Quote from: NJackSwing91 on November 25, 2014, 02:14:34 AMI just recently watched the movie, Birdman, which stars Michael Keaton. This doesn't have anything to do with the hoax really. They bring up the 'death' of Michael Jackson briefly in the movie. Michael Keaton plays a washed-up actor, Riggan, that was famous for a popular super hero franchise from 20 years ago. In the movie he is producing, directing, and starring in his own adaptation of a short story on Broadway as an attempt to show his critics and the public that he's still relevant in the industry.
In one of the scenes he is in his dressing room speaking to his ex-wife. He expresses his fears of dying in a plane crash with a bigger named celebrity, like George Clooney, and his daughter only reading of Clooney's death in the news and not his. Afterwards, he says, "Did you know that Farrah Fawcett died the same day as Michael Jackson?"
At the beginning of this scene his ex-wife kept asking about how their daughter, Sam (who just got out of rehab) was holding up and insisted that he tries to be more supportive to her. However, Riggan continues to change the conversation back to himself and his play. His ex-wife, rolling her eyes starts to leave the room and reminds him why she left him (because he threw a knife at her for not liking a movie he did with Goldie Hawn and that he confuses love with admiration). Before she leaves she says, "You're not Farrah Fawcett."
My analysis of this scene was kind of mixed. When she said that he's not Farrah Fawcett, she must be metaphorically comparing him to Michael Jackson in that his death would receive a lot of attention. However, in the context of this scene and saying that Riggan confuses love with admiration, she could be suggesting that Riggan just craves the attention. Which when you think about it, she's saying that Michael had hogged all the attention away from Farrah. Which I found kind of insulting if Michael were actually dead (he wouldn't have been able to control all the media attention had he actually died).
Another interesting thing about the movie....and this is a major spoiler if you haven't seen the movie yet.... there are two attempted suicides. One of Riggan's character that he portrays in his play and the other of Riggan himself. As Riggan goes on to perform his final scene on opening night we see that he takes a loaded gun with him onstage rather than the stage gun they had used in rehearsal. We're led to believe that he actually shoots himself in the final scene, but he wakes up in a hospital room and we learn that he had missed and shot his nose off instead. He learns that he has made front page news and his producer is ecstatic by the press coverage and says that this incident will become legendary.
Then, at the end of the scene, Riggan walks and opens a hospital window. The camera does not show if he actually jumps out of the window or not, but he's no longer in the room when his daughter, Sam, comes in. Ultimately, in the end his death (or disappearance) is kind of ambiguous and we don't really know what happened, except for maybe his daughter who appears to be looking up at the sky and smiling in the very last shot of the movie.
I just thought I'd share this with everyone since they bring up MJ and because of the ambiguous death at the end. I definitely recommend everyone seeing this movie. I think it's a great movie and has a great cast and Edward Norton is amazing, as always, in it.
What?! :icon_lol: 'Doesn't have anything to do with the Hoax' here? Well, to me, just for the odd similarities you mentioned to our Hoax reality, it seems to have more to do with it than, say... a recent commercial I saw for aspirin, I think, in which someone says, "Well, my name is Michael :icon_e_surprised: , and I am very :icon_e_wink: much alive" :affraid: :affraid: ha ha ha. I think we here have been conditioned to expect MJ Hoaxy shadows and types EVERYwhere, but just because our awareness has been heightened doesn't mean the similarities to reality are NOT on purpose! I would see this movie just because Norton is in it, so thanks for the review of it! :beerchug:
Now this may be off, but just for the heck of it, & not having seen the film yet, I wonder if the guy's wife meant that she divorced him for being a whiny narcissist, who is 'not Farrah Fawcett' because she was a lovely woman who suffered with a horrible and real disease, not some self-obsessed diva going on about nothing (as Riggan appears to be from the things you stated about him). But Idk...just talking about this character in your post about the movie.
I'd like to just say btw, while on the subject, that many beloved people really die within days of one another, and no one but the most shallow or egocentric of persons would be so tacky as to imagine this sad time as a competition, hence Riggan's wife's "Farrah Fawcett dig" at him. It may come up as a point of contention later, regarding MJ, by someone wanting to start something, but just for the record, "show" people above everybody, would be the least likely to blast MJ for not derailing a show he had put a quarter of a century into planning, just to bow out of the limelight for a few days of respect. I don't think he will get ANY flak about "upstaging her act", if he ever comes back, because, 1) he died first; what's he gonna do--- :icon_e_confused: jump out of the crypt and say "sorry", taking FURTHER media away from her, to cover his miraculous resurrection, and then subsequently take a grilling for faking death AND ruin all his unrepeatable plans?? ?? ? ??? (nope). And, 2), his death WAS an act of fiction, where hers is real life. Apples and oranges. I bet a lot of people died the day of the first staged all day long televised trip to the moon 40 yrs ago, but no one complained that it upstaged anyone else's fifteen minutes of final fame, because no matter how dazzling a show is, it is real death which upstages EVERY other thing--- even another death! MJ knew that :bowdown: and I think that's why he chose "death" to arrest the entire world's attention that day, AND why he let the show go on still, the days after that. The show goes on on Broadway no matter who dies (unless it is the show itself! :TongueOutSmiley: :icon_lol:)
