Comment: What Michael Jackson says about us
What Michael Jackson says about us
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By James Christie. |  |
Friday, 26, Jun 2009 01:25
By Ian Dunt
Michael Jackson rarely said anything political. There were some vague and well intentioned songs about peace and the environment, of course - even if they were a little over-wrought. He never appeared to show any particular interest in the day-to-day of political debate. But his life had political effects.
Before skin colour and allegations of child molestation took over his image, the debate about him centred on his gender. As a child I remember seeing posters of him and asking my father if it was a man or a woman. At the time it was a small joke. But the way he appeared was of huge importance.
Half man, half woman, but a writhing, sexual thing; songs like Dirty Diana had a big effect on many children growing up in the eighties. During that decade, the main examples of male sexuality were towering, testosterone-filled men like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone. Michael Jackson was different. It's hard to discuss his sexuality now without feeling uncomfortable, after the allegations of child abuse coloured our image of him forever. But the effect he had on those growing up in his shadow took place nevertheless, and it was entirely uncorrupted by what came later.
He was effeminate. He was skinny, and made high pitched noises, and wore bizarre clothing. But he was unmistakeably sexual. He grabbed his crotch and female fans at the front of the stadium literally passed out. He gave kids growing up back then an alternative. It was sexy, and utterly heterosexual, and full of vigour and youth and sweat. It was strange - alien even - but for a while, before everything changed, it was also inspirational. He made it feel as if it was OK to be different. Better than that: he made it feel as if it was vital to be different.
Years later, Jarvis Cocker pulled down his trousers as Jackson did what can only be described as a Jesus impression on stage. It seemed a valuable British rebellion against the self-obsessed, naïve Americanism on stage. But there was also something sad about it, because Cocker and Jackson both gave kids who felt different something to look up to. They made them feel as if there were others like them.
And then there was his skin. Over the course of my lifetime, he went from black to white. He cited a skin condition, which may or may not be true. I concluded that Jackson treated race in the same casual, superior way he treated sexuality. He seemed to almost transcend it. Later, when he released Black or White, the music video ended with a human race endlessly transmuting into that of different races, sexes and ages. Cynics might say it was a gimmick, or an attempt to dress a psychological dysfunction in political clothing. But there seemed something genuine in it.
Michael Jackson was a parable of celebrity. He was the ultimate celebrity, not just in terms of the immensity of his fame, but in terms of his life. He grew up in celebrity, and grew old in it, and eventually he died in it. It appears, on any superficial analysis, to have driven him mad. Many of the rumours about him, such as the hyperbaric chamber, were false. But many of them were clearly true.
On the dark side, he showed us the damage of what celebrity can do. Like the behaviour of contestants in the Big Brother house, whose behaviour changes because they are being watched, or photons, which behave differently according to whether scientists are observing them, the obsessive focus on him changed him, and turned him into something different. He was, in some senses, a freak. The Nietzsche quote is important here: "If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." He was strange. But his strangeness reflected something about us as well. We made him what he was. He was as he was because of us.
And then there was the music. It's some of the best music ever made. For many of us, it will always be the sound of our childhood.
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