I fell in love with Michael Jackson long after he became passé. It was about 2001, when I was in seventh grade, when I watched the movie "Free Willy" for the first time since childhood. By some stroke of luck, I decided to watch the previews rather than fast-forwarding through to the beginning of the film, which would have been my normal course of action. A song began to play. A thin, but good-looking man began singing a song that had more feeling than anything else I had ever heard. I spent the next hour rewinding and rewatching this music video over and over again. My memory has never been good, for whatever reason, so it took me a while to remember doing this same thing about five years earlier, when I was still too young to really grasp the meaning behind the song, before I even knew who Michael Jackson was. By this time (2001), I HAD heard the name. I had only known of him from the jokes, the tabloid news stories. All I knew was that he was a child molester who had bleached his skin. Watching him on the stage, singing “Will You Be There?,” I just couldn’t imagine him doing something so horrible.
When I was six or so, I was repeatedly sexually molested by my babysitter’s then-husband. At the time, I didn’t think it was a bad thing. It made me feel good and it was special attention, just between him and me. He was a normal guy. He was nice enough to everyone, but he had a kind of “screw the world” attitude that was to be expected by someone who had been brushed off by society. He drank, but not excessively. Still, by no means was he a “good guy.” Even my babysitter would have probably agreed with me, even at the time. There was something “off” about him when you looked at him, but you couldn’t put your finger on it. He wasn’t a scary monster, he was just a guy, but you could still tell that he was a bad one.
I finally had my own computer and was discovering the wonders of music piracy. I was getting tired of listening to the same song repeatedly after about a week and a half, so I went on my computer and looked up Michael Jackson songs. I found out that he had roughly a gajillion different songs on a bajillion different records. I downloaded nearly every single one and found that I loved all of them. At this point, I became hooked. Every CD I burned had at least one song by MJ on it. I downloaded his movies, including “Smooth Criminal,” “Captain EO,” and “Thriller.” I told my close friends about my newest obsession and, though they didn’t like his music (“the group” was more into hard rock and…well, anything that included curse words), they didn’t give me too much lip about it. One friend even made me a pendant in a jewelry class that said “MJ.”
I was in love with Michael Jackson, the performer. I was still too young to truly understand the man behind the music.
My problem began when I joined choir in eighth grade. The choral director had a special event every other Friday called Do Your Own Thing Day (or DYOT Day). We were able to pick any musical act, be it singing along to a CD or dancing, and perform it in front of the class. It was a way that we could have fun and break loose. One week, a few days before the next DYOT Day, I decided it would be fun to recreate Michael Jackson’s infamous 1983 live Motown performance of “Billie Jean.” On DYOT Day, I slipped into my tight black jeans, a white t-shirt with a black overshirt, a white winter glove, and a pair of shoes I had altered to allow for easy Moonwalking. I was so excited. I popped in my CD and ran to the center of the performance area. It was flawless. I sang along (and sang well, if I may say so) and danced everything almost exactly as done at Motown 25. I finished feeling exhilarated…until I looked at my classmates. They looked amused, but in the mean way I had associated with the elementary school bullies from years before.
They didn’t let me live it down.
I quickly learned to keep my mouth shut when it came to Michael Jackson. I loved his music. It helped me through the beginnings of my depression. It gave me a distraction from the horrible things that had happened and were currently happening in my life. Still, all of this that he gave me wasn’t enough to get me to speak my mind against those who told cruel jokes about him. When I did slip up, I was quickly put back in my place. It was because of all of these things happening around me that I began trying to learn who Michael Jackson was.
I looked into the child molestation accusations. As someone who had been at the receiving end of such abuse, I didn’t want anything to do with a person who did such horrible things. Still, I looked at him in videos and I couldn’t imagine that man hurting a child. As it turns out, the boy who first accused Michael Jackson of molestation, Jordan Chandler, was a friend of Michael’s who visited the Neverland Ranch on a regular basis. He told his psychologist (after he was given a tranquilizer that is well known for clouding the mind and opening it to suggestion) that he had been molested by Michael. He gave a description of Jackson’s genitalia, which, after examination, was actually found to be incorrect. The boy’s father was recorded saying things that boiled down to, “If I go through with this, I get a whole bunch of money and MJ goes broke. I can’t lose.” Now, unfortunately, I didn’t save the websites from where I found this information, but even at such a young age, I found it important to make sure that I wasn’t backing (even in my head) a child molester. I trusted only credible sources, such as trusted news websites and reference sites (none of this Wikipedia junk – though it does give a fairly good overview of the facts in its entry on MJ). Essentially, after weeks of researching the trial and the entire situation, I found that nearly all of the information pointed to Jackson’s innocence, that this whole thing was born out of a broke father’s ingenious scheme to get money. I felt sorry for Jordan Chandler, but only because it must have been terrifying for him to be put through the whole process by his father. Everyone loves to hear that America’s Sweetheart ain’t so sweet. The second (and final) time that he was accused of child molestation, he went to court. He was acquitted of all charges. This set my mind at ease; though I couldn’t prove to those around me that the chances were better he WASN’T a child molester than otherwise, I still knew it.
One thing that confused me from the beginning was the idea that he went from black to white. It was the one thing I had no rebuttal for. You could see it by looking at him. Then, I learned about the V-word: Vitiligo. Amazingly, Jackson had a rare skin condition that was passed down from his father’s side of the family. It causes sufferers’ skin to turn porcelain white in patches. For most people, dealing with the disease is as simple as telling people around them that they have a skin disorder. However, Michael believed that, because he was so famous, people wouldn’t be able to accept him if he came out about it. He and his makeup artist worked together to attempt to cover and blend the spots so that they weren’t noticeable (hence, the glove). Eventually, the disease progressed until over fifty percent of his body was covered in depigmented skin and he had to make the transition from the darker shade to the lighter shade. In 1993, just a few months before the child molestation accusation arose, Michael went on Oprah’s talk show and revealed to the world exactly why he had undergone such a drastic physical change. Still, to be sure that the vitiligo wasn’t a cover for the commonly spouted story of skin-bleaching, I researched that as well. I found no surprises there: though skin bleaching is a possibility for small areas of the skin, it is impossible to completely change the complexion of the entire body. Now, I was confused for a different reason: Did people simply not know that total-body skin depigmentation is impossible…or did they know and ignore it? The first reason is excusable. Ignorance is understandable. However, if people knew that Michael Jackson had a skin condition and still made cruel jokes about it…well, how is that okay? Now, years later, I am in a relationship with someone who has a severe skin condition, psoriasis. It shocks me when I hear people who would never say a word to my boyfriend about his skin make comments about “when Jacko was black.”
All of this information made me feel comfortable with being a fan. However, it did not make it any easier for me to stand up to those around me who joked about him and teased me for being a fan. I tried to stand up for him on internet boards and websites, since nobody could look you in the eye over the internet, but even then I was ridiculed for standing up for a man they believed was bad. Thus, over the course of about four years, I slowly stopped listening to Michael Jackson. It wasn’t a conscious process. It simply happened.
About nine months ago, I went through resurgence. I found my old CDs from eighth grade and found myself adding the songs to my computer. I found that, where before I was interested more in the fun songs from “Thriller,” now, I was more drawn to his recent hits, such as “Earth Song” and “They Don’t Really Care About Us.” They had more meaning. There was so much depth, so much feeling. I looked up videos on Youtube that showed him in everyday situations. A picture began to form in my head.
He lived a crazy and tortured life. His childhood was filled with people trying to make him grow up. He saw things no child should have to see, such as his brothers having sex across the room. His father harassed and abused him (after my experiences with my mother, I understand that physical abuse isn’t the only type that a parent can put their child through). Still, he loved music, and rather than try to fade back into the normal world, he continued to do what he loved. After the release of “Thriller,” he became an international superstar. Still, fame didn’t stop the pain he felt from what had happened to him in the past. Where many people may find this reaction to past abuse unmanly or “wussy,” it only made him lovelier to me. I understood what it felt like to have your childhood stolen from you and to have absent and abusive parents. He was a funny, sensitive, caring man who tried to reclaim his stolen childhood by seeing the world through a child’s eyes. His love for children, in another life, may have translated to social work or working for non-profit organizations to benefit kids. In his life, however, he did something even more incredible: he realized dreams and made children forget they were hurting. One of Michael Jackson’s favorite pastimes was busing sick children into the Neverland Ranch and watching them play, ride the rides, and talk with them. He donated millions upon millions of dollars to various organizations who make it their goal to better the lives of children. He was basically just a big kid. My heart melted as I learned that simple fact. He helped me understand why I, too, am having a problem with growing up. I’m trying to hold on to childhood, not only because growing up is hard, but also because I was forced to be an adult at age six. I began to have daydreams about meeting him, talking with him, meeting Michael Jackson, the man, rather than watching Michael Jackson, the performer. These hopes and daydreams peaked in June of 2009.
25 June, 2009. I’m on Facebook, browsing my friends’ pages, when I see something about Michael Jackson. I stop and read it. My heart skips a beat, my stomach drops. It’s a cruel joke. Gotta be. I go to Google and type in “Michael Jackson sick.” A few odd pages pop up. My stomach tightens into a nasty fist. I leave my computer long enough to turn on the TV. A news network is already on, thanks to my boyfriend. All emotion runs out of me. I sit, catatonic, as I learn that the man who I so recently had come to love, not only as a performer, but as a real live person, is dead. I call my boyfriend, who is in town grocery shopping. I tell him, emotionlessly, “Michael Jackson just…” I can’t say the word. If I say it, then he’s really gone. The man who helped me through my own childhood terrors, including the abuse from my mother and the depression that made it hurt so much more, the MAN… “He’s dead,” I finish. The wall I built up around my emotions breaks. The tears start to flow, but slowly. The grief begins to overshadow the disbelief.
I spent the next several days alternating between grief and shock. In this time, I learned even more about myself. I realized that if my own mother, the woman who birthed and raised me, were to die, I wouldn’t feel a fraction of the grief I felt at the death of this man. It hurt to discover that this wasn’t because I was so enamored with Michael Jackson; I could feel this hurt over the death of someone I would never meet, but would never feel the same emotions over the death of my own mother because of the way she hurt me growing up. I learned that she, my mother, caused more damage to me than even the man who had sexually abused me at age six over and over again. I found that, even though she hurt me, I still turned out to be a good person, who goes out of their way to help those around her. In spite of the cruelty I endured from my mother, I managed to work through it and become someone good. I was shocked when I learned this; it meant that I was so much stronger than I thought I was. At the end of my formal grieving period, I had been essentially reborn as someone much more confident and proud of who I was. Michael Jackson, though never having met me, did all this for me.
It took me over a month after his death to finally watch the memorial service. It was beautiful. It was just what my aching heart needed.
Now, almost five months after the death of the King of Pop, I have fully accepted it. I feel so sorry for his children and I light a candle for them often. However, I don’t grieve the loss of the man. It was, perhaps, for the best. He dealt with a lot of cruelty from the world around him. It may be that death was really the only way to end it. By no means am I implying that his death was a suicide. This is merely my coping excuse: that it’s for the better.
I love to watch old videos of Michael just being himself. It’s almost like watching myself, or who I wish I could be. Michael Jackson was a good man. Tabloids and money-hungry men in suits tried their hardest to tarnish him. To a great degree, they succeeded. For every die-hard Michael Jackson fan in the world, there are two die-hard Michael Jackson haters. This still doesn’t blunt the most amazing fact of all: Despite all of the lies and slanders, Michael Jackson remains to this day the most famous and most loved man in all of history.
You can give me hell for enjoying his music and loving the man, but it doesn’t change how I feel, and it certainly doesn’t change what a beautiful man he was.
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