Like many, I was surprised—I’ll stop short at “shocked”; in much the same way I expect Mike Tyson’s journey to end poorly, I have to admit I harbored the same gut instinct regarding Michael Jackson—to hear of Jacko’s demise at the hands of cardiac arrest last week. Yet I was much more taken aback by the reaction of most members of my generation to his passing, with tearful remembrances on Facebook, impromptu playing of his music in record stores and unplanned flockings to the streets for random weeping and wailing.
Jackson unquestionably defined an entire era of pop music—and even the definition of what pop music was and should be—and pushed the bounds of showmanship and what it truly meant to be a performer. His signature moves were copied by white and black children alike, with Leroy just as likely to rip off a moonwalk on the street corner as Trevor was to beg Mom for a white sequined glove from Rose’s. He crossed racial boundaries, even if some are too sensitive to question whether or admit that no one could tell in the later years exactly what pigmentation he belonged to anymore. He brought Motown to Main Street and paved the way for an entire generation of performers with an unspoken challenge to do more and better, to take his torch and carry it into another dimension.
To many African-Americans, he represented hope and access to a musical world that had long held them at arm’s length. So from a standpoint of civil rights, it’s easy to empathize with the reaction of the black community to his death. He also was the classic child star, abused by his father in the pursuit of fame and fortune; he had an entire family strapped to his spindly frame and was told to carry it as far and as fast as he could.
I get it. There is no case that can be made against his talents as a musician, as a singer, as a showman. There is a story to be told of the obstacles he bounded across to overcome an upbringing that saw him forced to sing in strip clubs as a pre-teen. As a lover of music, I can’t help but respect what he meant to the industry, to the art form, to the age in which he lived. Like almost every other person of my age, male or female, I remember owning “Thriller” and playing it over and over and over. Hell, I think I even used the cover song as a backdrop in a school project at one point.
Yet forgive me I stop short of the idol worship and lamentations of the loss of a legend. Perhaps it is a level of cynicism that I am unable to overcome. Maybe it’s the subordination of all else to the truth, the cross to bear of a career journalist. I can separate the man from his music; I can appreciate his talents while never forgetting what he truly was. Which was a child molester. Which was someone who preyed on the fears and psychoses of those who are too young to handle them. Which was someone who used his fame to destroy the innocence and forever wreck the lives of those he was responsible for protecting.
On a much lower level, his bizarre behavior can be forgiven, his strange plastic-surgery decisions passed off as regrettable decisions, his odd public displays that endangered himself and his children left to fade away under the weight of his legend. But some even ascribe the ascension of music videos into popularity to Jacko—is that a good thing? Some credit him for elevating MTV into one of the most-watched channels ever, ushering in an entire era of multimedia presentation—is that worth claiming either? Others say he was the forerunner of the boy-band era, which, in the immortal of words of Jim Rome, featured middle-aged men with frosted lettuce dancing in unison in order to sell records to teenage girls—who the hell would be proud of that? To me, these are actually condemnations of his legacy. Then again, I write as one who hasn’t voluntarily watched MTV since he was about 14, so I’m aware of owning a somewhat unique perspective.
In these emotional and sensitive times, going against the flow can be construed in any number of ill-sounding ways. I get that, too. But it’s the same way I felt when people tried to foist Kurt Cobain on us, pass him off as the voice of my generation, the flawed symbol of Gen-X. And I was and am a huge fan of Cobain; my appreciation for him only grew deeper and deeper over the years as he proved to be an immensely talented and well-rounded musician and artist. But someone who spoke for me, for my feelings about the world, for my angst about the world I lived in, for the outrage against certain societal ills? Not a chance. Why does he represent me? Because he decided to shoot himself in the head? Really? Is that what it takes to become a generational mouthpiece? His choice to pull a trigger and stop the music somehow transposed his thoughts into the fact that I couldn’t get in-state tuition or figure out what made the girl in my Environmental Politics class tick?
Yet the difference is that there was so much still to offer from Kurt Cobain. One got the sense that he was merely scratching the surface of wondrous, deep musical waters, that he was only beginning to discover the muse within. His loss was lamented for the possibilities it stole, for the genre-wide void it created. Where would he have taken grunge? How far would he have gone with Nirvana? How much would he have challenged Eddie Vedder and others of his ilk to keep pushing the envelope, and what would they have then become? We knew what Michael Jackson had created, and it was worshipped by the masses; we never knew what Kurt Cobain might have found in his flawed pursuit of whatever he needed to quell the pain and quiet the voices.
So before we start putting Jacko’s likeness on ceramic plates and selling them on obscure shopping channels, before we anoint a Michael Jackson Day, before we fly the flag at Neverland at half-mast, before we slip on our tears over losing yet another childhood “hero,” I’ll be the one remembering those he robbed of something they can’t ever get back, the fragile ones with no voice to defend themselves, the soiled playground in the background, the broken that no payoff can truly pay off.
Because apparently unlike many of my generation, I can separate the truth from the image. I can respect Michael Jackson for what he did—and condemn him for who he was.
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