I do remember back in ITE days, when in mid August 2001, one of the teachers asked if anyone could name a celebrity with extremely low self-esteem, many of them said without pausing, “Michael Jackson”. And this was mostly due to his skin disorder and botched surgeries, not to forget mentioning his troubled childhood.
Sad but true, the King of Pop is living proof of someone with lack of confidence and self-esteem in spite of his immense success and achievements, havingr going through numerous face surgeries and turning into a white guy due to an incurable skin disorder. And in spite of making many friends around the world, Michael still felt very lonely deep down inside of him, longing for the freedom that he was deprived of in his youth. It was probably due to his low self-esteem that his two marriages didn’t last long, and there were even rumors that he may actually be homosexual (given the 2 child molest accusations he faced between 1993 to 2005).
As a boy, Michael had gifts that outstripped those of seasoned musical pros; as a man, he used his wealth and fame to chase the childhood he never had. At his peak, he was the world's greatest pop icon, and he carried to his final days the burdens that come with transcendent talent and scorching stardom.
Sometime last year, me and some friends were watching a dance segment involving some MediaCorp artistes. I remarked on a certain male MediaCorp artiste’s dancing being rather similar to MJ’s, and one of my friends went, “eeew, I don’t like MJ! He’s an ugly freak... but I admire his showmanship and talents.”
Even as a big fan of MJ, I also had my personal doubts on the man labelled as Wacko Jacko. Other than all these wondrous memories as mentioned in the earlier entry, I also read the various newspaper or magazine articles on the scandals that Michael Jackson faced in recent years. I was obviously shocked when I first heard the news on the first child molest accusation, I didn’t know whether to believe anything I read in the papers. But when news of a 2nd child molest accusation case surface, I was feeling rather numb. Of course in the years between “Dangerous” and the bomb that was “Invincible”, I had grown wiser and knew that paedophilia is wrong. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t disturbed by MJ’s actions in his later years (like how he dangled his then-infant son “Blanket” over a balcony of a hotel in front of so many shocked fans). I was in fact saddened by the fact that this MJ is so different from the MJ of the past who wowed so many people with his electrifying showmanship and memorable songs.
Even as MJ’s health, both physically and mentally, degraded in the years after the best-selling album that is “Thriller”, it was hard to deny his musical genius. Yet it was much harder to ignore the obvious transformation he had gone through, from a handsome black man to a freakish white woman. Nor was it any easier to deny the complicated adult life he led from the 1990s til now. If the news on MJ being diagnosed with the incurable disease known as vitiligo is true, then it must certainly be most traumatic for an African-American like MJ to slowly mutate into a pale white figure.
As for his mental health, some sources say that the constant abuse that he suffered from his father Joe Jackson as a child was the main reason behind this inferiority complex. That probably made Michael so fearful of becoming a monster, that led him to doing bizarre things like making his 3 kids wear masks or veils to conceal their faces from the paparazzi, being rather strict with them, spending lots of money on unnecessary antiques, and not even bothering to pay the housekeeper the monthly wages. Perhaps things might have been better if MJ were able to let go of the past and look forward to the future. It was certainly no surprise then, that most of my friends who like either Michael Jackson or Janet Jackson actually hate Joe Jackson for the monster was in the past, and for being the indirect cause behind MJ’s lack of self-esteem. Indeed Michael paid a very heavy price for fame, being deprived of a normal childhood for his entire youth and enduring the continuous beatings from his father.
And then came the impersonations or covers. I thought Alien Ant Farm’s cover of “Smooth Criminal” was cool. Eminem’s impersonation of MJ in “Move your Body” was hilarious yet insulting. I somehow couldn’t stop laughing when MJ impersonator Edward Moss played the King of Pop in “Scary Movie 3”, but deep down I felt really bad for the singer for what he had become, to the extent that various celebs would even poke fun at his ever-changing appearance. There was a period of time when I wasn’t sure on whether it was worth being a fan of a fallen superstar who had become very different from the musical genius he was in the 80s.
Even as Michael Jackson had died at the rather young age of 50, it would have always been difficult to imagine the King of Pop, the eternal child, in old age. It was hard not to picture him as the eccentric and secluded icon that everyone knew of him since the 1990s. The Michael Jackson we prefer to keep in our memories is the man-child at the height of his phenomenal powers, the one with the saw-toothed yelps and the jackhammer moves, the one who flung thunderbolts from the stage. That's the man whom the future, which has a way of putting uncomfortable questions to the side, will take to its heart.
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