Flashbacks

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 we’ve 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.

While Farrah didn't change much over the years, Michael Jackson underwent a transformation. In the course of one of the dozens of television specials aired over the past few days, we could watch his metamorphis, as he faded from black to white, his facial features withering away in plastic surgery after plastic surgery.

Michael Jackson evokes contradictory emotions because he was a man of contradictions. As a child he sang like an old soul and grew to become a childlike adult, spending a good part of his fortune playing Peter Pan in his own Neverland. He embodied innocence and excess, idealism and commercialism, he was at once a recluse and the center of attention. He played on a world stage, a mesmerizing performer, part Fred Astaire, part James Brown.

While the last 15 years of his life were embroiled in controversy, with charges of child abuse and displays of bizarre behavior, he was an enormously talented performer. The proof of that talent lives on.