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http://media.[url]www.dailyiowan.com/media/storage/paper599/news/2007/11/15/80Hours/Moonwalking.Again-3104171.shtml[/url]
Moonwalking Again
Given the column written just last week about the ethnically driven "comedy" of Carlos Mencia, I'm hesitant to open this medium with another comment on the subject. Regardless, I highly doubt whether I'm the only one who couldn't help but snort at the cover shot of this month's Ebony, featuring the lily-white features of none other than Michael Jackson.
Even the magazine's featured interview with the pop icon - the first significant press access Jackson has given in a decade - seems to realize this, and opens the piece by saying that one "quickly looks past the enigmatic icon's light, almost translucent skin and realize that this African-American legend is more than just skin deep."
Good thing, given that all the featured inside photos reveal a Jackson even creepier looking than you might remember (though I admit to coveting his sequin-bedazzled sweater and silver Beatle boots).
The interview was scheduled, and assumedly approved by the media camp over at Neverland Ranch, as a retrospective look at Jackson's mythic, career-making Thriller album, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. Thus, those people looking for any hard-hitting questions about Jackson's altercations with those young boys - his parenting tips, just where the hell his nose has gone - must look elsewhere.
Ebony's introductory paragraph contends that in the next few pages, "the grown-up father of three reveals a confident, controlled, and mature man who has a lot of creativity left inside him." Well, kind of. It's true that the interview doesn't paint the King of Pop as batty as, say, the "60 Minutes" segment from a few years back. But to label him "grown-up," "controlled," and "mature" seems an overstatement.
At first glance, what's most noticeable is the bizarre way the magazine relates spoken emphasis by using ALL CAPS. A statement by Jackson such as, "I'm a shy person, ESPECIALLY then, I used to not even look at people when they were talking to me, I'm not joking," is a little odd to begin with, but the strange typeface decision certainly doesn't help matters.
Look beyond the caps-lock, though, and you may find yourself in the strange position I was in - actually agreeing with Jackson on something. It seems that when the discussion is restricted to his thoughts on music, "Wacko Jacko" makes a fair amount of sense. Listing Tchaikovsky as his favorite composer, Jackson discusses how he approached writing Thriller as Peter Ilich might have.
No wait, seriously, hear him out: "If you take an album such as Nutcracker Suite, every song is a killer, every one." It's unconventional wisdom, sure, but can anyone claim it doesn't make sense?
What the Ebony cover does do, if not present Jackson as completely sane, is reinforce an undeniable truth, even for the JACKSON-haters: No matter how weird-looking, no matter the number of suspicions surrounding him, Michael Jackson is the truest definition of a living legend. There are few people left in this world who can tell a single story involving the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Richard Pryor, and Fred Astaire and have it be nonfiction. Jackson's one of them.
"Every neighborhood has the guy who you don't see, so you gossip about him," Jackson says, after the article's sole instance touching on the maelstrom of media coverage surrounding its subject. I'm no psych major, but it's clear that in his case, his sanity has suffered from being seen too much, rather than the opposite.
Ebony has attempted to bring some of the focus back to the man's music, and when all is said and done, that's what will truly last.
E-mail DI reporter Anna Wiegenstein at:
anna-wiegenstein@uiowa.edu |
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发表于 2007-11-16 17:45:01
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