My immediate reaction to the news of Michael Jackson’s death was, “Of course.”
There was simply no way this piece of damaged goods was going to survive to any ripe old age. The combination of his genius, child abuse and emotional neglect made him an inevitable casualty.
From the start he was abused, instead of nurtured. His controlling dad knew talent when he saw it and forced his youngest son to hit the stage consistently from the time he was five years old. Michael was embarassed by acute acne as a teen but his father kept pushing him into the entertainment limelight. It was all those pimples that led Jackson to try the treatments and peels that changed the colour of his skin and probably led to his skin cancer.
While Daddy was pushing him around, his very competitive brothers in the Jackson 5 didn’t bother to protect him, relieved that they were their father’s major targets and revelling in pop star excess, sometimes having hot sex with the groupies while little Michael was lying in bed nearby. Nice intro to sexuality, eh?
I never bought the idea that Michael Jackson was a pervert. As I wrote years ago, after the famous Martin Bashir TV interview bashed away at his preoccupation with children, Jackson wasn’t a child molester, he was an emotionally stunted, needy, lonely creature looking for companionship – not sex – from the only people he thought he could trust. The hangers on, the managers, the music biz honchos – he knew they were all using him. And he knew that the adoration of his fans was no replacement for an authentic relationship.
He was, however, very queer. He just had no idea what to do with that. Pop culture certainly wasn’t going to encourage his queerness, though fans ate up the squeeky, high voice. Even elder friends, like Elizabeth Taylor, who knew how to be tender to gay friends like Montgomery Clift, couldn’t help him out.
I always thought that every time Jackson executed one of those crotch grabs, he was crying out, “Help me, I don’t know what to do with this thing between my legs.” His body was his instrument, but, in my view, he felt betrayed by it and would not take care of it, in the end eating poorly and failing to get in good enough shape to meet his concert commitments.
We can only wonder what his life would have been like if this fragile, gifted man had been allowed to be himself – genius, queer, terribly human in his desire to have a real connection with someone.[rssbreak]
Vote for your favourite MJ album.
