Michael Jackson (61 page)

The video's storyline is about a lonely, sheltered school kid, constantly badgered by peer pressure and neighbourhood street
toughs. The youngster transforms himself into a bold, avenging hell-raiser. It all goes awry for the viewer, however, because
of Michael's ridiculous-looking outfit. Clad in black – boots with silver heels and buckles; a leather jacket with zippers,
zippers and more zippers; a metal-studded wristband and a wide belt with silver studs and chains – Michael was slightly overdressed
for the ghetto.

The video's debut produced a cynical reaction. Radio stations and newspapers held contests to see who could correctly guess
how many buckles were on the costume.
The Los Angeles Times
, for instance, was deluged with responses from readers:

‘There's one buckle no one will ever detect, and it's located at the back of his head, to pull the flesh snugly over his ever-increasing
new features.’

‘The buckles are part of the continuing treatment he is undergoing to alter his appearance to that of Liz Taylor as she looked
in
National Velvet.
’

‘Sixty-six buckles – left over from his oxygen gizmo…’

More than the buckles, Michael's concept of what really
is
bad – as in ‘tough’ and ‘streetwise’ – seemed distorted and caricatured. He shouted; he stamped his feet; he flicked his fingers
and shook his groin. He tugged at his crotch repeatedly. Is
this
what Michael sees from the tinted window of his limousine?

Michael may have been a little overdressed for an urban subway rider, but the surrounding players and dancers certainly looked
the part. However, it was difficult to imagine their being so quick to follow anyone – black or white – who looked as effeminate
as Michael did in this video. There was something disconcerting about Michael – wearing more pancake makeup than Joan Crawford
ever did and flaunting Kirk Douglas's chin cleft – shrieking at a group of tough, black gang members, ‘You ain't
nothing
'.’ The viewer couldn't help but think,
This boy is going to get hurt.
As one observer noted, ‘In Michael Jackson's loathsome conception of the black experience, you're either a criminal stereotype
or one of the Beautiful People.’

The original photograph intended for the cover of the
Bad
album was a close-up of Michael's heavily made-up face superimposed with black floral lace. Walter Yetnikoff, president of
CBS Records, purportedly phoned Frank Dileo and said of the feminine-looking picture, ‘Look, this cover sucks.’ The photo
eventually used – Michael in a tough-guy-with-fists-clenched-at-his-side pose, wearing his leather outfit from the ‘Bad’ video – was
taken as an afterthought during a fifteen-minute break while shooting the video.

Michael's first single from
Bad
, ‘I Just Can't Stop Loving You’, was released worldwide on 27 July 1987, and went straight to number one in America, and
to the same position in the UK after just two weeks.

Then, Michael's
Bad
album debuted at number one on the
Billboard
charts, an amazing feat proving that even when Michael does wrong, he can do no wrong. The album received generally lukewarm
reviews, but that didn't matter either. ‘We win,’ Frank Dileo said. ‘We're into winning.’

The second single, ‘Bad’, also went to number one in America, Britain and countries around the world. (In the UK the album
was even number one for five weeks, and remained on the charts for an amazing 109 weeks. It sold 350,000 copies in five days,
the first time that had ever happened in Britain for any artist.)

Michael had a hit on his hands with the
Bad
album, but certainly nothing as big as
Thriller,
However, could it ever have attained
Thriller
status? Isn't it enough that Michael managed such a feat once in his amazing lifetime?

In September 1987, the month his Bad tour kicked off in Tokyo,
People
published a cover story on Michael with the headline, ‘Michael Jackson: He's Black. He's
Bad.
Is This Guy Weird, Or What?’

Apparently, such coverage was what the Elephant Man had wrought…

Cutler Durkee, the writer of the feature, explained that the public's perception of Michael Jackson had shifted from ‘Here's
a really interesting guy’ to ‘Here's a guy I don't understand any more’. Durkee hastened to add, however, that that's precisely
why people continued writing about him.

Of course, Michael had good reason to be unhappy with the story. ‘They made me sound like a freak,’ he said. ‘None of that
stuff is true.’

Because of such adverse publicity, Michael's tour had a shaky start. Michael thought the act still needed work, but he had
no choice but to begin the schedule. The dates were set. Therefore, in September 1987, he reluctantly began what would end
up being an exhausting, eighteen-month-long world tour. ‘Whatever we play,’ Michael and his crew members would yell while
clapping their hands and stomping their feet just before hitting the stage, ‘it's got to be funky!’

After a successful kick-off in Japan, where he was dubbed ‘Typhoon Michael’ (and grossed twenty million dollars), Michael
had problems in Australia. Ticket sales proved low. Foreign newspapers had latched on to that ‘Wacko-Jacko’ moniker and the
Aussies thought he was a head case. ‘He's giving the world a gift, his talent,’ complained his former sister-in-law Enid Jackson,
‘and, in return, the world tries to crucify him.’

While Michael was on tour, he wrote a letter to
People
and asked that it be published. He wanted to make known his feelings about the adverse publicity he'd received of late. In
an odd writing style – no margins, no indentation, and childlike penmanship – Michael wrote:

‘Like the old Indian proverb says, do not judge a man until you've walked 2 moons in his moccosins
[sic].
Most people don't know me, that is why they write such things in wich
[sic]
most is not true. I cry very often because it hurts and I worry about the children. All my children all over the world, I
live for them. If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, his story could not be written. Animals
strike not from malice, but because they want to live, it is the same with those who criticize, they desire our blood, not
our pain. But still I must achieve. I must seek truth in all things. I must endure for the power I was sent forth, for the
world, for the children. But have mercy for I've been bleeding a long time now. MJ.’

‘I'm not sure I even understand this letter,’ Frank Dileo said to an associate after it was published in the magazine as a
cover story. ‘If you read it carefully, it doesn't make sense. “They desire our blood, not our pain.” What the fuck does that
mean?’

The associate studied the letter again. ‘You know, it's not really about the letter,’ he told Frank. ‘It's what it says about
Michael. He's losing it… the man is losing it. Can't you see that?’

Frank began to shake his head in despair. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he exclaimed. ‘What have we done? What's going on with this kid?
What the fuck is going on with this kid?
’

In January 1988, Michael was well on his way to his thirtieth birthday. Despite his best-selling records, his celebrity and
his great fortune, he had recently begun to lament that he felt undervalued not only by the music industry, but by the public,
as well. ‘They call Elvis the king,’ he complained to Frank Dileo. ‘Why don't they call
me
that?’

One would think that, given all he had achieved, Michael would have been satisfied. He wasn't. Indeed, ever since he was a
child, he had been taught that being number one was the most important thing he could do with his life. Because it was a goal
he had worked toward for years, reaching it before his thirtieth birthday seemed anti-climactic. After all, what was left
for a recording artist to do after selling more records than any person ever in the history of popular music?

Michael never strategized his career in terms of artistic development. He couldn't imagine recording an album for any purpose
other than for it to be the biggest and best, ever. He needed to have his work acknowledged in a huge way, or he simply was
not going to be satisfied. Perhaps such determination can be traced back to his days as a youngster when The Jackson 5 competed
on talent shows, when the only goal was to be the winner. That forum was Michael's original training ground.

Maybe one of the reasons Michael was not respected by the public and music industry is because the masses sensed in him the
lack of two essential qualities possessed by artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Elvis Presley: humour
and humanity. It had become increasingly difficult in recent years to relate to Michael as he stood onstage in his military
outfit, accepting his many awards, whispering his thanks in an odd, highly pitched tone, and then taking off his sunglasses
for a quick moment because his friend Katharine Hepburn told him to do so. It was as if he was from some other planet, not
earth.

While there was still something about Michael's humility that was engaging, especially considering his many gifts, there was
still a nagging problem with his image. Certainly, his fans admired his prowess as a vocalist and his stylized genius as a
dancer: he was – arguably, still is – the quintessential entertainer. While the public could identify with many other rock stars
whose humanity and accessibility supersede their stardom, it was unable to identify with Michael. After all, who knows
anyone
like Michael Jackson?

After,
Thriller,
Michael saw himself as bigger than The Beatles and more important than Elvis. ‘They call Bruce [Springsteen] the boss and
he's really overrated,’ Michael complained. ‘He can't sing and he can't dance. And if Elvis is supposed to be the king, what
about me?’

The fact that Michael is black complicated matters. Promoter Don King had preyed on his insecurities in 1984 during the Victory
tour by telling him, ‘You're the biggest star ever, but the white man will never let you be bigger than Elvis. Never. So,
you can forget that.’ Michael was stung by Don's observation, so much so that he telephoned his attorney, John Branca, in
the middle of the night and, without explanation, blurted out, ‘They'll never let me be bigger than Elvis.’

When John asked what he was talking about, Michael answered, ‘The white man – because I'm black.’

John reminded Michael that he had already outsold Elvis in record sales. He said that he believed Don had filled Michael's
head with racist notions.

However, for the next couple of days, Michael continued to complain about being victimized by his race until, finally, John
became so upset he refused to speak to him. When Michael began leaving desperate messages on John's answering machine, begging
him to return his call, John finally wrote him a letter. In it, he expressed how much he loved and admired him, and why he
felt Michael should rise above the kind of racist thinking Don King propagated with his harebrained theory about Elvis and
the white man. If Michael didn't get over Don's remarks, John wrote, he wasn't certain he would be able to continue representing
him, that's how much such thinking hurt him. When Michael read the letter, he was moved. Though he promised to try to forget
Don King's words, he never really did that. (Wisely, he also never mentioned the subject to John Branca, again.)

By 1988, Michael seemed to have found a variation on the theme: he began complaining about feeling undervalued by white America,
griping that he had an ‘image problem’. By this time, though, no one in Michael's camp had a clue how to solve such a problem;
it was a little late now to start worrying about his nutty image. Even if Norman Winter or Michael Levine, the two publicists
who'd worked with Michael to help create the ‘problem’, could fathom a way to promote him as an accessible
human
artist with goals that were artistic instead of just commercial, it would never work. No one would believe it; Michael simply
wasn't that way and didn't even know how to act that way.

Michael has always been myopic in his thinking about the music business: how many records are being bought by his fans? How
long does it take to get to number one? How many tickets are sold? For Michael, commercialism is key, and he doesn't understand
any artist who doesn't understand
that.
After all, Joseph dedicated himself to getting his kids out of Gary so that they could have a better life, not so they could
make important contributions to the music industry. In his mind, Michael was still there with Joseph, trying to out-do the
other acts at the Apollo. Any artist he perceived as being a threat to his dominance on the pop charts, was viewed with scepticism.

For instance, Michael has never been a fan of Madonna, a woman who has managed to combine commerciality with artistic vision
because, from the start, she has had something she wants to communicate with her music and, usually, a clear-eyed vision as
to how to go about it. She gives interviews; she has a point of view. Other than lamenting about his lost childhood and his
victimization at the hands of the media, Michael has never had much of a public viewpoint about anything. He's not what one
would call articulate, not by any stretch of the imagination. He's a genius on stage, but in the public eye he's stilted.
He is constrained by his insecurity, his bashfulness and his deep fear that he will be revealed as being less than what he
would like to be for his public. It's understandable, considering his life, considering the way he was raised by Joseph to
think so little of himself.