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Was MJs success worth it?

someplace_else said:
Sure this level of fame is insane and I think no one can imagine to live like that. But let's not forget, he also chose that path and pushed it further with a lot of choices he made.
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It's interesting you feel he chose that.

I know he wrote a manifesto at the end of a Jackson's tour where he does eerily accurately lay out his intention to be the biggest artist, and this may be a good reference point to the fact that he did chose the path he did.

But I've always felt differently about this.
He was probably performing from his earliest known memory, to the point that not finishing an education or making friends and being the breadwinner in the family was his norm. I have always doubted whether someone who was raised in this manner ever had reference points for alternative paths. I feel he decided to do the best at the only thing he knew, it was like a security blanket that unfortunately suffocated him.

I once read that the Truman Show was inspired by MJ, at the end of the Truman Show the main character becomes aware of another world outside the manufactured world he had been obliviously living in and he was able to escape. I feel MJ never really had that insight or even the chance to escape.
Sadly I think death was his escape.
 
jasmine.uddin said:
It's interesting you feel he chose that.

I know he wrote a manifesto at the end of a Jackson's tour where he does eerily accurately lay out his intention to be the biggest artist, and this may be a good reference point to the fact that he did chose the path he did.

But I've always felt differently about this.
He was probably performing from his earliest known memory, to the point that not finishing an education or making friends and being the breadwinner in the family was his norm. I have always doubted whether someone who was raised in this manner ever had reference points for alternative paths. I feel he decided to do the best at the only thing he knew, it was like a security blanket that unfortunately suffocated him.

I once read that the Truman Show was inspired by MJ, at the end of the Truman Show the main character becomes aware of another world outside the manufactured world he had been obliviously living in and he was able to escape. I feel MJ never really had that insight or even the chance to escape.
Sadly I think death was his escape.
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I would be curious to know more about that manifesto you mentioned. Can you direct me to a reference?
 
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jasmine.uddin said:
It's interesting you feel he chose that.

I know he wrote a manifesto at the end of a Jackson's tour where he does eerily accurately lay out his intention to be the biggest artist, and this may be a good reference point to the fact that he did chose the path he did.

But I've always felt differently about this.
He was probably performing from his earliest known memory, to the point that not finishing an education or making friends and being the breadwinner in the family was his norm. I have always doubted whether someone who was raised in this manner ever had reference points for alternative paths. I feel he decided to do the best at the only thing he knew, it was like a security blanket that unfortunately suffocated him.

I once read that the Truman Show was inspired by MJ, at the end of the Truman Show the main character becomes aware of another world outside the manufactured world he had been obliviously living in and he was able to escape. I feel MJ never really had that insight or even the chance to escape.
Sadly I think death was his escape.
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But I think there would have been no other path for him to go down, don't you think 🤷? What would have been the alternative?

As a kid, of course he was pushed tremendously to go this way. But when he got older or as an adult he did a lot of things to become as famous as he was.
 
I would say as someone who’s been following the conversation about MJ in the black community for her entire life that it has always been an exaggeration amplified by the media that black folks widely rejected Michael. It’s even less accurate now that he’s dead and gone, his appreciation within the black community far outweighs dissenters.
 
R1chard said:
Plus we've come to realise that if you ignore racism it goes away.
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Hi maybe you should test your own subconscious prejudices (racial, gender and other biases) with this test. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/Study?tid=-1

We are all implicitely influenced by our societies even if it contradicts our social values. According to the researchers behind this test, the only cure against those involuntary prejudices is to actively expose yourself to contrary experiences, like raising your awareness for positive black role models.
Which you obviously do as an MJ fan 🙃
 
squirrelinthetree said:
According to the researchers behind this test, the only cure against those involuntary prejudices is to actively expose yourself to contrary experiences, like raising your awareness for positive black role models.
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Well, after reading this thread, last night I got out my whole-school photo from 1993. I counted every face, and white people made up about 48%. At the time it seemed like every film I saw with my schoolfriends had Eddie Murphy in it (Boomerang etc). We all listened to MC Hammer and watched the NBA...

Then there was that phase where everybody worshipped Samuel L. Jackson and Mike Tyson. But perhaps he's not such a positive role model...

squirrelinthetree said:
Which you obviously do as an MJ fan 🙃
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Another of my childhood heroes is Muhammad Ali. I went to his museum in Louisville about 10 years ago and it really moved me. In fact the only book I've read in the last decade has been his autobiography.
 
A non-fan told me without neverland Mj wouldn't have had all these problems he could have led a normal life with a woman and children like his brothers
 
mjfanboy27 said:
A non-fan told me without neverland Mj wouldn't have had all these problems he could have led a normal life with a woman and children like his brothers
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Certainly Neverland became a huge part of his undoing to the point that he exiled himself from the place. However, I'm not convinced that MJ was ever capable of living a normal life due to the nature of how abnormal his life had been, although he did try for that brief period with LMP.
 
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