This is it? Well, not quite. You see, money is a powerful element in our society; and money tied to a world icon is an even greater draw to that money. Michael Jackson’s posthumous documentary drops this week and I have to say, I’m going to wait until it’s out with Netflix before I go and see it. I’m just not convinced that its what its geared up to be—it seems to be home video of Jackson dancing and preparing for his last concert. It’s hard to let icons die—I know, people still think Tupac is alive in Jamaica somewhere. Jackson made a lot of people a lot of money, moreover, he continues to make people money even in death; this documentary is just another step in the Jackson money making machine.

Now, I hate to sound skeptical, I’m sure there were plenty of people who worked on this film who had their “heart” into it. I’m sure there are plenty of fans that are just going to love this. However, the reality of it all is that money rules the roost. For the last few months, brutal battles of what belongs to whom have been hashed out in Los Angeles courts to get control of Jackson’s estate. Furthermore, there have been several people who have come out of Jackson’s camp attempting to get their “15 minutes” and early payday by talking about their interactions with Jackson.

Society is a funny thing. We deify whom we want to and when we want to. When I was doing case study work on contemporary evangelism during grad school, I followed Billy Graham around for a stint. It was amazing to me how we, as Christians, turned ol Billy into quite the “pope” of our faith. It was as if people just wanted to touch the hem of the garment to be “blessed.” More importantly, of the 900,000 plus who attended this event, over 97% of the people were not “new believers,” they were all Christians hoping to catch a glimpse of glory. This, coupled with the Billy T-shirts being sold around the perimeter, made for quite the moneymaking event.

This was one of the reasons Afeni (Tupac’s mom) sued everyone she could to get the rights to her son’s music—all of the rights. She now owns all the rights to not only his music, but also all of his images, poetry, and merchandise. Afeni wanted to make sure she had control over her son’s material. Tupac was one of those icons, and his death only made him more “marketable.” Afeni knew this. She made it clear that if people tried to profit off Tupac without going through her channels, they would be “dealt with.” Interesting stuff.

Yet, in these days, I guess I can’t knock too many people. Times are hard, people need money, and people are going to try to make that buck in almost any way. But what is the line? What is the limit? The other day I had someone try to sell me a bag of grapes that had obviously been eaten…by any means necessary huh? I suppose. But do we degrade the personhood of people in the process? Hmm, I’m not sure, maybe we can ask some executives at AIG about that one.

In the end, Jackson might have done the same thing if he was able to profit off this somehow and pay some employees at the Neverland Ranch. All I’m really saying is, money is a powerful thing, and we, as a society, have accepted a crack addict’s version of attaining that money. We’ll see what happens with this new film, I’m sure it will do well.

Hell, maybe I can even make some money off Jackson too, I saw him in concert back in 1983…I think he looked my way!