Tag: pop culture

Thoughts on the Death of Michael Jackson

Posted on June 27, 2009

The life, death, and career of Michael Jackson are now ubiquitous. Turn any media on, and there it is, staring you in the face. I first found out by flipping my cell phone on and staring at the Yahoo headline. It seemed ill-fitting that such news was first shared between me and my phone. It’s as if I expected another human to deliver such news, the death of a pop icon.

What are we to make of all the media attention to Jackson’s death? What are we to make of the life and career of Jackson? Entire books will soon be released on all of this, so I won’t try to compete (nor am I capable) with the experts. Nor will I try to provide a savvy analysis. Instead, let me share some reflections by Andrew Sullivan

I loved his music. His young voice was almost a miracle, his poise in retrospect eery, his joy, tempered by pain, often unbearably uplifting. He made the greatest music video of all time; and he made some of the greatest records of all time. He was everything our culture worships; and yet he was obviously desperately unhappy, tortured, afraid and alone.

I grieve for him; but I also grieve for the culture that created and destroyed him. That culture is ours’ and it is a lethal and brutal one: with fame and celebrity as its core values, with money as its sole motive, it chewed this child up and spat him out.

And Carl Trueman’s thoughts, which I found insightful:

I never liked Jackson’s music but he was clearly a hugely popular and talented entertainer.  And he continues to entertain in death — not just because his records can be played but, at least for a week or two, because the media are able to play his death as one more big showbiz event, burying the tragedy of real death, real bereavement,  and really shattered and terminated relationships under the schmaltz of the faux-bereavement of his fans through the sanitizing and distancing medium of television and video.  Of course, the response to his death by the people on the street says a lot about the importance of entertainment in our age, indeed, about the idolatries of the modern world. But is also tells us something about the entertainment media.  Like casinos in Las Vegas, come rain or shine, the House always wins.

HT: JT

Is Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder?

Posted on March 30, 2009

It has been said that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” That the beauty of a person or thing is not intrinsic to that person or thing, but is determined by the person who views it. That beauty is subjective, relative, referential. What you find beautiful, I may find ugly but neither of us are right. What matters is that you like it, you take pleasure in it, and if you like it, it may be deemed as beautiful. It’s simply a matter of personal taste. I like Bach, you like Brittney.

Basis for Beauty

But does personal taste actually determine beauty? Is beauty really just a matter of taste, what you like, what pleases you, or does it possess more objective qualities? In his scintillating and illuminating book The Evidential Power of Beauty, Thomas Dubay offers a definition of beauty in line with Science: “the beautiful is that which has unity, harmony, proportion, wholeness, and radiance.” During South by Southwest I saw M. Ward at the PASTE showcase. He opened his set with a 10 minute instrumental, during which he manipulated five strings, a guitar, volume, and silence that evoked an eruption of applause. His songs contain proportion, unity, harmony. Then, I drove down the street to hear a raging metal band screaming at the top of their lungs as they shouted and played indiscernible notes. Very little proportion, unity, and harmony. Which is more beautiful?

Morality of Beauty

It was Plato that described the opposite of beauty as the unpleasantness of seeing a body with one long leg excessively. A disproportionate, asymmetrical person. They say that leading actors must typically have proportionate, symmetrical facial features. Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, regardless of how short they are, they are still considered beautiful, in part, due to the symmetry of their faces. Is beauty, then, not merely a matter of taste, but a matter of symmetry? Of Science? What then are we to do with Tom Cruise’s Scientologist judgment against fellow beauty Brooke Shields, who took medication for her post-partum depression? And what of Gibson’s drunkenness and anti-Semitism? Is there not a moral component to beauty? We should admire a person of great personal beauty, not merely based on their form but also on their substance. Personal beauty extends well beyond possessing physical symmetry. Beauty is moral. It is a virtue, an image of goodness as well as an image of proportion. And we still recognize this kind of beauty. We celebrate the music of Amy Winehouse but bemoan her drug addicted lifestyle. Fans roar when Barry Bonds hits a homerun, while jeering at the sight of his performance-enhanced head. A beautiful performance necessitates honesty, integrity, no cheating. Even a dishonest person appreciates honesty, but appreciation for morality does not require cultivation of morals. However, just because we can recognize the moral component of beauty does not mean that we are, in fact, beautiful.

How do you think Beauty should be defined? Eye of the Beholder? Scientifically? Morally? Why?

For more thinking on Beauty:

Kanye West the Jordan of Music?

Posted on November 14, 2008

In a recent interview Kanye West claimed what Jordan is to basketball, Kanye is to music. No surprise from the hubris-inflated pop star. Par for the course. But then he went on to make the following claim:

I realize that my place and position in history is that I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade, I will be the loudest voice,” he said in an interview on Wednesday.

Kanye West–voice of this generation? What do you think?

Review of Graduation

Too Much Information?

Posted on May 2, 2008

Ben Bartlett over at Christ and Pop culture has pleasantly summarized an article by Frank Bures called “Way, Way Too Much Information.” The thesis of his article is that writing and creativity is stifled by our gluttonous intake of information. In the frenetic click till you stick pace of online reading, we frequently abandon slow, creative, careful reflection. How can we get on a better diet, one that promotes creative health in all spheres of life?