Reflections on Michael Jackson's This Is It

Just returned from my fourth viewing of This Is It. For some reason, I can't stop myself from watching this movie, much less discussing it on IMDB. It's becoming a fixation much like my obsession with Benjamin Button earlier this year, although, surprisingly, the TII discussions are less combatitive than TCCOBB. Maybe it's the fact that the vast majority of the IMDB posters could see that MJ's talents were indisputable and not subject to interpretation.

I know that whenever I watch TII, I am struck by the fact that I am watching someone who was destined to be on stage, unlike some who manage to marry, plastic surgery or Superhead themselves into the public discourse. Michael Jackson, more than anyone, proved that he was more than deserving of the attention and love his fans lavished on him. In this film, although it was rehearsal footage, he took the process and the results very seriously. You think of all of the efforts that tabloid reporters and correspondents made during the wake of his death to resurrect the molestation accusations, despite his acquittal, and his prescription drug abuse history and doctor shopping accusations and you watch TII and wonder WTF!

Given how the tabloid press laid out his drug issues, lung problems, money problems, etc., you would've thought that he would've been a feening, desperate, testy mess, but dude was an absolute professional. And he seemed to thrive on the possibilities of making an excellent show for his fans. He derived joy from the creative collaborative process and it was satisfying, as a fan, to know this, given how many, including shady members of his family, attempted to persuade the public that he was a hostage to the TII concerts.

I think that a lot of MJ fans, including myself, feel some sense of vindication because, for years, the entertainment media has opted to insert themselves into the stories instead of merely reporting them. Some of these 'journalists' or 'editors' were failed entertainers, although their pasts are never mentioned, despite the possibility that their perspectives may be biased due to these failures. Lately, a lot of the inaccurate information that these 'journalists' relayed to an oblivious public has come back to bite them in the butt; unfortunately, their comeuppances aren't as grand and splashy as their initial, inaccurate, and downright vindictive special reports and scoops. However, it was gratifying to see that Tom O'Neil's gloating about the opening box office being low due to the lack of trainwreck behavior was wrong, when the intial b.o. take was off by nearly $5M. It's gratifying seeing the usual peanut gallery on Issues with Jane Velez Mitchell gob-smacked about how energetic and engaged MJ seemed - kinda put a kibosh on JVM's incessant shilling of her addictions memoir. And most importantly, Diane Dimond seemed to have been reassigned to living up the cracks of the likes of Jon Gosselin and Levi Johnston - quite a comedown for an 'investigative reporter' who had the most spotlight of her whole pathetic career during her MJ torpedoing days.

My hopes for MJ's legacy remains the same - his kids should get the majority of his fortune; his name will be cleared, unequivocally; and those who knowingly participated in defaming him and defrauding the public by relaying very bad and slanderous misinformation will experience the same kind of public humiliation as he did. It continues to make no sense that these people continue to get gigs when there is no attempt to do a good job or honor any journalistic standards. It's ridiculous that a deceased pop star's concert rehearsals are expected to be precise and clean, and yet, those in charge of informing the public are allowed to be routinely sloppy.