The passing this past week of cultural icons Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson have left us reeling. This is not a new phenomenon. Almost everyone can recall where they were when they heard the news that Elvis had died and John Lennon was shot, not to mention Jack Kennedy. Why do we mourn the loss of people we never knew personally?

Probably the easiest explanation for our sadness is that losing someone of our generation invokes in us an awareness of our own mortality. Many of us remember watching Ed McMahon play second fiddle to Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show as part of the backdrop of our childhood, adolescence or young adulthood. Baby boomers remember gyrating to Elvis’ music as teenagers and the thrill of his music that was frowned upon by an older generation. John Lennon and the Beatles also represented a new, fresh genre of music the likes of which had never really been seen before. Michael Jackson was also iconoclastic, from his dance style to his dress style to his music that was irresistible to people of all ages. His music transcended many boundaries and cemented our acceptance of black entertainers. Because he started his career in entertainment at such a young age, he was able to reach a huge number of people during his lengthy career.

Martin Luther King, Jack Kennedy and even Princess Diana provided us with hope for the future against a backdrop of world events that made us feel as if everything was spinning on its axis. They made us feel as if ordinary people could do extraordinary things, if only we chose to get involved. Their deaths at a premature age, at the hands of violence, made us feel that nothing would ever be the same again, and that we had little control over anything in our lives.

We forgive such celebrities their human foibles, such as drug and alcohol use, cheating on spouses, and allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour, because we see them as larger than life and therefore not subject to the same rules as the rest of us mere mortals. We love to crucify them in the international spotlight when they fall from grace. We also love to mourn them on a grand scale, as is being experienced now with the death of Michael Jackson.

People of a certain generation are often heard  to say that there will never be another like the one lost, and it may feel like that at the time, but every generation has a handful of celebrities that can stop the world spinning, just like the death of Michael Jackson has done this week. Another superstar will rise for us to deify, and then mourn when we discover that they are, after all, mere mortals.

Related Links:

  Farrah Fawcett Dies at Age 62 from Health Guru

  King of Pop Suffers a Cardiac Arrest, Dies at Age 50 from Health Guru