Michael Jackson's tragic death the other day has been probably the most discussed thing across the globe the past few days, generating much more than even major world events such as the Iranian political problems, North Korea's seemingly frightening nuclear ambitions and poor old Farah Fawcett who's death was compltely over-shadowed.
His fame stretches far beyond his career and the realm of popular Western music. He's a bone fide popular culture icon and with his untimely death is now enshrined into immortality like Elvis and Kurt Cobain, Marilyn and James Dean.
I am incredibly saddened by his untimely demise. I grew up as a kid listening to Michael. I sincerely hoped he would have a career renaissance which would remind everyone (even if only once more) of his genius and all that was wonderful about the man. Sadly that's not to be.
I wrote a big feature on Michael at the start of 2003 for an internet magazine. In the last line, I made a sad almost prophetic prediction that Michael might meet an untimely death, and sadly I have been proven right.
Here is the feature, re-printed in full. and I seriously wrote the last sentence then too! I did a lot of work on it, and think it still is a really interesting look at him.
Did He or Doesn't He?
Well - being the start of 2003, it may well be trendy and all that to talk about the Middle East and Iraq blah blah Rummy and George W blah blah North Korea 'axis of evil' blah Columbia blowing up etc etc......but the really big news as we all know, is that certain documentary on Michael Jackson byBritish journo Martin Bashir who also 'did' Princess Di. What- a-corker!!! Truly the most riveting two hours on TV in recent memory when it hit our (NZ) screens in early Feb 03. On so many angles, so many interpretations ...whatever you may think of Jackson, there is no denying it - he is fascinating!! We sat truly aghast as the crafted, methodical ( very British) documentary unfolded and Jackson become more and more ....riveting.
It screened here on a Sunday night, and since then conversations have been peppered with debate and interpretation of what each of us have taken from it. For those of you reading this who somehow managed to miss this mesmerising documentary - it is the culmination of Bashir's unprecedented 8months or so spent in the life of a certain Mr. Michael Jackson.....a slice of this extraordinary man's bizarre fantasy life, which has to be seen literally in order to be believed.It is well possible that this documentary, following hot on the heels of his macabre baby-dangling incident in Berlin, will be the personal life straw that breaks the camel of his pop career - certainly his eccentricity is now tragically the fundamental media portrayal of him rather than focusing on his phenomenal, once-in-a-lifetime talent, which really peaked between the late 70s to the early-mid 80s.
Firstly, I was fascinated as to why the notoriously reclusive, media averse Jackson would allow a journo into his life at all, let alone to this extent. Maybe it's because Bashir presents as so soft, friendly and passive that he's like a cuddly middle-aged, Anglo-Indian teddy bear. Maybe it's because he is British, and somehow Jackson found a level of trust in him lacking in any of the caustic American press for whom he is number one whipping boy. Maybe it's because Jackson - so convinced there is nothing particularly wrong with his lifestyle and life ethos - saw it as an opportunity to win back the empathy of the world public-at-large, tarnished by the 'wacko Jacko' 'scum' ( as he called them) stories of the last 15 years or so.
In any event it is clear that Jackson is relaxed and happy to have Bashir in his home when the doco starts, offering him a level of warmth and gentle openness which in the first section of the documentary enamours you to Jackson in a kind of 'he's really-just-a-super-rich-eccentric-genius-with-a-Peter-Pan-complex' fashion...he is painfully shy and has to be coaxed to dance, explains how he wrote the epic 'Billy Jean', and even tries to teach Bashir how to moonwalk. He is definitely odd, but seems sweet and childish as well as lucid and bright. And very, very a-sexual.
It's when you start to tour with them around Jackson's Fun Park 'Neverland' that you can see where he has really sunk his serious lifetime bucks, and really see the eccentricity in it's full, unexpurgated glory. This is a fully sized amusement park with massive ferris wheel, racing cars, carousel, even ice cream guy...and not something that most chaps of his level of wealth spend their dosh...this is when the first real realisation hits; that his is truly a child's mind in a grown up's body. The Peter Pan thing is discussed with Bashir, and it's then that Jackson's essential dysfunction surfaces in all it's weirdness - he tells Bashir 'I AM Peter Pan'...pausing to then elaborate that he is Peter Pan 'in his heart'.
While there are probably other adult Peter Pans scattered around the globe, chances are this is the only one to literally live it for real - because he has the massive budget to do so. His dysfunction is a bought-and-paid-for, three dimensional type, wrapping and caressing him in it's fantasy. And this makes the fantasy reality for him, and the certain people (mostly kids) in his life a reality of sorts. Clearly to Jackson (as shown by Bashir), it's a reality. The Amusement park, the Zoo. Rooms packed with Peter Pan characters, games of all types, larger than life wax figures, all the stuff of children's craziest imaginings, there literally...a kind of wacky Walt Disney.
But Jackson folds like wet cardboard when Bashir questions him about his childhood...painfully intimate and intensely private but gently probing questions about his violent control freak father Joseph Jackson. It is already well documented - according to the recollection of many of the famous Jackson siblings that they lived in an intensely dysfunctional world of discipline which usually spilled over into actual violence; beatings with items like jug cords, being thrown against walls for failing to dance just right, making little mistakes during musical practice, or just as being kids. Due to his talent Michael often escaped the beatings his other less able brothers received. If this is to believed, then Michael Jackson's bizarre adult persona can be explained to a point. Sexual abuse was not raised, but if he had been abused then I would not be at all surprised. If it occurred horrifically, for years (either at his fathers or someone else'shands) then I would not be at all surprised. You don't need to be an expert in psychology to establish the link between all this, if it happened, and Jackson's dysfunction as an adult.
What might further explain the dysfunction and wasn't covered in as much detail by Bashir (due to time constraints and the personality-oriented theme of the documentary) was the freakish goldfish bowl world that MJ has survived through since he was just ten years old! Everywhere he has ever gone in public since early childhood - he has had to deal with the intense glare that his blazing talent attracts. His fame from the late 60s (when the Jackson 5 first signed with Motown) was not that much different to what it is in 2003. To live like this for just a small chunk of time is a highly pressured, un-human way to ive...even over a short period of time it would be and is too much for many (check Bashir's other famous subject), let alone for an entire lifetime - unabated. Living from hotel to hotel. Airport to airport. City to city, country to country. No school. No real peers/friends apart from siblings. No learning to mix with girls, make friends of similar peer group. Nothing remotely normal, year after year. Those few people that have lived in this glare - i.e.. Elvis - are so removed from reality that any small frailty is enough to turn their life into a surreal circus and even destroy them.
However, to watch Michael Jackson as a child performer is something else - eloquently summing himself up in the documentary as 'a 42yo man in a child's body'. His perfect voice, funky sublime vocal phrasing belying his youth, radiant face, and (even at this young age) mesmerisingly fluid dancing, are all freakishly good - his relatively talented siblings seem like clunky bit-players when performing with him. He exuded that magical thing that captivates all of us regardless of nationality, class, intelligence, musical appreciation. He is a genius at performing and entertaining in a rare universally inspiring way, in the same way Maradona shone in soccer. Sure, artists such as Sinatra, Lennon and McCartney, Jagger, Cobain et al have all had an explosive ' X' Factor in their ability to entertain, but they were all grown adults before they felt the heat of mass recognition, and not all even survived that heat, literally. In our lifetime probably only Prince can reasonably claim to have had comparable mass multi-genre, racially open appeal as well as being a certifiable musical genius. Jackson in my opinion peaked aged 19 when he released the Quincy Jones-produced 'Off The Wall' around 1979. I was about 10 and remember seeing the video for 'Don't Stop Til you Get Enough' at number one on TV...even then I knew it was something else, and to this day I still think it's about as funky as a song can possibly get. His crackling energy, amazing voice and freaky moves over the excruciatingly funking rhythm and bass of the song fully justified his fame. He looked then like a healthy normal young Afro American guy.
I would urge anyone reading this to get this album if you haven't got it already - it is truly fantastic, and not the cheesy computer pop you may associate with him. It is well funky and stylish, and his breadth of talent is made apparent with the sweet ballad 'She's Out Of My Life'. It easily avoids cheesy cliché, but is very simple and genuinely, achingly sad; you actually hear him genuinely break up crying in the last chorus. It could have been written by the Bee Gees, Paul McCartney, or David Gates.
The '83 album 'Thriller' was the monster, so 'Guinness Book' I don't even need to talk about it, you all know it as well as any human in the developed world - let it only be noted that as well as the music, he basically invented at this time the modern pop video. It all pretty much started to turn to shit after this - both his personality and his efforts musically would never improve, and the filthy money came in and started it's dirty work on the music - cheesy, ultra-produced, increasingly synthetic in soundand soul. It was also this decade his face started changing...and changing...and changing
.....And it's about here where I pull back to Bashir's documentary...
It's quickly apparent that Jackson is fully immersed in a Peter Pan fantasy/reality...but things step up in the odd stakes when Bashir asks Jackson about his face. We know he can easily afford any procedure he desires, many times over. It is totally, utterly wholly apparent from the documentary that he has altered his face almost literally to breaking point to achieve a racially neutral, child-like and ageless look, to be the outward manifestation of his obsession with eternal life and youth . The wretched, sad reality (especially up close) is that his face is a heavily made up, stretched, carved half-death mask - synthetic and almost zombie-like. He is forty four years old now, but the bleached Geisha skinis tighter than a drum - he makes nothing that slightly resembles a facial expression, His cheeks are garishly angular, un-naturally carved under the powdered skin. His painted lips have clearly been thinned out, a dimple has been designed on his chin....the eyes are heavily tattooed with mascara. Thehairline looks very un-natural and like he is wearing a wig.
Oh, and the nose. The little pixie-ish Neverland-ish, too up-turned, too pointy, ravaged nose. this is the part of him most obviously and dramatically altered over the last 18 years. It is massively re-constructed - end of story - and is perhaps the defining symbol of his madness. We have all watched it over the years turn from a quite natural flared Negroid shape to the alien pin-point it is now.
But he lies without blinking to Bashir about his face. Jackson claims his facial features are all part of the natural ageing process, and that he has had nothing whatsoever done ( in the final interview in the documentary he changes his story, and confesses to two operations ever, and only on his nose for the purposes of helping his singing voice). Here is where my full empathy/sympathy turned into a furrow-browed suspicion, such is the hopelessness of his denial with the evidence there for all to see. As agrown adult in 1979, he had chocolate brown skin, a wide nose, full lips - tighter than tight classic black afro hair...basically, a very normal and appealing looking Black American guy. We know he had acne issues as a younger guy, and was massively insecure about it. We all know though, that the changes that we can see have occurred dramatically, and after he reached adulthood. It all seems to be a very adult lie, and it follows then that if he can be so deluded about his face, then what of other, more seriousmatters....?!?
Bashir quite rightly is bothered by this, and then takes us on the road with Jackson as he re-locates to seven luxury suites in Las Vegas just to hang out for a while. Jackson's limousine is outrageous stretched beyond belief, grotesquely decadent. Very adult. When we arrive in Vegas, we see thatJackson has transplanted wax figures, arcade games - all manner of weird and wonderful things from Neverland - to the hotel. Bashir surmises that Jackson has gone to Vegas out of sheer boredom, living in total isolation from any semblance of the modern western world which he has entertained for decades. What struck me is that Vegas - the most garish, excessively surreal, over-the-top city in the US (if not the world) is the ideal playground from Jackson outside his own gates, and probably it is only thatun-reality which he could handle to live in for more than a day or two, as opposed to jetting in and out of (i.e. a city like New York would be too overwhelming in it's stark reality).
The two startling things in this segment were firstly his USD$10.2 million shopping spree, buying up hideously Vegas-tacky re-creations of original paintings, vases, furniture - even a full-size replica of Tutenkamen's gilded coffin...simply because he could. As he moves around the shoppingcenter, pandemonium breaks out, and crowds quickly gather. Jackson barely notices, and is nonchalant and non-plussed, stopping to wave, sign etc.
Secondly is the introduction of his two alleged children, heavily masked as they follow him around. This is where things get bizarre to the point of disturbing. The children were apparently conceived by Jackson's skin specialist Debbie Rowe, a very, very normal Caucasian woman by all accounts.It's immediately apparent however that the children appear to be completely European in skin tone and facial shape, even under the disguising masks. The bleached hair of both is long and straight. If Jackson was in fact the father, surely his decidedly un-plastic surgeryable Afro American genes would have given some of those features to his own children??
The documentary then shows Jackson and entourage heading to Berlin for a Lifetime Achievement award at a German presentation. Bashir accompanies him, and we see the sadness of this unusual, dysfunctional character struggling to cope. Most notably the introduction of his new infant PrinceMichael II or 'Blanket' (born by another, un-named woman) being hoisted and suspended over a six story balcony, dangling, with some material draped over it's head. Major major crack in the facade presented to Bashir on many levels.
Having talked to friends who have small children, they have all convinced me that to do what Jackson did goes totally against the grain of every genetically stamped parenting instinct. Parents just don't do things like this. Jackson is frenzied, with a maniacal grin on his face whilst doing it, and immediately afterwards is totally oblivious to the issues arising from what he has done - most importantly the massive risk of certain death to his child if he had slipped, but also the immense PR disaster that it wasfor him....The next day Bashir interviews him and he justifies what he did as OK and normal, claiming he 'was holding the baby tight' and that it was in-conceivable he would ever have let go. This does not wash at all, and while giving this part of the interview Jackson has his infant feeding on his legs, furiously, nervously jiggling....he looks like an awkward,self-concious and very very nervous.
We then watch Jackson take his other children to the Berlin Zoo, oblivious to the massive media throng and public waiting for him. The visit quickly descends into chaos, with very real safety concerns for the children, but Jackson insists on staying walking around, besieged and bustling frantically through a huge, growingly frantic throng, determined to see what he wants. Bashir is rattled and rightly so. Again following the visit, Jackson sees it as no big thing, and doesn't consider it to be an issue for his children.What is now apparent is that Jackson's parenting instincts are at the least very questionable, in that he is recorded putting all three of 'his' children into situations which poses very real potential physical harm to them...and he does not and can not see that.
It gets worse. His real down-fall in the documentary comes in the last section, where Bashir documents the most on-going controversial aspect of Jackson's life - his relationships with children. We all know about the child sexual abuse allegations with which he has been plagued , that damaged him so badly, that he settled out of court with a huge pay-off. Maybe he saw the documentary as a nice easy way to clear the air, to set the record straight and show that he really does love children in all the right ways.
He is then shown taking a group of under-privileged children around Neverland, train rides, ice creams and is obviously at his happiest with them. There is no doubt that he has a genuine heart-felt love for children, and their innocence. But it is obvious that the well-meaning love has mutated into obsession, and that he is as much as he can be, a super-ultra child himself.......paintings of Jackson adorning his home depicting him in pseudo-Renaissance period Biblical style - surrounded by cherubs - are disturbing, and very telling. His heartfelt comments that if there were no more children left in the world he would 'throw himself off a balcony', re-iterate this.
What put it beyond belief though, is the creepy interview with Jackson's twelve year old friend Gavin Arviszo, lying like a lover with head lolled languidly on Jackson's shoulder, hands clasped like lovers. Way, way too intimate. The impoverished Hispanic boy had conquered cancer, and obviouslyJackson had made an unforgettable impression on the boy's life; but the revelation that he and other children over the years sleep over in Jackson's bed somewhat negated all this good stuff. Again, a completely un-witting PR debacle for Jackson. The very inappropriate intimacy, whether actuallyinnocent or otherwise, was a self-crucifying nightmare, and either he has no consultancy with PR people re: these interviews, or he has chosen to ignore their advice.
The insistence by Jackson that there is no sexual connotation to the arrangement has a frail veneer to it, because at this stage we know that we have already been lied to by him about his facial reconstruction.
Bashir's final interview with Jackson is tense. Jackson has his own special lighting crew to favourably light his face, rightly anticipating that it was going to be a core point of discussion. Bashir is hard but firm and puts to him that his face has been massively changed by surgery, and again Jackson lies and claims all the changes are due to normal physical growth when, so clearly, they are not. The strain shows when the issue of his relationship with his and other children is brought up - Jackson cracksup momentarily, nearly crying, but defending himself vehemently, claiming he has only the purest platonic love for his and all children. Maybe this is true. Maybe not.
The fascinating conclusion of this documentary is that some things about Jackson are undisputed:- he loves children only and truly, he is highly dysfunctional with a Peter Pan complex, he is immensely talented, and he has altered his facial features substantially. It's the things not proven whichare more interesting - despite his best unwitting attempts to hang himself in public again and again, I have a feeling that the world may still be accusing this man of being things he is not and doing things he hasn't done.
There is no doubt though that Jackson (unwittingly or not) has created smoke which may well be linked to a blazing fire..only he really knows - but then again - maybe he doesn't..or doesn't want to..??
Reaction by Jackson has been pretty swift and his PR people are kicking into super damage control - an alternative documentary is in final production by his people, and is likely to be far more favourable towards him...but will it convince us any more of his innocence, following the damage he hasclearly brought upon himself in the Bashir doco??
Jackson's official response to the documentary, and those of his children's mother, and friends and parents have been immediate and fascinating: -http://www.allmichaeljackson.com/newsfeb03.html
One can take them at face value and question Bashir's angle...but one can also (perhaps cynically) argue that it is PR spin and money in action to smooth a sugar frosting on a shit cake.
The most certain thing is this:- mortality is going to hurt Jackson more and more and more, and if he doesn't get real help, his life may very well slowly disintegrate as Elvis Presley's did...and he may like Elvis, pay the ultimate price.
