Patrick Goldstein of the L.A. Times sticks up for Michael Jackson’s historical legacy:
The Wall Street Journal editorial page’s ongoing hostility toward pop culture has taken a bizarre new turn (even by the Journal’s standards) with this new essay by Bret Stephens, who decided that it would be fruitful to compare the exploits of Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong to the accomplishments of the recently deceased Michael Jackson. One of the conservative movement’s best and brightest minds when it comes to foreign affairs, Stephens is apparently unhappy that our celebrity-obsessed media has wildly over-covered Jackson in the last few weeks (geez, the media goes nuts over a reclusive pop star’s mysterious death — that’s a real news flash, huh?) while largely ignoring the achievements of the man who first walked on the moon 40 years ago.
Apparently oblivious to the fact that in addition to being a genuine kook, Jackson was a hugely popular and innovative force for several decades in popular music, Stephens tosses him into the dustbin of history, saying that while most “half-way educated people” will continue to honor Armstrong a hundred years from now: “It’s also a safe bet that in a century the name Michael Jackson will be familiar only to five or six cultural anthropologists and, possibly, a medical historian.”
Indeed. Name the troubadour who topped the charts in 1492. Or for that matter, in 1903 when the Wright Brothers took their first flight.
(Via Big Hollywood.)
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