The Disabled God

Nancy speaks of the church as a “city on a hill”, that is inaccessible and inhospitable for the disabled community. In trying to “accommodate” the presumed needs of the disabled, the church has ultimately isolated (and silenced?) them even further. Nancy Eiesland uses the example of the taking part of the Eucharist. In serving her the Eucharist to better serve her “needs”, the church transforms the experience into a solitary one, different from the experiences of the other members in church. Though their intentions are good, Nancy argues that perhaps the disabled community does not need to be charity cases for the able-bodied (Christians especially, who often feel the need to extend their case to the less privileged). This behavior, this attitude can be attributed at least in part to the Biblical references to the disabled as linked with sin or impurity. The lepers in the Bible were untouchable, they had been cast out and were not the people high priests or moral people associated with. The blind men and the paralyzed shared similar fates. Then Jesus comes along and he passes his hand over them, tells them to sin no more and to “get up and walk”. Effectively, a link between healing and salvation is also established. In being taught to walk in the way of Christ, many Christians feel the urge to stretch out their helping hand to those who seem to “need” it in order to see the light.  

Nancy’s biggest conflict with her disability was with the belief that people had, that she should not lament too much now about her suffering for God will redeem her body and make it whole again once the time comes. She had come to know God, to experience his glory and grow her faith through her body. What would it be like to have a different body? What would it mean or feel like to be separated from the body that had been the source of her knowledge of God? Her revelation came as imaging God disabled, then realizing that Christ was the embodiment of this image. Christ, who had temporarily given up the advantages of divinity to experience the limitedness of the human condition, was disabled. His body on earth was ripped apart and broken for us. The Eucharist itself is a remembrance and a celebration of the broken body of Christ. In thinking about God this way, the disabled community can find new light and liberation in realizing that God understands what it is like to have a “broken body”. 

Encountering the Disabled God - Nancy Eiesland 

A penny for your thoughts?

• When speaking about the resurrection of the body as new and perfect upon Christ’s return to earth, what does this mean for the “disabled” community? Do you think they will retain their physical incapacities? And if they retain them, what does this mean for us in thinking about the brokenness of the body?
• Is there a proper way for the disabled community to be treated, for example in context of the church? (Eg. If attending to them personally is exclusive as Nancy says, would it be "better" to have them go forward themselves? - What should the approach be?)

Related:

• How does God view people with disabilities?
• Biblical and Theological Perspectives on Disability

A True Utopian

When Michael passed, many referred to him as a real utopian in a sense that he wished the best for the world. David Dark alluded to an “immortality project” that Michael had, and was what pushed his convictions of the possibility of a renewed world to his various attempts at moving the world closer to it, one step at a time. Dark makes this connection with the Buddhist enlightenment thinking that encourages keeping to keep their minds open to all possibilities of reality and truth and wisdom. Michael strongly believed in the unity of the American people to bring about harmony and the eradication of conflict. And indeed it did, at least for his memorial ceremony. 

For a day, there was no doubt a sense of unity for the people who attended his ceremony. There, Michael was transformed from an individual with flaws and charges into an Everyman with talent, drive and success. By exonerating his charges and emphasizing his positive qualities, the various eulogies portrayed him as the fulfillment of the American Dream. The presence of significant African American figureheads convinced people of his true black identity, and sealed it forever so that any remaining “queer aspects” of him would shine in a different light. Michael’s death became a consumable event. It finally provided him with a stability that during his life he could never procure with his chameleon-like nature. They spoke of him as a “modern shaman”, and perhaps quite rightly. He hoped to heal the world with his mystical abilities and qualities that few understood. He spoke with humility, yet his words (to some perhaps) irradiated a sense of divine wisdom that commanded worship, or at least respect. Parallels are drawn between his legacy to “God’s will”, he is spoken of as to be able to live forever (immortality). His body is said to have been offered as a scapegoat, leaving his soul pure and the symbol of love and redemption for all. 

MJ: Grasping the Spectacle. Chapters 12 & 13. Smit.

A Penny for your Thoughts?

• Do you think Michael's life route might've taken a different turn if he hadn't had as many physical alterations done as he did? (On his decisions, his actions, etc.) And how different do you think our responses might've been to Michael then? (Culture today is so focused on image that I think his physical appearance definitely changed the way we thought about him) 
• What ways would it have changed the meaning of his death?

Further reading:

• "The Denial of Death" (more on the immortality project/ontological lack)
• One of the hundreds of eulogies on MJ
• Funeral ceremony

Keys to the Future

In chapters 4 and 5 of Pete Ward’s God’s Behaving Badly, the idea of celebrity being a type of religion, or para-religion is explored. It refers to the deification of society’s celebrities through the use of theological terms when discussing their lives. In describing our stars with such metaphors, the meaning of the terms slowly begins to change. With the alteration of traditional meanings, the lines between media and religion become blurry; And in some cases the overlap of these two sectors is observed, say for example with Princess Diana, also termed by her ex-husband a “goddess with loose morals”. This is strange because society accepts her image as a goddess, yet also is comfortable that a goddess can be loose. Ward relates this “cult” of celebrity to a form of polytheism (like the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses) where the stars of the time represent defined sets of behaviors and morals. The comings and goings, the fights, the relationships between stars then can be narrated like the mythic tales. Society’s “idols” today are rapidly changes figures that are worshipped for a season or two, who then recede back into obscurity while a new “idol” takes his/her place. (The irony of the usage of “idol” cannot be ignored; The word itself proves that society recognizes the transient nature of his divinity through reality or competitive television series.) In context, the Princess was then only a mere character in the play of moral values that push and pull at each other. Transformed into an abstract set of images and ideas, she can take on a variety of meaning for different groups. 

When an individual becomes malleable like that in consumers’ actions, the judgement on their actions falls into consumers’ hands. Regardless of the moral nature of a celebrity’s choices or the insignificance of their looks after giving birth, the consumers ultimately decide the fate of the celebrity. Once again, Ward emphasizes that this is extremely important because it says something about society. It proves just where certain values and priorities lie. He also has certain hypotheses explaining why gossip columns are so popular; He believes that as a primarily middle class, hard working group, there is some pleasure to be gained from seeing celebs have their share of mishaps. “Justice in an unjust world” seems to be the rightful justification for mocking their fails. Why shouldn’t they deserve what came to them? They have been blessed by chance with wealth, beauty, fame and they still cannot get it right. The overwhelming abundance of tabloids like this perhaps taps at some of the more critical issues that society has to resolve. The focus on minor fails or successes shows that, at the core, people realize what a fabrication celebrity really is. They hit at the questions people like Ward are dying to answer. Why are stars so celebrated even if they have not seemingly achieved anything worth acknowledging? Why does society put people like them on pedestals to be observed?

To Think About:

• Why is there such a big gap in respect to the outcomes of our celebrities? What determines whether or not they become a philanthropist or “savior” in Ward’s terms or someone society deems to be a failure? Meaning, if consumers ultimately have the bottom line decision, what makes us destroy one celebrity but uplift another?
• Ward says that the alteration of theological themes will provide clues to the future of religion and culture. This alteration of themes is already at hand. What do you predict will be some of the effects on our future?

Further reading:

• "Celebrities are demi-gods" - This entire site is devoted to the interactions and the inescapable overlap between theology and pop culture
• "How to tell if you are a celebrity saint" (some comic relief added)

Michael and the split selves

These few chapters of Michael Jackson: Grasping the Spectacle aim at uncovering the mystery of the selves of Michael. The authors of these chapters find that there are implications of his ability to easily portray various meanings-- on his psyche, his art, and his actions. As Michael’s body went through noticeable transformation because of the multiple plastic surgeries, the whitening of his skin, his aging, his ever-increasing androgyny, the tabloids succeeded in making the public believe that his outward appearance was a result of the inward corruption of his life. This, of course, followed the (false or not) accusations of child molestation and abuse and the raid on his creation, the Neverland Ranch. It was a product of his dreams of remaining eternally a “neverchild”, one that would forever bask in the joy and happiness, free of worry or pain. This dream slowly turned into his greatest nightmare as he begun to realize this was one wish that could never become part of his reality. The growing ambiguity in his race did not help matters of self-identification much. For many black americans, the decision to either perform whiteness or resist it in order to maintain empowerment is difficult. For a Michael who was “neither black nor white”, this conflict posed even greater threats to his already fragmented sense of self. It created a maze of narratives for him that ran in every which way, though all manifesting themselves in one individual. Deeply rooted in Michael was also the desire to be fully “loved” by his fans and spectators, to fill the lack in his life. This ensured his persistent split natures, which he tried to remedy by creating even more versions of himself and his story, as seen through many of his songs towards the end of his career. We observe that the subject of his songs are becoming more and more similar to his actual life story and reputation. In a way, he condemns himself to disappointment every time, as well as misrecognition on the part of his viewers. Jackson had to realize that his sense of lack could not be fulfilled by his fans everytime, and to overcome his belief about the similarities of celebrity to love.

Michael Jackson: Grasping The Spectacle - edited by Chris Smit 

Chapters 3, 4 & 5

Read On:

Interview with Michael on charges

What do you want to know?

• We did this to Britney, to Jackson, to countless other artists. Perhaps we've pushed them too far to the brink and they start merging their life with their art. Maybe it's a marketing scheme, maybe it's a true expression of the self. Either way, the public buys into it heavily. What is the appeal in this? (Like what the appeal is for getting Mickey Mouse at Disneyland out of character?) Or what is the appeal in a constantly morphing character?
• Could Michael’s downfall partially be attributed to the fact that he couldn’t find a way to merge the queer, which was his art, and reality? The very essence of “queer” entails that it is apart from the world and of the norm. The moment it becomes understood or accepted, does it not lose its “queerness”? Was his goal doomed to fail from the start?
• I thought it was interesting that in respect to the race ambiguity of Michael's identity, that in his performance of Billie Jean (and maybe others) that he had a white sequinned glove, similar shimmery and sparkling white socks, and a heavily sequinned/silver top were covered by a full black suit. What is the significance in this?

The King of Pop

Some celebrities are infamous because of their crafted freakish lifestyle nature. Their 15 minutes of fame do not last because the persona that they become on stage wears off when the person they are comes sneaking back in. When Margo Jefferson (in Chapter 1) explored Michael Jackson’s life, his history, his actions, his intentions, she found that he had very much a dynamic but consistent persona. What many mistook for pedophilia could have been a psychological desire to remain in a preadolescent stage, and create a shelter (the Neverland ranch and amusement park) where children could escape to have fun and experience true joy. His genuine longing for universal harmony (maybe as a result of his fixation in the preadolescent stage) shone through his work in Captain EO, a figure who was devoted to the eradication of threat to a happy society regardless of race, gender, or class. The slow change of his skin color further strengthened the context - He came an image of ambiguous gender and race, becoming a medium and a mediator. 

Even the ongoing art projects, the novelty and the humor of the kitsch that is created in Michael’s name affirms his chameleon nature. The mere fact that his image has been interpreted in so many inflected ways is proof that he has become larger than himself, a spectacle that is associated with a deeper meaning. These pop art projects testify to his immortality among the people, fascinated with his spectacle. One noteworthy example is that of the porcelain figurine of Michael and Bubbles. The porcelain kitsch, symbolic of the malleability and brittleness of pop figures and culture, symbolic of Michael’s slow white-skinned transformation, sat by the grand paintings of royal heads and nobles. It was pop art, mass culture ascending to the throne of high art, high culture. It was mockery of the elitist view of culture, though some may argue that Michael was just as much a hero/a martyr as many of the individuals with their portrait hanging on the wall-- and this was very much the aim of his various pop art pieces. In an edited art piece, Michael’s spectacle remains quite separate from his failures, his successes, or the slander spewed about him. This was part of the trick: preserving the freshness and the sealing the spectacle. 

Michael Jackson: Grasping The Spectacle - edited by Chris Smit 

Chapters 1, 6 & 8 

Read On:

Experience at Neverland Ranch, to be turned into a music institute like Julliard (?)

Studying pop art

To think about:

• “Pop art reverses values” in that the banal, the trite return to high art, worthy of being celebrated again. Why do you think this happens, and not just in relation to this context, but perhaps when related to something like fashion trends. Why is there a cycle of trends, where the old regains hype and the once-in-style returns to the dust? Is this like our constant desire to be in a different era, different situation with different types of problems? Is this another reflection of our inability to cope with stressing conditions we feel are too much for us to handle?
• Many celebrity demises come from society's inability to accept their sexual maturation, their development into an individual we cannot recognise beyond what we were used to. Why is it then that Michael had a falling out with the people if he was stuck in preadolescent desires? It seems like we come to despise them no matter what they do.