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You hadn't realized that the profit motive is what drives just about everything that is powerful in our society?
Well, no wonder you're worked up like you seem to be. It's a shock if you weren't already aware of how things work.
Yes, people write books - for example - and try to sell them in order to get a number of things for themselves, but right up there near the top is the money.
Elvis Presley still makes money for people, and if you put Diana, Princess of Wales on the cover of a magazine, it will sell out. That's been proven over and over, and that's the profit thing again. So, alive or dead, celebrities, some of them, anyway, are definitely going to make money for someone or something. And it doesn't really matter what it said or written or sung about them. It doesn't matter if it's true or not, it doesn't matter if it's seen through the filter of a fan or a non-fan - what matters is "Will it sell?"
It wasn't that Michael Jackson was reviled because of the child molestation allegations - it was the headlines he made for what an odd character he became. The self-mutilating facial plastic surgery that left him with a hole in his face where his nose was gone, the bizarre wigs, the permanent eyeliner, the tattooed lipliner, the women's makeup he wore. That's great stuff for any organization that's in the business of selling stories about celebrities, and Jackson, just living as he did, made it easy for him.
It's a very simple concept, really - get a product, and sell it. Sell it for the best price you can get, and sell as much of it as you can get. Michael Jackson knew that - witness his fall from grace when his albums weren't as good as they had been (according to the critics) and the sales lagged and he became an oldie but goodie. He still got coverage, though, because he was a celebrity and a very unusual one, at that. He sold, and even if he didn't get the money from much of what was written about him, he was still news.
Like Elvis. Like Diana.
Hell, even Farrah Fawcett's best friend sold her memoir of Farrah's dying, and made a profit on it. Some of that money goes to a charity, which is nice, and the rest goes into Ms. Hamilton's accounts.
As far as your perspective damning profit, I'd be interested to know if there are any authors out there who have written books about any dead (or living, for that matter) celebrities who have refused to take payment for their works, directed that any profits made on those books would be sent directly to a charity. Would that make their accounts more credible to you, if they were to eschew the money part of a book deal?
Of course, you're not going to find anyone doing that, because this is the real world. Even Michael Jackson's sister, LaToya, gets paid when she gives interviews about her late brother - the one she admitted she believed was a child molester. So, would you not believe her because she gets paid?
Ultimately, of course, your rage at the corporations makes no sense in terms of the credibility of anything written about anyone. Lately, we've witnessed the phenomenon, an unheard-of idea writ large, of the National Enquirer popping stories that scooped the mainstream media, stories which turned out to be true. The saga of John Edwards is the most immediate example of their new-found accuracy.
And I can tell you from personal experience, having some family members and friends who are successful in the entertainment industry, the Enquirer (that's the only one I'm familiar with) gets more stories right than they do wrong. They pay for their information, and so they have access to records and sources that other media do not attain.
Ultimately, we all have to decide what we want to believe about any given event. For you, it's important to have your beliefs affirmed, and so you find fault with people who have written less-than-complimentary accounts of Jackson's life. For me, since I have no agenda and am only mildly curious about the man as a source of entertainment, I'll read it all, and not give any of it enough credence to believe or not believe what they write. It's a story in which I have no vested interest, much like reading about how the Princes William and Harry are living their lives, and so I read it for fun.
We have different perspectives. I accept that profit is a controlling factor in our society and money buys a lot of things. Even Michael Jackson knew that, using his money to buy the kind of life he wanted, the life that he tried so hard to control, to the point of demanding a physician administer general anesthesia to him in order to sleep, a mad notion that never should have been allowed. He made a lot of money, a great big profit for the corporation that he - Michael Jackson - was, and that corporation got itself killed by the very thing he had purchased.
Sometimes the profit can be great fun, and sometimes, if it's not used wisely, it gets you dead.
Bet that's a perspective you never noticed..............................
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