Perp walks and privacy
Supposedly, Michael Jackson was a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Even his face was hidden behind surgical masks and the permanent mask of plastic surgery. Talking to interviewers, from Oprah in 1993 and Barbara Walters in 1997 to Martin Bashir in 2003, he seemed like a distant and unknowable star of indefinite gender. He was considered the quintessential pop alien, whether he was doing a perp walk at a Santa Barbara jail or a moonwalk across the concert stage.
But go back and look at the unscripted Jackson, of which there are countless clips on the Web. Re-read his “reality’’ narrative. Over and over during the past two decades, he told us exactly who he was with as much expressiveness as he could muster in his tightened face and laminated voice. He desperately wanted to be known not just as the groundbreaking King of Pop, but as a larger-than-life icon of victimhood. He was, he’d note to anyone who’d listen, the man whose childhood was stolen, and he wanted to represent all lost children. And the more he talked about his victimization - by the paparazzi, by his accusers, by the justice system, by his family, by his physical ailments - the more he seemed to be victimized.
More than most stars before him or since, Jackson wanted us to know that we - his fans, his detractors, the wide world of curiosity seekers - were all responsible for him. That message wound through his work, in the songs “Privacy’’ and “Childhood,’’ for example, about his “painful youth’’; it defined his personal and professional aesthetic, which was an extension of the Peter Pan story; and it led him to expect our sympathy when he said to Bashir about sharing a bed with a boy, “It’s very right, it’s very loving, because what’s wrong with sharing a love?’’ He wanted us to remember that he, a former child star, was far more sinned against than sinner.
You wouldn’t find Madonna asking for our pity, relying on our guilt. And career control, or the appearance of control, is the goal of most contemporary pop stars, as they navigate the battlefield of publicity and promotion. They want to be perceived as securely in charge of their fame, the CEOs of their own vanity corporations. Victimization is perceived as the best refuge of those, like Britney Spears and Anna Nicole Smith, who are lacking in the talent department - which Jackson was not. And so among Jackson’s many influences, along with his unforgettable music and dancing, he has served as a reminder of the toxic combination of victimhood and fame in this tabloid age. Alas, he has become a contemporary cautionary tale. MATTHEW GILBERT 