Why did Barbara Walters announce on The View on Thursday morning that she would be switching her 20/20 special on Farrah Fawcett's life from Friday to Thursday? Was it because, like all of us, the media queen had heard that Farrah Fawcett would likely not live out the day and that she, Barbara Walters, wanted a more sensationalist time slot to satisfy the morbid ratings-seeking ghoul virus that seems to infest those who are star-powered media-makers?
If so, was she then disappointed to have her tabloid special usurped by the death of Michael Jackson?
Beyond her, was there an inkling of attention-seeking in the death of Michael Jackson? In other words, could his death have been deliberately, consciously, self-inflicted?
If not, did the multiple surgeries and subsequent drugs, working together against him, contribute to his early death? Will the toxicology report confirm this? And if so, will the family try to alter the reports or blame someone else for Michael's death?
Why is it that we laud those who are inherently talented and in this way, and others, bypass their culpability?
Why was Jackson given sole custody of his children? Did he seem like a fit father to you? I had only to see him swinging his infant child over the balcony railing once to think not. When I add in the child molestation charges and that convincing article I read several years ago in Vanity Fair, I am shocked that anyone -- and by anyone I especially mean a judge -- wouldn't question his stability and his in/ability to be a safe father.
Therefore, why is it okay to be famous and an alleged or otherwise molester? I think of Woody Allen who, after all, confessed to diddling his child, and who, before after all had come to pass, married his teenaged daughter. How weird is that, Shakespeare? Why do we sanction it? Why do we still pay to see his movies? Why do certain people -- and not others -- continue working for him? Which takes me to...why do we reward Alec Baldwin for his unconscionable treatment toward his daughter, and vilify the wives (Mia Farrow, Kim Basinger, Debbie Rowe) who, while also human, and as far as we know, haven't committed these egregious sins against their own or anyone's children?
Does enough money buy legal protection? What is enough money?
What was the turning point for Michael Jackson? Was his abusive father solely responsible for his son's depletion (my guess is mostly yes), and how would this boy have turned out had he come from a loving, ordinary (if there is such a thing) family?
Why does Larry King ask people questions and then make impatient-sounding noises before his guests have had time to answer thoroughly?
Why do we care, in any real way, what megalomaniac Celine Dion thinks about Michael Jackson? Couldn't we have learned more from the articulate, perceptive, kind-hearted Sheryl Crow, for example, who told us in meaningful ways what it meant to her to have been a Jackson back-up singer?
Why does anyone watch CNN unless it is for its National Enquirer components? And why is Anderson Cooper -- another articulate, intelligent, sweet-seeming person -- work for them? Couldn't someone offer him a job in a healthier environment, on a healthier network? Is there a healthier network?
Who will come out of the woodwork on account of Michael Jackson's death? Who will ride on his coattails? My guesses? Lisa Marie Presley. Corey Feldman. Maybe Diana Ross. Not Elizabeth Taylor.
Why is it we all feel culpable (or ought to) when young children are taken up, usually by their parents, into the star factory, and yet we do nothing to protect or to save them?
How soon will Barbara Walters be touting every interview she ever had with Michael Jackson? And will she tell us in modest terms and endless ways that she has mentioned him in her autobiography -- or will she have the newly-charged-with-plagiarism Elisabeth, who has clearly been out of favour with her boss this past week (for telling tales out of school) -- do it for her?
Is Ed McMahon up in heaven drinking scotch and playing golf with Johnny Carson?
Who can say?
What I do know is that yesterday not one, but two, tragic Hollywood figures died. I will remember Farrah Fawcett for her biting, gut-spilling performance as a battered woman in The Burning Bed, and I will remember Michael Jackson as that wide-eyed frenetic little boy on The Ed Sullivan Show.In the end, some things never change.
He was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene...
Billy Jean
