How Thriller' Lost Its Thrill

摘要

History, karl marx said, repeats itself first as tragedy, then as farce. So what does farce repeat itself as? Cliche? We're told the sick saga of Michael Jackson has everything―race confusion, gender-bending, celebrity worship that has reached the point where children are offered by their parents as human sacrifices. The only thing the story doesn't have is what it needs most: some element of surprise or shock to give us the frisson we crave. The freak show is back in town, and it beats doing your homework or washing your hair. But it's no thriller anymore. For all the cable hyperventilating, the "Era of Great Trials," as historians may call the 1990s, may be drawing to a close.