No More Thrillers

31 years ago, millions sat in front of their televisions and watched the 13 minute long spectacular that was Thriller. Since then, millions more have experienced one of the most important artistic works in history. In 2009, the video was inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant, the first music video to ever receive this honor. What made Thriller a phenomenon was not simply its artistic merit. What made Thriller a phenomenon was that we let it be. As Livingston writes, "rituals are found in every human community and are a primary means of social communication and cohesion" (98).

Today, Thriller would be nothing. Thriller would rot away in the depths of YouTube as many other works have, not because technology has advanced or because people are more talented than Michael Jackson,  but because we as a society have a changing collective culture. Despite this change, the vast number of media outlets have increased the accessibility of a wealth of talent. The result is a culture that has more musical artists to be fanatics of.

However this dynamic is still influences our perception of media and talent. In the past, it was to the mainstream media; radio, television, and movies that would inform how american cultural rituals were performed. Music was pushed in various forms to maintain the power of rituals as a means of social communication and cohesion.  However, we have been taught of the manufactured media. We have learned of the seemingly unauthentic nature of mainstream media which has damaged our perception of it. This conflict raises the question if growing cynicism will mark the stark decline of musical religiosity? Moreover, does that limit the possibility of there ever being another Thriller?

Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March”

Whenever I think of the word “marriage,” Mendelssohn’s famous “Wedding March” immediately pops up in my head. Every time I go to a Chinese wedding I can expect to hear this song being played when the bride walked down the aisle. At the same time, I have often wondered why the newly wed couple chose this song out of all the (Chinese) songs they could have chosen. Ritual: I believe the six-letter word answers that question of mine. Livingston explains that “rituals are found in every human community and are a primary means of social communication and cohesion, [thus] a religious ritual [is] defined as an agreed-on and formalized pattern of ceremonial movements and verbal expressions carried out in a sacred context” (Sacred Ritual, 98). According to Livingston’s definition of religious rituals, Mendelssohn’s Wedding March is automatically associated with marriage rites because the song has become a formalized pattern frequently used during marriage ceremonies.

After doing a bit of research I discovered that this song was an incidental piece of music performed in 1842 as part of Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A couple used Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” for their wedding in 1847, but it was not until 1858 that it became popularized. The song was a recessional to the famous marriage between Princess Victoria Adelaide Mary Louise of the United Kingdom and Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia (PBS.org) in 1858. From that moment on, Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” became a formalized pattern in countless weddings in the English-speaking world. Thus, it was a little less than a 160 years ago that Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” became a medium that transformed “ordinary spaces like [outdoor venues] and [banquet halls] into extraordinary settings experienced as sacred ground” (Laderman, 42). Laderman describes how music does this by “inhabiting and altering the body” (27). Music, such as Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March,” is more than just what one hears because it helps fulfill basic human needs of emotional and social want, such as going to weddings expecting to be a part of a larger social interaction group. By playing Mendelssohn’s famous march, every couple is emphasizing how important marriage is as an institution. Similar to how National Hymns are symbols of a country and all of its history, this march represents all of marriages and what it presents. Of course, one could ask oneself how much longer this tradition is going to last. Will millennials continue to play Mendelssohn at their weddings, or will there be a “new” wedding march?