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In Paris’ Pere Lachaise cemetery, on the grave of a long-dead luminary that memory says might have been Moliere, an arrow was spray-painted with the words “Jim this way.”
My wife and I followed the arrows, past rows and rows of Honore de Balzacs, Modiglianis and Gertrude Steins, to the grave of James Douglas Morrison (Dec. 8, 1943-July 3, 1971), a.k.a. The Lizard King, lead singer of The Doors.
Unlike the well-tended but otherwise unadorned tombs of more ancient famous people, Morrison’s grave was covered in candles and flowers, attended by about a dozen young grunge kids, most of them American. It was nearly a quarter century after Morrison’s death, and the continued fuss and bother had Frenchmen darkly vowing to have the body moved out of respect to real notables.
By contrast, my favourite run in London’s Hyde Park takes me by the Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain, the last time being just after the 10th anniversary of Diana’s death. In a park crawling with tourists, it seemed an unremarkable spot. I never got the sense that it attracted many more cameras than, say, Speaker’s Corner. According to a Slate magazine article at the time, visitor numbers at Althorp, Diana’s family’s estate, had plummeted. More and more, Diana seems to be becoming a dim touchstone of the ’90s. (I forget, what was Pavarotti doing chasing her on a motorcycle, anyway?)
And yet, if you compared the relative frenzy that greeted both Jim Morrison’s death in 1970 and Diana’s in 1997, you’d have thought 10 years down the road the Princess of Wales would have inspired an actual religion, one that made the Cult of Elvis look like a schoolgirl crush. By contrast, I remember Morrison’s death being reported in a tiny story with a throw, below the fold on the front of the Winnipeg Free Press. I also remember my older brother Larry being briefly concerned when I yelled out “Morrison died!” and then being relieved to discover it wasn’t Van Morrison.
You might have heard Michael Jackson died recently. If not, sorry to have to be the one to break the news. For some reason, when the coverage went nova — blowing Iran, the slaughter of Chinese Uighurs and North Korean missiles out of the public consciousness — I started to wonder how long we’d care.
Instantaneous worldwide information (and misinformation — like, say, the cult of Michael Jackson suicides that was reported within days of the Gloved One’s death) turned Jackson’s death into something like the Ludovico Treatment in A Clockwork Orange, in which the incorrigible Alex had his eyes pinned open and was forced to watch the unspeakable. To say, “you don’t have to watch” was fatuous. It was on every channel, on the cover of every newspaper and magazine, every other web link.
It seemed as if, as a society, we went through all five stages of Dr. Elizabeth Kubler Ross’ famed “stages of grief” from On Death and Dying within a few hours of the first reports. It took years for the “meme” of Jim Morrison or Elvis still being alive to catch in the public mind. In 2009, the idea that MJ might have staged his own death was being bandied about all over the web while the body was still warm.
And the exhaustion and indifference that finally overtook Britons regarding “England’s Rose?” There were polls within a week that said a majority of respondents were sick of the hype over Michael Jackson’s death — followed presumably by polls that said people were sick of polls about Michael Jackson’s death. On The Daily Show, Jon Stewart had a special segment memorializing the death of the coverage of the death of Michael Jackson.
Was Michael Jackson’s death bigger than the death of Elvis? As a compressed flashpoint, it certainly was. I remember the media coverage of Elvis’ death vividly, along with the clucking over the National Enquirer’s infamous “Coffin Picture.” By today’s standards, that groundbreaking transgression of decorum seems almost tasteful. But, it being the late ’70s, with stagflation, oil shortages and hot spots all over the world, the newspapers and TV news could only tarry so long over the bloated corpse of a dead rock ’n’ roll legend turned Vegas act.
The real elevation of Elvis into pop culture transcendence seems almost organic, building over the ’80s, as Elvis’ manager, Col. Tom Parker, and later the Elvis Estate itself, responded to public demand. In death, Elvis became more than he was in life. And in life, the spotlight being about 10,000 candlepower dimmer, he didn’t have to endure the ridicule his posthumous son-in-law did. Can you imagine if there was a tmz.com to follow Elvis around on his peanut-butter-and-bacon runs? For that matter, could you imagine how our memories of Jim Morrison would differ if there’d been cellphone photos of the bloated Morrison all over the ’Net instead of the buff Rolling Stone magazine photo that pops into one’s head at the mere mention of his name?
It may be that, like everything else, we now mourn too fast, and too furiously, with no emotion left for posterity. I suspect in 10 years the question of whether Michael Jackson was bigger than Elvis will be laughable. And that will say as much about us and our pace of life as about him.
jim.slotek@sunmedia.ca