Submitted by: Submitted by trhodes5
Views: 459
Words: 8950
Pages: 36
Category: Music and Cinema
Date Submitted: 07/03/2011 07:13 PM
I recently watched a documentary on Mozart’s life and I was amazed at how similar it was to Michael Jackson’s. Both enjoyed fame as children, and then later as young adults, both had fathers who controlled their careers, both went bankrupt and both died young (35 for Mozart, 50 for Jackson). Both also strived to be accepted by society. Really, the only difference between the two is that one was long forgotten, while the other enjoyed an increase of fame upon death. Honestly, the only reason why this difference exists is because of media. There was no recorded music, Internet or television in Mozart’s time.
It’s interesting. While the documentary did not say anything about what Mozart was like as a person, anyone who has seen the movie or play, Amadeus, would know that he was a little…strange. People have long thought that Michael Jackson was…strange, too. They were both creators of works involving magical characters (Magic Flute (Mozart) and Thriller (Jackson)) and were probably influenced by the lack of real playtime they had as kids due to the constant touring. I kind of knew about Mozart and his issues long before watching the documentary. I had studied music when I was younger and my music education included its history. In an upper-level music class in high school, my teacher would mention that Mozart had issues as an adult as he was basically a child star. Of course, this was long before Michael Jackson’s death, but he already had “issues” by then. It was the late 1990s, just a few years after the child abuse allegations.
What I find interesting was that media didn’t really connect the two, or at least, I don’t recall if. Perhaps it’s because the typical American (and Canadian, in fact) doesn’t know too much about music from so long ago. Most aren’t exposed to this as young children or even as teenagers. However, I think this would have been a great opportunity to discuss how being a child star wasn’t too different in the eighteenth century...