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He burst onto the scene as a minature adult and proceeded to grow more childlike over time.
When Michael Jackson gave up the ghost recently, we may have witnessed an eerie embodiment of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In both F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel and in the Oscar-nominated film version starring Brad Pitt, Benjamin Button ages in reverse: Born a shriveled old man, he dies a newborn baby.
As an 11-year-old prodigy, Jackson burst into the public as a miniature adult, seemingly immune to small talk and child’s play. His singing erupted into a volcano of sound and buried his youth beneath an implausible, though irresistible sophistication. If he knew too much for his age, he may have also known too much for his own good.
Jackson’s art opened a window into emotions he couldn’t possibly have understood. As he got older, he repented of his precociousness and took refuge in a childlike persona that amused before it provoked pity and horror. By the time he died, Jackson was both loved and loathed by millions because he refused to grow up. To twist Fitzgerald’s words, Jackson proved that there are no second childhoods in America.
The truth may be that both his childhoods were imagined—the first one snuffed by the inspiring and imperious demands of his father; the second one carved from a sometimes dangerous nostalgia for the youth he largely missed. But in both, Michael Jackson changed America.
The Jackson 5 was signed to Motown Records in 1968, the year Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Their string of hits starting in 1969 helped to usher in a post-civil rights version of blackness that exploded on record with their electrifying performances and their fashionable expression of race pride. The Jackson 5 didn’t have to give speeches or attend rallies to certify their authentic blackness; the way they grew their hair and moved their bodies spelled love of their people in bold letters.
Michael was a chocolate, cherubic-faced genius with an Afro halo. He and his brothers offered an image of black masculinity that had all the style of the Black Panthers, but the broad appeal of Tony the Tiger, which is why their animated artistry helped to integrate Saturday morning television in the early ‘70s with their own cartoon series. Sure, it was bubble gum, but their Blow Pops were spiked.
Coming a little more than five years after the Moynihan report famously concluded in 1965 that the black family was in shambles, the Jackson 5 presented an intact unit whose image of togetherness was as revolutionary as what was happening in the courts and streets. Blacks and whites rode Michael Jackson’s vocal cords into the soft racial catechism of Motown universalism without protest or resistance.
As Michael grew older, his voice and face changed. He no longer belted out R&B tunes in a blues-drenched melisma. Instead, as a solo artist, Jackson spiced his undulating tenor with sonic hiccups, parenthetical yelps, falsetto sighs and melodic grunts, all akin to musical Tourette’s. Jackson created a set of pop songs that transformed American music and evaded the racial pigeon hole. Embellishing disco, fomenting funk and dabbling in light rock on his superb 1979 album Off the Wall, Jackson reached his commercial peak on 1982’s Thriller, the best-selling album of all time.
Jackson’s image was also undergoing rapid transformation: His Afro got relaxed and curled, then straightened, his nose got smaller and sharper, and his skin got lighter and whiter. But none of that spared his racial travail. In 1980, after a Rolling Stone magazine publicist declined Jackson’s request for a cover story, he fumed, “I’ve been told over and over that black people on the cover of magazines doesn’t sell copies ... Just wait. Someday those magazines are going to be begging me for an interview. Maybe I’ll give them one. And maybe I won’t.”
In 1983, Jackson and his music label had to put the screws to MTV to air the video for his landmark single “Billie Jean,” opening the door for other black artists and giving the fledgling music channel cultural cache. Jackson essentially had to beg MTV for the opportunity to help make it rich and successful.
In the midst of his success, Jackson fought desperately to salvage the childhood he felt he never had. He eventually flaunted a penchant for sharing his bed with children, leading to accusations of molestation. Although he was legally cleared, Jackson failed to persuade millions of skeptics in the court of public opinion. He reshaped his face in his own image. Jackson grew to believe that he was too dark and that his nose was too broad. His relentless self-mutilation through reconstructive surgery was, in part, a bitter projection of the self-hatred that slices the black psyche. Although Jackson claimed to suffer from vitiligo, the disease that causes one to lose pigment, he may have sought to bleach his skin to rid his face of its offending blackness. Jackson deconstructed his African features and color; his face became a geography of distorted faces, a fleshly region of racial ideals invaded by spooky European traits that rendered him ethnically opaque.
What wasn’t difficult to see was the blackness and greatness of his music and the broad humanity of his globally popular brand of entertainment. Michael Jackson didn’t get from his father the nurture, love and unconditional affirmation he wanted in his first childhood. At times, he recklessly pursued them in his failed second childhood.
Still, he offered the world a glimpse of an extremely disciplined genius who was willing to share his gifts with millions of others because he couldn’t enjoy them himself. That may not qualify him for martyrdom, but it does make him a remarkable, if tortured soul who transformed his suffering into transcendent song and dance.
Michael Eric Dyson is a professor of sociology at Georgetown University.
Comments
If he knew too much for his age, he may have also known too much for his own good. free games
Yes... it is you. First of all the word in F-A-T-H-E-R. not Farther. It may sound knit picky but bad spelling ruins your credibility. The readers are so focused on the misspelling that they can’t get through your statement. None the less, I did get through the statement and I cannot see this tragic figure in Michael Jackson's life that everyone, including Pres. Obama, keeps talking about. Yes Michael died too young, i cried like everyone else, but as Al Sharpton stated. Michael did what Michael set out to do. People die young everyday. But Michael and the other Jackson family members lived and are living some damn good lives. I won’t say too much about their lack of a formal education. They were educated in the world. You can see that in their speech. I just think that if I had that much money I'd get an education just to be on par with everyone else, but that's just me.
As for our beloved President; Chill When someone asks you about Michael. you don’t have to give what you think is a politically correct statement always mentioning his faults with the statement on the one hand that he was an icon, while on the other about his life being sad or tragic and such. Did Michael write you a personal letter stating that he was sad or more sad that most people? He may not have lived your choice of life, but believe it or not you’re not living every ones dream life either. So when they ask you about Mike on his death (my God) could you just be nice and civil and make non judgmental statements. instead of trying to please the haters who hate him because he is so much so loved.
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This is a thoughtful article, but it can never get inside the mind, soul and heart of Michael.
I personally do not believe Michael was a child molester, there are many who disagree with me and equally there are many who do not. It is perhaps not this, however, that is the issue. If one takes the view that Michael did harm children, did the treatment he received at the hands of Tom Sneddon and a collusive hostile media which engaged in the kind of ferocious fact-building that is now de rigeur, actually achieve any real rehabilitation for Jordan Chandler or Gavin? Or was the unprecedented destruction that was brought to bear on Michael actually an excercise in intent to harm? Sneddon spent millions of dollars searching the world for children to testify against Michael in a criminal trial and could only find one family. The credibilty of Evan Chandler, a known fraudster, who mistreated his own wife and Jordan himself, went on record stating that his aim was to ruin Michael's career and get as much money as possible. Speaking for myself, there isn't enough money in the world that would compensate me for the abuse of my child. It is perhaps a little known fact that Michael himself did not want to settle the case but had wanted to fight it. Who knows whether the events of 2005 would have even happened if he had. His mental and physical health had deteriorated to such a degree in 1993 that Elizabeth Taylor and Michael's lawyers advised a vunerable and frail Michael to settle, telling him they couldn't guarantee a not guilty verdict. Michael had waived his entire fee from the Dangerous tour to give to the Heal The World Foundation, but he had to cancel it 2/3rds of the way in to deal with the allegations. He was under enormous pressure from Pepsi and the promoters to pay back lost monies and was also dealing with his own addiction to painkillers and the agony of trying to prove his innocence. Put together with the context of Michael's lost childhood and the unquestionable truth of his legendary, peerless artistry, then suddenly we are talking about a tragedy of epic proportions. So when we're reading articles or opinions like mine or watching the news; know they are cold retellings of something of what, for Michael, was his life. He lived it. Everyday. Could any of us do the same and leave behind the glorious legacy he did?
This is a thoughtful article, but it can never get inside the mind, soul and heart of Michael.
I personally do not believe Michael was a child molester, there are many who disagree with me and equally there are many who do not. It is perhaps not this, however, that is the issue. If one takes the view that Michael did harm children, did the treatment he received at the hands of Tom Sneddon and a collusive hostile media which engaged in the kind of ferocious fact-building that is now de rigeur, actually achieve any real rehabilitation for Jordan Chandler or Gavin? Or was the unprecedented destruction that was brought to bear on Michael actually an excercise in intent to harm? Sneddon spent millions of dollars searching the world for children to testify against Michael in a criminal trial and could only find one family. The credibilty of Evan Chandler, a known fraudster, who mistreated his own wife and Jordan himself, went on record stating that his aim was to ruin Michael's career and get as much money as possible. Speaking for myself, there isn't enough money in the world that would compensate me for the abuse of my child. It is perhaps a little known fact that Michael himself did not want to settle the case but had wanted to fight it. Who knows whether the events of 2005 would have even happened if he had. His mental and physical health had deteriorated to such a degree in 1993 that Elizabeth Taylor and Michael's lawyers advised a vunerable and frail Michael to settle, telling him they couldn't guarantee a not guilty verdict. Michael had waived his entire fee from the Dangerous tour to give to the Heal The World Foundation, but he had to cancel it 2/3rds of the way in to deal with the allegations. He was under enormous pressure from Pepsi and the promoters to pay back lost monies and was also dealing with his own addiction to painkillers and the agony of trying to prove his innocence. Put together with the context of Michael's lost childhood and the unquestionable truth of his legendary, peerless artistry, then suddenly we are talking about a tragedy of epic proportions. So when we're reading articles or opinions like mine or watching the news; know they are cold retellings of something of what, for Michael, was his life. He lived it. Everyday. Could any of us do the same and leave behind the glorious legacy he did?
Just like opinions and a__ holes everyone has one.
@misterb
Probably a waste of time since I think that we are on different mental pages, but what the heck...
I guess my bigger point is that there are so many other issues going on in the country, in the world, that I wish people could mobilize to work on those issues instead of wasting time and energy obessing about 1 person who basically made the decision to lead a self-destructive life...Just look at the facts...We are all responsible for our lives, including MJ!
In terms of my contributions to the community, my family, organizations, etc...NOT that I have anything to prove to you, heck, I don't even know you (or give much care about you), but I would definitely compare my financial and in-kind contributions relative to my income up against ANYONE else's...yours, MJs, whomever...Not that comparisons should be the focus, but just to shut you up...Actually, instead of obessesing over MJ, why don't you go outside and get a life? Help out at a homeless shelter? read a book?
I dont know . Maybe it is the vulnerablity that MJ revealed , He clearly did not live his life for other people, and there benefits and pitfalls to those decisions. But unless you and others have proof otherwise in which case you are not living up to your legal responsibilities as a citizen to give thi sproof to the police and have him prosecuted. Youre not in a position to make statements about whether or not MJ lived a tragic life . How much money did you donate to Black Colleges? Probably not as much as MJ. My God he didnt even go College and gav more than those that benefitted from going. This money that he gave can be documentedThose nasty hateful silly rumors cannot be documented. So I must say to you MH that you owe him a lot more than youre putting out. MJ only owed the public what he gave us professionally. When people in this country, US. talk the way you are talking, It makes us look really bad to the world. In Japan they read the rumors , but they also considered the source because to them he can do no wrong. But the more hate that you and other spew, the more he is loved.
I getr it youre not a particular fan of mine What's your point?
First, I think that both the public and media reaction to MJ's death has been overblown and further evidence of our culture's obessesion with celebrity. Which standing alone, is problematic.
Second, I am tired of Michael's supposed lost childhood used as a jutification for his terribly distrubing actions as an adult. Few people, if any, enter adulthood without any trauma from growing up. At the end of the day, its all a mater of degree. As an adult, one is expected to engage whatever steps are necessary to allow one to lead a healthy and productive life. While Michael appears to have been productive professionally, as should be obvious to anyone with a pulse, his life was anything but healthy.
MJ was a tragic figure in many ways. What's worse is pretending he was anything but...Last year (I think), when Strom Thurmond died, most African-Americans (myself included) wanted him to remembered for what he was...An unapologetic racist. We should apply that same standard to MJ...One racial issues, he was only one of "us" when he needed us---i.e., his accusations of racism against Tommy Mottola when his album sold poorly or his appearance at Black Award shows when his career was in trouble, he was MIA; and, on mental health issues, as I have already stated, MJ was anything but stable (no adult that I know of would otherwise condone an adult sleeping in the same bed with an unrelated child, and that's just for starters).
I am sure many will call me a hater, which I am not. I am just keeping it real...real honest.
This article....YAWN