. And it's definitely happened with every dead famous person ever, from Nixon to Reagan and now MJ.
Look: Just because someone has had their image or voice distributed to a large number of people doesn't mean they get a +10 of critical immunity. Fame does not confer halos. Conversely, it also doesn't mean people are automatically horrible and thus should be subject to harsher criticism than the non-famous (don't get me started on the people giving shit to Dustin Lance Black for apparently being slutty enough to take pictures with a boyfriend. Ooooh. Skerry!)
Famous people are just more well-known than you and me. That's all. That's the only difference. On occasion, they're famous for being particularly good at some sort of artistic, athletic or political skill, but that alone also doesn't make them inherently better or worse people. Many, many lesser-known geniuses exist across many different, though less photogenic fields, and they're not held up as either untouchable or fair for target practice.
What makes a person good or bad isn't how many people know their name or how good they are at a given skill. It's how they treat others. No amount of achievement in any area makes up for someone who has caused grave harm to other people. On rare occasions, someone may be able to recognize, accept and atone for their bad behavior (though most of the time, I'd say such atonements are usually just lip service to religion to get a get out of hell free card) but most of the time, if someone is so thoroughly rotten that they see nothing wrong with harming helpless kids or animals or beating or killing another person, they're going to remain pretty bad. And they remain so regardless of whether they're the plumber next door or someone with six dozen Grammys.
It's bad enough when people flip out when you point out that the God of the Bible was an asshole, and hey, so was that jackass Saul of Tarsis. Religion does strange things to people, and they get very unreasonable when it's questioned. But, y'know, 2,000 years of brainwashing will do that. What makes even less sense is when people do this with celebrities. I really, really don't give a shit how good a musician Michael Jackson was. On a personal level, he was a creepy asshat. Don't expect me to ignore that and pretend otherwise.
Michael had gotten suspended from school for calling George Washington a racist. Everyone flipped out--how dare you say such things about the father of our country, blah blah blah. And the kid was like, hey, I'm just telling the truth! The guy owned slaves, hello? Emperor's New Clothes and all that.
We still do this. We still elevate famous people--whether politicians or entertainers or even just reality show stars--to some sort of higher plane, and people get really, really defensive when any criticism is aimed at them. It happened during the election, when Obama supporters attacked anyone critical of his lead balloon grasp of GLBT and women's issues. It's happening right now with people refusing to allow for criticism of Jon and Kate Gosselin, and the terrible way they're marketing their kids and their own personal tragedies. And it's definitely happened with every dead famous person ever, from Nixon to Reagan and now MJ.
Look: Just because someone has had their image or voice distributed to a large number of people doesn't mean they get a +10 of critical immunity. Fame does not confer halos. Conversely, it also doesn't mean people are automatically horrible and thus should be subject to harsher criticism than the non-famous (don't get me started on the people giving shit to Dustin Lance Black for apparently being slutty enough to take pictures with a boyfriend. Ooooh. Skerry!)
Famous people are just more well-known than you and me. That's all. That's the only difference. On occasion, they're famous for being particularly good at some sort of artistic, athletic or political skill, but that alone also doesn't make them inherently better or worse people. Many, many lesser-known geniuses exist across many different, though less photogenic fields, and they're not held up as either untouchable or fair for target practice.
What makes a person good or bad isn't how many people know their name or how good they are at a given skill. It's how they treat others. No amount of achievement in any area makes up for someone who has caused grave harm to other people. On rare occasions, someone may be able to recognize, accept and atone for their bad behavior (though most of the time, I'd say such atonements are usually just lip service to religion to get a get out of hell free card) but most of the time, if someone is so thoroughly rotten that they see nothing wrong with harming helpless kids or animals or beating or killing another person, they're going to remain pretty bad. And they remain so regardless of whether they're the plumber next door or someone with six dozen Grammys.
It's bad enough when people flip out when you point out that the God of the Bible was an asshole, and hey, so was that jackass Saul of Tarsis. Religion does strange things to people, and they get very unreasonable when it's questioned. But, y'know, 2,000 years of brainwashing will do that. What makes even less sense is when people do this with celebrities. I really, really don't give a shit how good a musician Michael Jackson was. On a personal level, he was a creepy asshat. Don't expect me to ignore that and pretend otherwise.