She was the "Queen of Hearts".
He was the "King of Pop".
The titles may have been honorific, but the global media attention on Michael Jackson and Princess Diana was fit for royalty.
On Tuesday July 7th, the world will watch as the greatest pop star of all time is laid to rest with a televised memorial service at Los Angeles' Staples Center. 1 million people are expected to converge on the city to witness the services, even though it is unlikely they will see anything important. A similar number was assigned to the people who lined the route to Westminster Abbey in 1997, watching in sadness as Britain's fallen princess passed by in a Royal Standard-covered coffin.
Jackson's farewell will most likely be a global watershed event, much like Diana's. In a twisted way, it makes sense that these two public figures have similar impacts at their deaths. There had never been two people like them before, and considering the current crop of A-list celebrities, there may never be again. Michael and Diana lived two completely different lives, but they were arguably the two most visible people on the planet. People Magazine has dedicated nearly 50 covers to Diana, from her engagement to Prince Charles to her fatal car accident in Paris. It is unlikely that a country exists without one person that owns a copy of Thriller. The world was fascinated by their every move, good and bad, and proceeded to film and write about them for a collective three decades. Their deaths haven't slowed the fascination at all; in some cases, it intensified it.
So, why all of the attention on these two people? Why did the passing of an ex-wife of a British prince call into the question the relevance of the monarchy? How is it possible for a singer to continue to dominate television, print, and radio, two weeks into his death?
Because, in life, no one else quite understood the power of the media like them. Michael, with his music, style, and eccentric behavior, and Diana, with her beauty, charity, and her calculated understanding of image, used newspapers, magazines, and television to elevate themselves to iconic status. If the media was a kingdom, they were the undisputed king and queen. Their shared tragedy is that the media staged a coup d'etat of epic proportions. Through hurtful and stressful headlines and obsessive paparazzi stalking their every move, the media who once ate out of their palms, took control of their images. As we've seen, the results were unprecedented, and ultimately tragic.
Diana and Michael are unique because they both reached their peak as the world began to shift to a celebrity-dominated mass media culture. With the advent of cable and the booming success of tabloids, public figures were placed under a microscope to be dissected at a molecular level.
In the 80's, just as the obsession with celebrity reached a new height, Michael Jackson and Princess Diana emerged as global forces to be reckoned with. Michael, with his album Thriller sitting atop the charts for a mind-boggling 37 weeks, was the biggest pop star in the world. His music videos turned MTV into a cultural touchstone. His dancing, particularly the moonwalk, were desperately practiced by the masses. His style, including the red leather jacket and the sequined glove, were must-haves. Diana, the gorgeous young wife of Prince Charles, had captured the imagination of not just the UK, but the whole world. Her beauty, style, and charity work easily stole headlines from the other royals, especially her husband. The popular divide had grown so large, that people on one side of the street booed when Diana chose the other side to chat with and they were stuck with Charles.
Michael and Diana were global stars, and for this newly-emerging phase in pop culture, they were guinea pigs. Magazines provided continual coverage of the two, and cameras followed them everywhere they went, regardless of their privacy. The attention only boosted their global profiles, and soon, they found themselves with an excellent opportunity to control how the public saw them. They both realized the media's influence with the public. They harnessed that power to work for them. Michael wanted to portray himself as mysterious, odd, and interesting. His image was unlike any other in the 80's; he was constantly seen in military-inspired clothes, and as the years went by, his skin began to progressively lighten, which he attributed to a skin disease called vitiligo. When his hair caught fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial in 1984, Michael, covered in blankets and bandages, waved goodbye to his fans with his sequined glove on. His companions included Brooke Shields, Emmanuel Lewis, and Bubbles the chimp. If that didn't keep people talking, the stories published in supermarket rags like The National Enquirer definitely did. The most infamous story was that Michael slept in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber to live to the age of 150. The strategy worked; sales of his album
Thriller still rank as the best in world history and seven out of nine singles from the album were Top 10 smashes, a record that still stands. The public was infatuated with the star, completing the transformation from child star to pop megastar.
Diana also wanted to create an image. She was terribly unhappy in her marriage to Prince Charles, who had returned to his mistress Camilla Parker-Bowles. In the beginning, she had virtually no power and support from the other members of the family was lacking at best. What she did have was the adoration of both the public and the press, who benefitted greatly from her image on their covers. From there, Diana began to use the media to work in her advantage. The cameras that followed her inadvertently promoted low-profile issues like homelessness and AIDS, an illness she was credited for single-handedly erasing the stigma from. She used them to upstage and undercut her husband. Powerful images of solidarity, like her alone in front of the Taj Mahal and her pulling away from Charles' kiss at a polo match, were beamed all over the world. The press painted her as a suffering champion for the people and him as a dim, philandering cad unfit to reign.
Michael and Diana achieved their goals of media manipulation, and in turn, they became virtually impossible to escape. Barely a month went by when a new development in their lives wasn't covered by the press. In the beginning, the press was mostly positive, with some unseemly stories from the tabloids. That ratio began to shift, at different times for them. For Michael, the negativity from the media began in the late 80's, as they ran wild with the "weird" image the pop star was trying to cultivate. The stories became more bizarre, like the rumor that he was looking to purchase the bones of the Elephant Man. The scrutiny over his facial changes intensified, and people began to speculate about the number of plastic surgeries he had. His reclusive nature didn't help matters. Instead of debunking the multiple controversies, he blocked himself from the world, hiding behind his sprawling Neverland Ranch. In retaliation, the media began referring to him as "Wacko Jacko", a moniker first created by the British press.
Diana saw the media begin to cross the line in the early 90's, as it was becoming clear that her marriage to Prince Charles was falling apart. Like her pop star counterpart, she used the media to convey a specific image. As her marriage unraveled, though, she wanted the media to be a vessel to expose her agony as a royal. Along with her acute understanding of the power of the image, she enlisted the help of Andrew Morton to write a biography. The book,
Diana: Her True Story, was released in 1992 and was an absolute bombshell, shattering the mystique surrounding the royal family. Revelations of eating disorders, suicide attempts, and affairs on Charles' part stunned a world who bought into the fairytale from ten years prior. The scandalous book turned up the fervor of the media; the British press was especially obsessed with Diana, desperate for any little story about her to fill a front page. Her image still a best-seller a decade into her reign, there was a high demand for exclusive pictures of the princess. Deployed in their pursuit were freelance photographers, also known as the paparazzi, who followed Diana everywhere she went, to her dismay. Even with the bother of the paparazzi, she still had a significant amount of the media loving her, painting her as the wronged woman. That image would soon be shattered, thanks to herself, Charles, the royals, and a man named James Hewitt. That stretch of time would also see Michael fall out with favorable media coverage, as shocking allegations derailed his career, and ultimately, his life.
In Part 2, Diana and Michael see their lives change forever as their efforts to control the media fail miserably, ultimately resulting in their tragic ends.
5. Enrique Iglesias - He blew up during the Latin Invasion of the late 90's, but his career fizzled out at the turn of the new millennium, with his last hit being 2001's "Hero". Thanks to the Gaga-bred dance-pop explosion this year, the Latin lover caught an epic second wind. "I Like It", the first single off his latest album Euphoria, reached the top 10 of many countries, including the United States, where it reached #4. His next single, "Tonight (I'm Lovin' You)", is already burning its way up the iTunes chart, guaranteeing him success well into 2011. I guess we missed the mole more than we thought.
4. Usher - The King of R&B returned to his throne this year with very successful album Raymond v. Raymond, which spawned the ubiquitous smash "OMG", which #1 on the charts. He also celebrated the success of his protege Justin Bieber, who just won Artist of the Year at the American Music Awards. After the disappointment that was 2008's Here I Stand, 2010 was proof that Usher was the premier male pop star of the moment. Now if only he would get that haircut..
3. The British Royal Family - Let's be honest: the thirteen years since the passing of Princess Diana have been relatively uneventful. Sure, Charles married Camilla, and Harry became the troublemaker after bouts with swastika costumes and pot, but compared to the years of Diana, it's been quiet. That changed when Prince William, the second in line to the throne, announced that he would finally be marrying his long-time girlfriend Kate Middleton. Almost instantaneously, the world went absolutely bonkers over the engagement. The world's media plastered them across the front pages, speculating on everything from the wedding date to Kate's future role. Her status as a future pop culture figure has already been set; she was featured on Barbra Walters' 10 Most Fascinating People and the dresses she's worn in public have become instant best-sellers. The world, who probably didn't care less about the Windsors two months ago, now wait with baited breath over the April nuptials of the future King and Queen.
2. Rihanna - OK, so it's not really that much of a comeback, but Rihanna definitely regained lost ground on the pop landscape this past year. The Bajan beauty featured on the biggest record of 2010, Eminem's "Love The Way You Lie", and scored two #1 hits of her own with "Only Girl (In The World)" and "What's My Name". Her new album Loud gave her the highest first week sales of her career, although she hasn't been able to get that coveted #1 spot, yet. Also, she has fans cracking up with her witty, shady comments on Twitter and guessing about her love life, in a good way. It's nice to see that she's moved past the drama of last year.
