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The king is dead and the eulogies we are being offered in the media are missing this stories' point. While I am grateful that the ongoing celebration of Michael Jackson's art and music is finally occurring... and has been long overdue, I do not believe enough emphasis is being placed on the person himself. We are finally once again appreciating his art, but we are still failing to understand Michael Jackson the person.
Michael Jackson's is a tragic story. He was a philanthropist who never found love for himself. He was the most admired man on earth, yet he still felt ugly. Michael was the superstar who had everything; but he never had what he wanted most: a childhood. Innocence. For every one of Michael Jackson's gifts and talents there was an underlying demon. By the end of his time on earth, Michael Jackson appeared to us alien; an uber-talent, a genius... A rejected gift from the heavens that the world could never wholly understand.
Here was a man, a troubled person, who never felt comfortable in his own skin. Michael seemingly never doubted his talents, but he was also never confident in his physical appearance. The most exposed, admired person in the world felt clumsy and ugly. Adding to his demise, the already self-conscious pop star fell victim to a disfiguring skin disease called vitiligo and was subject to a serious burn during a Pepsi commercial that various sources have said caused damage that would hinder his ability to grow hair on his head properly.
So before you criticize Michael for the personal war he waged against his own physical appearance; Ponder his situation... Imagine you are the most famous person in the world... You have your scalp burned and your hairline is forever disturbed... You contract a skin disease that if left unaddressed will cause you to look like a human Dalmatian... What would you do? Regardless, if you address your appearance through cosmetic surgery, or if you appear as you truly are, you will feel mercilessly scrutinized!
Yes, people have bad hair, and yes, people have bad skin - or even vitiligo. But not everyone is Michael Jackson! Can you really criticize him for his choices regarding his appearance without being in his shoes? To quote Tom Petty: "You don't know how it feels."
I do not believe that Michael Jackson ever desired the pity of others. Rather, I think he longed to be understood, to be appreciated, and perhaps even accepted for who he was. Despite his inherent eccentricities, for most of his career Michael Jackson was celebrated for his artistic achievements. However, after the initial child molestation accusations of the 1990's, Michael's eccentricities ceased to be considered the cost of genius and were instead deemed to be the source of a felonious freakishness. What was once tolerated in exchange for brilliant art, was now evidence of unspeakable acts.
The Boy with the Golden voice had become the Freak with the Kiddie Touch...
From then on, Michael became exponentially isolated, disfigured, and damaged. His corporal body became a visage of undeniable human wreckage. His psyche was never to recover.
I will not pretend or presume to know what did or did not happen in Michael's bedroom. Some will argue he was a clear danger to kids; others will say that Michael wanted to be a child rather than be with children - that his desire was for innocence, not instead to corrupt or defile.
But as an observer all I can say is that I feel disturbed that the same masses who maligned him his eccentricity and questionable judgment have in his death come to overlook these things in favor of his art. The portrait of Michael Jackson as a whole has yet to be acknowledged... instead we continue to bounce from detail to detail without acknowledging the greater whole of his being... and I find that unnerving.
Regardless, this much is clear to me now. Once Michael Jackson slipped from our "Freak-Hero" to our "Freak-Villain" it was over for him. Only in death could this star ever regain its luster... and that is a shame... because Michael Jackson was an undeniable gift to us all and perhaps both we, and he himself, tragically came to lose a proper perspective.
Why is it that he had to die in order for this outpouring of love and acceptance to come to the surface? Why did the price of his redemption have to be his life?
I think if he were alive to see the appreciation that is being hurled towards him in his death, he would smile and feel Thrilled.
Michael Jackson was a person who wanted things he could never have. Who can't relate to that?
To paraphrase Morrissey, another of my favorite "Freak-Geniuses" Michael was a man "With loves, and hates, and passions just like mine; He was born and then he lived and then he died..."
He was human, a person just like everyone else. That is a fact that has and continues to be denied in our public consciousness. STOP! and celebrate the differences, similarities and contradictions that were Michael Jackson.
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