A Tribute to Michael Jackson: The Kids Will Be Fans Yet
The news of Michael Jackson’s death was to me like Elvis’ untimely death was to my mother. I’m shocked and disturbed that a figure from my youth isn’t around any longer. A legend, an icon of a generation, has passed. My daughter can’t understand why I’m surprised.
“He wore a hospital mask. It took lots of people to help him get places. They even carried an umbrella for him” she reminded me.
I’m just glad the kids know who he is. We undertook a course of instruction in Michael Jackson just last summer when my daughter attended a day camp. The camp counselors had choreographed an end-of-summer talent show that required her group to wear torn clothes and do a neck snatching, foot-dragging, shoulder-twitching march a la “Thriller”. As she described the moves, I realized with horror that she apparently thought they were invented by the camp counselors! She had never even seen the Thriller video. Recognizing this huge gap in her cultural education, I insisted she and my son watch the video with me on YouTube, which was a mistake.
First, the video scared them. I had forgotten about how frightening the scenes could be to young kids, even if the villain was a 100-pound falsetto dancing on tiptoes in white crew socks. (I resisted the urge to foreshadow, “Trust me, his surgically altered face will prove much more frightening than his werewolf persona.”) Second, it made me feel old to realize her camp counselors hadn’t even been born on the day back when I myself had eagerly awaited the world premier of the Thriller video.
After I attended the kids’ day camp finale – which included a series of signature Michael Jackson moves – I was determined to show them the majestic King of Pop in the years before he jumped the shark and lost his nose.
A Google search produced a current photo that did not have the desired effect. ”Ewwww! What’s wrong with his face?! ” they asked.
“Is he wearing make-up?”
“Is that a man or a woman?”
So now I found myself trying to justify how I had ever come to be a fan.
We started at the beginning, with the literal ABC’s and 1-2-3s of the Jackson 5. “See, he was just a little kid,” I pleaded, trying to establish a common ground as we watched him dancing in step with his brothers. “He performed for people when he was only eleven years old,” I offered. They seemed skeptical that this kid was the same guy we’d just seen pictured with translucent white skin, lined eyes and red lips.
I knew the moonwalk would surely captivate them. I chose a clip from the American Music Awards, hardly able to contain myself during the build up as the camera closed in on Michael’s lone figure pulsing with the bass intro, the derby hat down over his brow.
“This was such a great moment,” I whispered breathlessly, eyes glued to the screen. “People talked about it for weeks and weeks - nobody had seen it done before. It was huge!”
The kids watched as Jackson glided backward on stage, the crowd went wild, and I squealed. ”My camp counselor can do that,” interrupted my son, not fully impressed. Just then Jackson raised his gloved hand and spun on his heels, sending the crowd to its feet again.
I couldn’t conceal my annoyance. “No, he cannot DO THAT.” I snapped. “What you need to understand is that Michael did it first, and he did it best.”
“This was THE moonwalk, one of the most famous Award show memories of all time, a performance that is still just as great over 25 years later!” I went on. Twenty-five years being inconceivable to them, their quizzical looks just increased my irritation. Oh sure, everybody thinks they can moonwalk. Now I was getting frantic. For their part, they were starting to look a little scared of me. Was I about to bust out some fangs?
I went to the next video, “Beat It.” More violent than I had remembered. A switchblade fight? “It’s all carefully choreographed, all pretend,” I assured them. Evidently the red jacket still impresses, because they liked this one. Determined to win them over, I found ”Bad,” which I recognized as the beginning of his crotch-grabbing phase. How many grabs could there be in one song? This made me decidedly uncomfortable. Maybe we should skip the videos and view some photo galleries online.
We found plenty of pictures of Michael with a menagerie of escorts, including Bubbles the Chimp, Brooke Shields, Liz Taylor, and Webster. That was before we considered the lawyers during the later court trials, which I had purposely avoided.
Did he marry? the kids wanted to know. Yes, briefly – Elvis’ daughter, in fact. Did he have kids? Yes. What were their names? I remembered only one name. Blanket.
The Jackson lesson ended. I was out of explanations. Apparently my kids would never know MJ as anything but a freak. Maybe this was the parallel: My mom thinking of Elvis as a Love-Me-Tender heartthrob while I only knew him as a fat, sweaty man wearing ridiculous white jumpsuits. (Fortunately those Ed Sullivan and Jailhouse Rock performances are captured on tape so it’s clear he really was a Hunka Burnin’ Love in the day.)
Can I ever make the kids understand the excitement of that first moonwalk? And why a trip to the skating rink is incomplete without an old school moment of ”Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough”? Will they ever sympathize with his plight, a kid who never had a chance at normal, who was surrounded all his life by opportunists, yet was adored all over the world? He obviously had insufficient financial guidance, and judging from the auction catalog for his belongings, he had atrocious taste. But he has left us so much musically and as a performer.
Maybe I’m grieving because he became another cultural sacrifice on the order of the day: Let us watch you unravel so we can be entertained. The same fame that manufactures the Big Life ultimately consumes it. I already dread the inevitable collector’s edition coins, T-shirts, and Franklin Mint plates that are sure to come.
Perhaps I’ve been trying too hard to make the kids into Jackson fans. The music speaks for itself. “Want You Back” is as catchy now as it was 40 years ago. “PYT” is still an instant mood booster. No matter what they do, the kids will always hear his songs and his influence, whether they’re listening to the radio or riding in an elevator. His songs will be sampled by new artists for years.
Thanks, Michael. Nobody – camp counselors included – will ever thrill like you did.
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Denise B.