Jude's Thursday Dish #38

I'm watching my nephew, Mitchell, this morning and going to Lagoon this afternoon, so today's Dish is going to have to be brief -- with one topic: The M.J. memorial.

The M.J. memorial. Woah -- where to start? I know the media has been going on and on about how classy it was, but I thought it was pretty bizarre. Fitting for M.J. to be sure. There were definitely touching, sincere moments, but so much of it was spectacle. It's strange to review a memorial service like it was a tv show, movie or concert, but really... that's what it was like and deserves to be critiqued as such. Here are some memorable (and not so) moments:

1. Paris speaking about her dad was heartwrenching. It was nice to see her family physically protecting her and comforting her in that moment. But the cynic in me has to wonder if she really wanted to do it. I heard Janet was supposed to talk, but then she encouraged Paris to speak. If the girl wanted to, then great - she deserves a forum, but if the family pushed her into it, then shame on them.
2. Brooke Shields seems genuinely sad and her tribute was nice. I was channel surfing and stopped on that stupid Bill O'Reilly show where they had a Body Language Expert analyzing people. It was SO lame. The lady was picking apart Brooke's speech to see if she was sincere or not. Like she'd be performing at something like that. Honestly, people need to get a life.
3. "We are the World" and "Heal the World" were touching, but I would've LOVED if they had gotten some of the original peeps to sing that.
4. The real emotion that came from his brothers, even Usher, really humanized M.J. and made you remember that through all the craziness, he was just like everyone else.
5. Those dancers surrounding Jennifer Hudson were SO random. Who choreographed that thing? Talk about distracting.
6. Couldn't Joe have spit out his gum? Come on!
7. And let's not get started about the service costing L.A. $1.4 million.

Al Sharpton's comments were interesting. I'm sure that's what his children needed to hear their dad wasn't strange. One thing I find curious though. M.J. did SO much for the Civil Rights movement, especially bridging the gap between all races and making it possible for the music industry to be multi-colored. But how do people feel now when in the last 20 years, he showed the whole world he didn't want to be black. He lightened his face, got a white person's nose, and had his surrogate(s) give him white children. Didn't he turn away from his race and culture? Or was that his way of continuing his life of duplicity? He was black, but he was white. He wanted to be the most popular star in the world, but craved his privacy. He was a grown man, but acted like a child. He was shy in private, but a confident powerhouse on stage. He was male, but feminine. He had an aggressive sexuality in his music and on stage (grabbing his crotch, for one), but in private... well, he was never convicted, but it was obvious he had inappropriate relationships with young boys. I tend to think it was all part of his master plan. He really wanted to prove that we all are the same and capable of having dark and light characteristics. Maybe he was truly trying to be the ultimately ambiguous person.

That's it for this week!