What can posses the mass populous to passively take in the glorified death of a person who for the past 25 years has been the subject of extreme ridicule? In 1999 I noticed a TV program where Michael Jackson was stated as a saying: “You ain’t seen nothing yet!” At that time and for a long time since I always thought: how can this be possible?
Well, it is evident by the non-stop media publicity of the past week and a half; the increase in Michael Jackson record sales and the sales of his memorabilia that: he has been successful.
Now yes, I do agree that as a child he was a great and outstanding artist, especially for his time. Since then however, what happened? The idea of being a child is that you grow up. In this situation he should have become a man. Instead, I would like to draw on evidence brought forward from the trial in 2005, where a jury had acquitted him of charges from accused publicity of child molestation. What had emerged from that trial was that this supposed MAN was not playing to try and seduce the child but because he saw himself as one.
If you dare look into Jackson’s past you will find: a tormented childhood, abusive father, various sexual traumas, life in the spotlight and lack of conventional upbringing. Well, there are many children in the world who have perhaps had similar experiences. Even though, the average person may not have lived in the limelight nor had an unconventional up bringing that child needs to get over their past and become a MAN (adult).
A child does not want to play with a man who is a child. The man may act childish to relate to that child but when he presents himself in front of that child with other adults he sets an example of what a MAN is. The child wants to see a MAN that they can look up to and look forward to one day growing up into that kind of MAN. By trying to get his doomed childhood back, Michael Jackson failed to undergo personal growth and failed because he presented a false image to the youth of which he believed he was on the same level as.
Since he was so successful with the Thriller album which represented cultural significance and dealt with dark themes such as paranoia and the supernatural then: why did he not grow as an artist from this? These are quite strong issues that as an artist there is a need to reflect on what has been achieved and take it to the next step so that he can really push boundaries that would be seen as significantly healthy for his image.
An artist such as this is like a shadow on a caveman’s wall made ever so much larger from the burning fire. The fire itself is not that wild and the shadow is empty but the size of its presence has made all of the cavemen look at it’s phenomenal composure (some of them shocked, some of them amazed) all of them oblivious to the reality that Michael Jackson was just a person like anyone else in the world but was never a man.
By Frank Barresi
theonewhodoesnotexist@gmail.com
www.theonewhodoesnotexist.blogspot.com
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