Michael Jackson Around the World
The Legacy of the King of Pop will Endure from Paris to Tokyo
Jun 26, 2009
The untimely death of Michael Jackson demonstrates the worldwide adulation with American performers that frequently attract larger crowds in Europe and Asia than in their home country. How many artists from Cheap Trick to Bob Dylan have played Tokyo, releasing a “Live at Budokan” album attesting to an appeal bordering on reverence mixed with hysteria?
The Legacy of Michael Jackson
In Tallinn, Estonia, city tour guides take visitors to an outdoor amphitheater and proudly relate that Michael Jackson performed there years ago. It is a special point of reference. That this American icon of song, a larger-than-life figure, would come to Tallinn impresses and awes the inhabitants.
Szentendre is a sleepy village north of Budapest in Hungary frequented year round by tourists. Among the many museums, visitors can stroll through one dedicated to marzipan and marvel at the life-like confection in the perfect image of Michael Jackson.
Europeans have forgiven Jackson his alleged infidelities and errors of judgment. His pending concerts in London were all but sold out. Jackson’s death was on the front page of the German daily Bild where readers commented that, “I wish you freedom in your new world,” “Now you are like Elvis, a legend that will never die,” and “Our King of Pop has left us and we have only one question: Why?”
Michael Jackson and World Grief
A post from a Palestinian Michael Jackson fan living in occupied territory states in the Jerusalem Post, “A STAR stopped shinning in the Universe! Simply the Best forever.” (6/26) A brief commentary in the Hong Kong Standard compared Jackson to Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, and James Dean. Some press stories reported that fans believed Jackson’s death to be a “staged event” to promote his comeback.
Yet not all comments were favorable or forgiving. Clarissa Oon’s blog in the Singapore Straits Times called Jackson a “has-been pop star…spaced-out oddity.” She equated Jackson’s Neverland Ranch to a “shrine [built] to an arrested childhood.” But such comments seem to be in the minority as candle-light vigils are planned from Beijing to Paris.
Death as the Ultimate Immortality
Jim Morrison died in 1971 in Paris. Although no autopsy was performed, the death certificate listed the cause as heart failure. Buried in Le Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Morrison’s grave is still a tourist attraction, at one time the most prominent in Paris shortly after his death.
After the fatal accident that claimed the life of Princess Diana, local tour operators offered tourists the opportunity to travel the length of her last drive through Paris. The tour included a private BMW and a complimentary cocktail at the bar where the princess had been before the crash.
So will it be with Michael Jackson. There will be shrines, mostly in Europe where he had a large following. Unlike Europeans who tend to be more relativistic, Americans, as a whole, are less forgiving. But his music will live on into the future generations and he will always be remembered at the King of Pop. As one German blog entry put it, "you were one of us and will continue to be."
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