Growing up in the 70s, my sister and I had numerous posters tacked up on our bedroom walls. Recently, people who were on two of those posters passed away: Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. I haven’t thought about those long gone iconic images in years, but now it is hard for me to believe that these people are gone or that so many years have passed since those posters graced the walls of our rooms.
My sister was a normal teenage girl for that time. Michael Jackson’s poster was one of a number she had: David Cassidy by himself and with his Partridge Family, Bobby Sherman, Donny Osmond, Davey Jones and the Monkees. Even then I thought Jackson’s poster stood out: he had a sparkle in his eye, a tilt to his head, and a bright glow about him that made him out-dazzle all the other guys on the posters in her room.
In my room there were posters of a different kind: Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, the Eagles, Pink Floyd, and Aerosmith; but in 1976 I cleared space over my bed for the famous poster of Farrah Fawcett, as did millions of other American boys who were as in love with the beaming smile, the fluffy hair, and the red bathing suit as I was. What is interesting is that Farrah was the first and only female to earn a spot on those walls, and I used to jokingly say goodnight to her before I went to sleep and goodbye to her in the morning on my way to school. I guess this seemed in my teenage mind like some kind of a relationship.
Now when I go into my daughter’s room I see posters of the Jonas Brothers, Zac Efron, the Sprouse twins, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, and Miley Cyrus. These are the new teen and pre-teen icons, but truthfully I don’t see anything of the magic of Michael in these people. The girls, while cute, are no Farrah Fawcett, but maybe that is the whole point. These celebrity kids don’t need to out-dazzle one another because they have a ready-made audience and exposure that Farrah and Michael could never have imagined.
Article comments
1 - Jon Sobel
Well said. I had that Farrah poster too... I agree that few if any of these new stars will stand the test of time - mass audiences such as existed in the 60s and 70s don't exist anymore. I wrote about it here.
2 - Joanne Huspek
What's even sadder is that music these days is less about art and more about business. I see the current crop as commodities, and perhaps it's the big stars like MJ who made that possible.
By the way, great old posters can be had at Amoeba Records. Looking at them makes me nostalgic about the good old days.
3 - Victor Lana
Thanks for the comments, Jon and Joanne.
I wish I still had those old posters. I still have the one of the Beatles, but that's all I have left.
4 - Ruvy
I'm older than the lot of you commenting here. I never had a poster of any kind on my wall. The closest I ever got to a poster was a huge map of Israel and the blue and white flag of this country on my apartment wall in the Bronx - in 1971.
My two sons had, between them, one single poster on the wall - one of Bruce Lee, a gift from a French immigrant in 2001 when we lived in a 3 room apartment in an absorption center in the Armon haNetziv neighborhood of Jerusalem. No posters grace their walls today.
My older son is bothered by music - he takes after his mother that way - who has to be in a mood to listen to her favorites. My younger son likes some of the hip-hop trash out there but for the most part, he likes the same kind of music I do. His MP4 player is loaded with Billy Joel, Dire Straits, Queen, the Eagles, with scattered songs from Kansas, and a number of tunes from Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Louie Armstrong....
It is really strange to say that. If I had liked the music of someone my sister's age (she's 21 years older than me), stuff like the Ink Spots, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, that is what I would have been like if I had my younger son's tastes. And I would have been viewed as weird by everyone around me.
We Baby Boomers have had a poisonous effect on America - forcing everyone to march to our tunes - and Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett were part of this poisonous trend.
But they are dead. And soon, we Baby Boomers will be, too.
5 - Victor Lana
Hey, Ruvy, I always love your comments, but this one (especially the last sentence) really depressed me.
6 - Ruvy
Victor,
You think it depressed you? I put "we" in that sentence - I'm part of that "we" and have, more and more, the sense of how long I do NOT have to hang around. My father, z"l, died when he was 68 - for me that is one decade away.
We were discussing this subject this evening, my younger son and I. My conclusion was that by the time Billy Joel was pumping out hits, everything he was producing was based on stuff thirty years oldor older. He is the one who readily admits that there is nothing creative on the music scene. He tells me this. And he is exposed to more than I am - three different cultures at least, in Israel.
"It's such a drag gettin' old."
7 - Cindy
"What a drag it is gettin' old."
I don't know. I think I feel sort of fine with getting old. Sure I miss some good times and wish I had known then what I know now. But I just realized I am pretty comfortable with who I am at this moment. Hard to beat that--youth alone wouldn't be worth it.