Is Michael Jackson Really a Role Model?

I suppose every newspaper is obligated to tout an 11-minute video that costs more than $4 million, but you might at least have given your readers a little warning. I mean, I’m sitting there watching “Black or White,” which according to The Times has the media in a frenzy (“A ‘Dangerous’ Game: Industry Debates Odds on Another Monster Hit,” Calendar, Nov. 14), and suddenly I suspect my eyes are playing tricks on me. After all, this is Michael Jackson, whom David Geffen proclaims “the most important recording artist in the world,” and it looks like the sucker is groping himself on national TV!

Sure enough, the cameraman, sensing my incredulity, zooms in for a close-up of the famous one-gloved fingers caressing his royal crotch, lest there be any question regarding the depth and sincerity of our hero’s self-love.

As for people at the Fox network, they must be absolutely deranged to tack this exercise in vulgarity onto “The Simpsons,” which they must know is watched by at least half the kids in the country.

That’s all we need, to have the little buggers watch a pop icon trashing a car, laying about him with elbows and a crowbar. The youngsters are smart enough to know Bart Simpson is a cartoon, but Jackson is not only alive, he’s larger than life, as portrayed by the media.

When the kids commence following their idol’s example, will they start with the Fox parking lot?

ROBERT E. GOYETTE

Rolling Hills Estates