Why are Americans so Obsessed with the MJ Doctor Trial?!?

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I can't watch anything on cable right now because there is constantly something about the @%! !$ trial with Micheal Jackson's Doctor and the Americans won't shut the %*#! !& up about it!! !
They didn't give a flying #@#! !?! ! about him until he died. First there was the trial with that b#%&h Casey Anthony and now this. IT'S DRIVING ME UTTERLY MAD!! ! This is what people in the US are obsessed about right now, and I'M the one with the BRAIN DISORDER that makes ME have STRANGE OBSESSIONS!! ! ROTFL!! ! Why does their society care more about the *wrongful* death of some *celebrity* but if a person is in grief because a loved one has died THEY DON'T GIVE A RAT'S REAR END?!? I have seen some so-called TV psychologists blab about what they think is the reason, but I know the real reason Americans are so obsessed. But if I say it I risk getting kicked off this site because I'm Canadian and only Americans can say negative things about themselves or their country. But I will give out a vague, subtle hint: It's because most of them are something that starts with "stu" and ends with "pid". THERE!! !

Daytime TV just sucks, almost nobody likes it.

There's probably a news bit that they want the Americans not to focus in.

I remember when there was such media Hysteria about MJ's death for three weeks, it was a great moment to perform an old-style US-sponsored coup in Honduras.

Karl Marx famously called religion "the opiate of the masses". By that definition, I don't think it's that much of a stretch to liken the cult of celebrity, particularly within the United States, to a sort of religion. As an American myself, I disagree with the OP that Americans gravitate so strongly now to gossip about celebrities due to stupidity. If anything, I think it's more because a lot of average Americans are dissatisfied with their own lives right now. Unemployment is up, money is tight, and the American political discourse is totally frustrating. The cult of celebrity doesn't do anything to solve any of those problems, but for many, it does provide a distraction and/or a way to live a "better" life vicariously through someone else. Of course, I say "better" in quotes, because the validity of that perception is debatable; while it's true that celebrities may not have the money problems of the common man, for example, the common man generally doesn't have to worry about other people who make a living off of constantly invading his privacy.

I believe America has always had a cult of celebrity in some form, even since the earliest days. Throughout the 20th Century, into the 21st, that unique love affair with celebrity has intensified due to the explosion of the entertainment industry and mass media. My feeling is that this phenomenon likely owes a lot to the shared cultural myth of upward mobility known as "the American Dream": if you work hard, and you use your talents wisely, you can better your station in life. In an America where that isn't seen as a universal truth anymore, celebrities are the rare paragons of that mythos. Thus, we have a sort of paganism predicated on the elevation of these people to an almost godlike status, and we make myths (in the same way that there are Greek myths and Norse myths) out of the media's coverage of them. The more drama, the better. This is why trials are such a big thing in American culture; whether it's OJ on trial for murder, or Michael Jackson's doctor, a trial always promises drama. In the popular consciousness, the trial is now seen as one of the myth archetypes (as opposed to, you know, an actual event with ramifications for the law and for people's lives).

The problem is, as talented or wealthy or intelligent as they may be, entertainers and athletes and multimillionaires and politicians aren't the gods we make them out to be. They're not Hercules or Odysseus or Perseus. They're real human beings, every last one of them, and they have weaknesses, and emotions, and they deserve to be treated with a certain amount of dignity out of simple human courtesy-- the latter of which they are often denied. Jackson is certainly a good example of this. His life, particularly from the early '90s up to his death, was plagued with media harrassment, to the point that it eventually outshined and paralyzed his actual work as an entertainer. His death is, unfortunately for his family, just as his life was: a media feeding frenzy. You can say what you will about him and his music and his idiosyncracies-- but I wouldn't wish that kind of life on my worst enemy.

What the media focuses on is what the media thinks people want to see, and sometimes they're wrong (deluded). Of course, I could also be wrong about what the masses want to see.

Annie called, she says she's 'okay'

I am an american and i don't care at all.

Do not be so quick to judge the Americans at large. Ironically, the situation is not black and white, as some posters already proved. =/

MJ who?



Seriously, what was posted before is worth repeating:

The problem is that people will become obsessed by anything the media shoves down their throats enough. It explains why the music that is popular on American radio today is popular despite how awful it is, and it explains why stories like this take flight. Why should the media go out and do real reporting when real reporting takes effort and costs money when they can just do this and get the same or better ratings? Journalistic ethics demand that journalists never manufacture the news, but that is exactly what the media does these days far too often.

As for Murray and Jackson, its a farce. Yeah, I've no doubt that Murray should never be allowed to practice medicine again. That said, any "criminal" acts he's "guilty" of were done with the full knowledge and willing participation of his "victim" - at least up until the point where Jackson OD'd. If he tried to cover up stuff after the fact that's a different story I suppose and maybe he is guilty of covering up later, but I don't think what he did leading up to Jackson's death amounts to murder or manslaughter. And the self-serving outrage expressed by Jackson's family is disgusting - sure the doctor was partially at fault but where the hell was Jackson's family when he was alive? They didn't see his self-destructive behavior? Really? Sure they did, but none of them intervened.

I don't really watch TV so I didn't even realize the trial was going on.

Well I don't really watch t.v so I have not been following that nonsense....I really don't care, besides there are so many commercials on t.v its pointless to watch it for any reason.