{"id":228,"date":"2009-10-29T11:59:33","date_gmt":"2009-10-29T11:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayethics\/2009\/10\/michael-jackson-autopsy-pictures-innocent-curiosity-or-ghoulish-obsession.html"},"modified":"2009-10-29T11:59:33","modified_gmt":"2009-10-29T11:59:33","slug":"michael-jackson-autopsy-pictures-innocent-curiosity-or-ghoulish-obsession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/10\/michael-jackson-autopsy-pictures-innocent-curiosity-or-ghoulish-obsession.html","title":{"rendered":"Michael Jackson Autopsy Pictures: Innocent Curiosity Or Ghoulish Obsession?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I asked it before when people were searching for David Carradine’s hanging photos<\/a>. What makes people so crazy to see celebrities’ post-mortem moments? Now rumor is spreading that Michael Jackson’s autopsy photos<\/a> are about to be leaked, and the internet is afire with the news.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
So, is it innocent curiosity, or…<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


\n…are people really sickos?<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Maybe there’s a third option. Maybe, when someone was never really real to us in the first place, like a pop icon or a movie star, their passing feels as ephemeral as their glamorous life. We feel a need for concrete evidence that they’ve met their end to prove they really existed in the first place; that they were real people, like us. We’re trying to connect, in some warped way, with the humanity of these celebrities whose lives seemed so far removed from our more humdrum existences.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Or so goes that theory. <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Even if it’s true, I think that the decent thing to do is to get past it, look away, and leave the deceased some decency. While I did say I thought it was OK to keep making Michael Jackson jokes<\/a> after he passed, I argued that as a matter of avoiding hypocrisy. When it comes to splashing pictures of a mutilated corpse across the world wide web, I think we have to draw the line, morally speaking. He’s got children, parents, and siblings who’ve been through quite enough. Whoever is leaking those photos has no heart. <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
To those whose morbid curiosity is driving them to take a peek at Michael Jackson’s autopsy pictures, I say, if you must look, keep a moment of pity in your heart. Keep a spark of humanity in your mind. One day it will be you on the cold slab.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Subscribe to receive updates from Everyday Ethics or <\/strong>follow us on Twitter<\/strong><\/a>!<\/strong><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For those whose morbid curiosity is driving them to take a peek at Michael Jackson’s autopsy pictures, I say, if you must look, keep a moment of pity in your heart. Keep a spark of humanity in your mind. One day it will be you on the cold slab.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-hillary-fields"],"yoast_head":"\nMichael Jackson Autopsy Pictures: Innocent Curiosity Or Ghoulish Obsession? - Everyday Ethics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/10\/michael-jackson-autopsy-pictures-innocent-curiosity-or-ghoulish-obsession.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Michael Jackson Autopsy Pictures: Innocent Curiosity Or Ghoulish Obsession? - Everyday Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For those whose morbid curiosity is driving them to take a peek at Michael Jackson's autopsy pictures, I say, if you must look, keep a moment of pity in your heart. Keep a spark of humanity in your mind. One day it will be you on the cold slab.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/10\/michael-jackson-autopsy-pictures-innocent-curiosity-or-ghoulish-obsession.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Everyday Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-10-29T11:59:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hfields\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Michael Jackson Autopsy Pictures: Innocent Curiosity Or Ghoulish Obsession? - Everyday Ethics","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/10\/michael-jackson-autopsy-pictures-innocent-curiosity-or-ghoulish-obsession.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Michael Jackson Autopsy Pictures: Innocent Curiosity Or Ghoulish Obsession? - Everyday Ethics","og_description":"For those whose morbid curiosity is driving them to take a peek at Michael Jackson's autopsy pictures, I say, if you must look, keep a moment of pity in your heart. Keep a spark of humanity in your mind. One day it will be you on the cold slab.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/10\/michael-jackson-autopsy-pictures-innocent-curiosity-or-ghoulish-obsession.html","og_site_name":"Everyday Ethics","article_published_time":"2009-10-29T11:59:33+00:00","author":"hfields","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/10\/michael-jackson-autopsy-pictures-innocent-curiosity-or-ghoulish-obsession.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/10\/michael-jackson-autopsy-pictures-innocent-curiosity-or-ghoulish-obsession.html","name":"Michael Jackson Autopsy Pictures: Innocent Curiosity Or Ghoulish Obsession? - Everyday Ethics","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-10-29T11:59:33+00:00","dateModified":"2009-10-29T11:59:33+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#\/schema\/person\/0c57c1fc9d645425d6205fa4f058146f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/10\/michael-jackson-autopsy-pictures-innocent-curiosity-or-ghoulish-obsession.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/10\/michael-jackson-autopsy-pictures-innocent-curiosity-or-ghoulish-obsession.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/10\/michael-jackson-autopsy-pictures-innocent-curiosity-or-ghoulish-obsession.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Michael Jackson Autopsy Pictures: Innocent Curiosity Or Ghoulish Obsession?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/","name":"Everyday Ethics","description":"Moral Ethics Blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#\/schema\/person\/0c57c1fc9d645425d6205fa4f058146f","name":"hfields","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/77b\/77bd98aa35acd21a3a7a209185ad8b6cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/77b\/77bd98aa35acd21a3a7a209185ad8b6cx96.jpg","caption":"hfields"},"description":"Hillary Fields is a born-and-bred New Yorker, brought up on the not-so-mean streets of Manhattan's Upper East Side. She attended St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she studied classics and philosophy, and then respectfully declined to spend the rest of her life in an ivory tower. Instead, she turned to the life of a writer and editor, penning three romance novels published by St. Martin's Press and contributing features to such periodicals as Cosmopolitan magazine. Her fascination with the moral dilemmas that crop up in everyday life--and the many intriguing ways people handle them--has always colored her writings. Now, that interest is leading her to take the discussion online; where, hopefully, the addition of reader feedback will bring these quotidian quandaries--and their potential solutions--vibrantly to life. When she's not plumbing the ethical mysteries of humanity, her passions include cooking (especially baking), origami, kittens, reading, watching really bad television and playing online scrabble. (And no, she doesn't cheat... much.)","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/author\/hfields"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}