.Back home we have public graves for all famous ppl who died in this country: presidents, politicians, artists, poets, writers, musicians you name it. But you hardly may see a few ppl just walking by beside famous ppl’s graves paying their respects or just walking by accidently.
Could you tell me please why MJ grave and some other famous ppl’s graves in US have to be monitored by security and cameras 24/7?
I highly doubt that half the people buried in Holly Terrace "need" security (Michael being an exception), there's also a lot of marketing and prestige behind that Mausoleum that somehow makes people pay a lot of money to bury their dead there. It's kind of creating an illusion there on Holly Terrace.
The relatives literally pay top dollar for them to be locked away behind those doors, sort of cementing the unreachable star appeal even in death. If just "anyone" could walk in there, it would lose the appeal of being something special. :cheeky:
Half of the place is marketing that makes people think, oh, locks and codes, there MUST be something very special going on in there, it's outstanding marketing for the most part. :cheeky:
It's very Hollywood, the best illusion in the world, even in death. You drive trough some parts of Glendale and lock your door- Forest Lawn is a strangely beautiful oasis in the middle of brown hills. It's an odd place out there, you have your mansions pretty much next to an industrial warehouse zone.
Has it occurred to you that maybe the family also might know about other possible threats to his grave? "Rabid fans" are not the only threat to his grave, there's a world outside of MJJC that's pretty harsh, not everybody looks at him in a good willed manner to put it mildly.
I know that you don't ever use google....but for those monitoring even mainstream media outlets- there was a disturbing amount of people who literally fantasized about all the weird things they literally would love to do to his grave. Some people have swallowed the tabloid hatred "he's a pedophile" pill presented to them over the years pretty badly- some of these people are not just "all talk". Do you think it's an accident that he sang "I ain't scared of no sheets"- the man knew what was up and I don't even want to know what kind of hate mail he must have received for parents to decide to veil their children's faces in public.
Also, I'm not sure how much of an exposure you had to your typical US cemetery, even with famous people being interred there. People are pretty much people everywhere, Forest Lawn and the other "famous people" cemeteries are just a dense concentration of anyone who ever stood in front of a camera, that's all. And we're talking about LA here, that's even a world different from Orange County...
.Back home we have public graves for all famous ppl who died in this country: presidents, politicians, artists, poets, writers, musicians you name it. But you hardly may see a few ppl just walking by beside famous ppl’s graves paying their respects or just walking by accidently.
Many famous russians that got to real fame tend to be buried abroad because they left when alive. What do you mean by "this country"? Canada, the US? France, where Nureyev died and chose to be interred?
Guess there's no particular reason for cemeteries like Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois (Russian Orthodox Cemetery abroad).
Vladimir Vysotsky is about the only contemporary local legend (and 99%of the people on this board will say, WHO?) buried there because, well, he didn't manage to leave the county, ya know at least his French wife was able to come to him on occasion since he really couldn't just "go". Just google a bit about what folks pull off yearly on his grave site, guess they are "rabid fans" as well.:cheeky:
Because it seems that everyone from Rachmaninoff to Nureyev took off like there's no tomorrow and NOW in death they are trying to transfer those folk back to Russia to get at least a couple of the popular sons and daughters back...
What's that about Russia and a totally relaxed non-chalant attitude towards the dead?
Let me know next time the US decides to put a high ranking politician on display in Washington DC for a few decades, surrounded by military...
Lenin, embalmed, on display, I guess all the artificial hype there for several decades just happened accidently walking by.
(now, Forest Lawn can learn a thing or two from Lenin's Mausoleum...)
Have you checked what's going on with Jim Morrison's grave? Must be all those rabid Americans living in Paris.
Michael Jackson is an international figure, waaaaay beyond just one country as you can obviously tell just by the participants of this board. His fame is a bit "bigger" you might say.
That's totally off-topic but hey...
If it was not a market, tabloids would not exist.
My background is different, I grew up in Eastern Europe, Russia. Our celebs there live their OWN lives and nobody chases them.
There are still some crazy ppl around but a very few and it is not insane. We do not have such cult of celebrity. If you like a certain singer, you go to a concert and come back home. At this point you forget about him/her and there is no interest what this person is doing on vacation, who is the girlfriend or boyfriend, gay or not gay etc. because you have your own relationships and our own life. This is what most ppl do there.
You mean level headed folks like these guys here?
These are probably just a few rabid Americans that they flew into Moscow. You are right that there's a number of fans who constantly violated him, no doubt about it. Nobody even denied that. However those are not the same people who put out disgusting stories about him in tabloids.
Your statement that tabloids don't "work" in Russia is quite wrong, these prints sell everywhere. Or turn the TV on, russian TV channels are more "western" than some western TV channels themselves. The russian press also reported on Michael Jackson aplenty. Gossip works in every society, in every country, not just with ugly Americans. Ever been to England? Just check for MJ saying that he loves London but that he just can't deal with the English Yellowpress to live there permanently, he was in tears through half that interview, so it comes from the man himself.
All of this is totally off topic and at this point I'm not sure what your point is. Yes, a chunk of fans doesn't know what boundaries are and how to simply behave- not so different from the rest of the general public. But it was tabloids whose main point it was to sell their stuff to the general public, not MJ fans. Fans have been called looneys for a long time. Yes, MJ fans have been too interested in private details, no denying that, even hating on those he once loved and that's not cool.
But MJ fans never insulted him about his plastic surgeries and they never inquired about details to make him out to be some weird freakish, asexual/homosexual/bisexual/pedophile weirdo like the press did. Fans ate up details because it made them feel closer to him- have you checked what kind of details fans loved? Pretty harmless stuff. His favorite perfume, food, what music he liked to listen to, maybe what authors he liked to read. The press only picked up on these things if they could use these details to make him look like a freak.
Fans relished in these details acknowledging him being human like them, not to hurt and insult him on purpose to make a buck.
And last but not least Michael Jackson does not despise his fans.
I have a hard time recalling any artist of his standing that would invite fans onto stage and stay calm and collected even when a fan got up there uninvited. I'm sure that he had quite his own thoughts of about some real nut cases but a nutcase will be a nutcase wether they stalk Michael Jackson or any other celebrity.
Heck, you can have a stalker even when you're not famous.
There's enough footage of him kissing fans, when a handshake would have sufficed, nobody forced him to buy pizza and hot chocolate for those that camped outside a Hotel in the cold.
Tell me how many famous write 5 handwritten letters to their fans, tell me how many people love someone enough to try help him in time of need? The owner of a fanboard got subpoenaed by Sneddon because they supported him and helped him out. Michael Jackson never forgot these things.
Fame and fortune create a golden cage, yes. Fans have been part of that cage, yes, I agree. But it was also those fans that responded to his music and his art and cemented his unparalleled success. It's hard to be an artist without an audience. He was also a major image builder, people forget that. He even said in the Diane Sawyer interview when being accused of megalomaniac tendencies "so I got your attention, good." He knew how to orchestrate what effect- gets girl on stage and sings "love needs expression" only to kiss her half a second after that sentence? He knew what he was doing.
Which artist would write a letter to his fans saying all he wants is to be loved and to please never stop loving him?
Fans and Michael Jackson are a pretty unique relationship and like all relationships this one too has it's glorious high points and some not so cool parts.
They are plenty of negative formats out there that are excellent places to beat down on fellow fans but I would hope this wouldn't be one of them.
He had a huge audience and when you have that big an audience you are bound to see pretty much every aspect of society represented in that audience. MJ fans are not better or worse than the rest, they are all humans. They all have flaws and strong suits- just like Michael Jackson.
And I do agree though that tabloids are a bit like pornography... nobody wants to be the one that bought it, yet these things continue to be successful. I do agree.
