As in North America, Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe and Oceania are united in at least one way: shock over the death of Michael Jackson.
As part of our coverage of this cultural border-shattering event, we present this editorial by Sebastien Le Fol of France’s Le Figaro newspaper, which investigates why Michael Jackson’s demise has had the incredible impact reverberating around the world today.
For Le Figaro, Sebastien Le Fol writes in part:
“What fascinates us most of all about him is the hybrid, ‘genetically modified’ creature that he eventually came to resemble. Fleeing his roots, pushing the negation of self to the limit, he created an entirely ambiguous character for himself that was neither male nor female, adult nor child, Black nor White – half angel, half monster. He conjured up these living-dead that appeared in his most famous video, Thriller. This truly unreal creature pre-dated the virtual world in which we are evolving into today.”
Editorial by Sébastien Le Fol
Translated By Alexis Griffiths
June 27, 2009
France – Le Figaro – Original Article (French)
On Wednesday, for the first time since being appointed, the new Minister for French Culture, Frédéric Mitterrand said, “We all have a Michael Jackson within.” Blacks and Whites, young and old, Westerners and Asians, the entire world in effect, has a hit by the “king of pop” ringing in their heads. One statistic is all it takes to reflect the global scale of the Jackson phenomenon: hundreds of millions of his albums have been sold, a hundred million of which were the single Thriller, which was released twenty-five years ago. No other artist can compete with him on the international stage.
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