Midlife is a time when you can both expect--and be shocked by--the death of contemporaries. We experienced both reactions Thursday with the passing of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson.
On the one hand, Fawcett, the 62-year-old icon of the 70s, had waged a public battle with cancer, the tabloids had been on death alert for weeks and the networks had their obit shows in the can. But just hours after her death was announced, came the news that the King of Pop was dead at 50. One death expected one death a shock.
As news of their deaths circulated throughout the internet, we were reminded how much the media landscape has changed since they first commanded our attention. Then, there were no cable networks, no 24-hour news cycles, no cell-phone equipped citizen papparazi.
Since Thursday weve experienced a series of flashbacks to the days of the Jackson 5 and Charlie's Angels. There's the television commercial with Farrah lathering up Joe Namath, and the bestselling poster that got a generation of teenage boys into a lather as she stared down from their bedroom walls with her toothy smile and clinging red swimsuit. For future generations of cultural anthropologists, evidence of Farrah Fawcett's influence on young women will be found in yearbook pictures and photo albums filled with faces framed by feathered wings, attempts to copy her signature hairstyle.
