Michael Jackson: A
Man Who Lived His Life in Reverse
"Accusing
him of pedophilia when he was 'grown up' made no more sense than accusing him
of gerontophilia when he was
'little.' A child (at last) when his fortune and fame allowed it, he spent his
final years playing with children."
Throughout his life, Michael
Jackson was a man living in reverse. Usually, one begins with being a child, and
only then moves on to become an adult. Michael was deprived of childhood: First
by a father who beat, hated, mocked and humiliated him, and finally, because of
celebrity. At seven-years-old, he was already a global star, with businessmen
breathing down his neck, managers hot on his heels and groupies on his tail. It
was therefore necessary for Michael to postpone his childhood until later: i.e.:
until an age usually considered adulthood.
Accusing him of pedophilia
when he was "grown up" made no more sense than accusing him of gerontophiliawhen he was "little." A child (at last) when his fortune
and fame allowed it, he spent his final years playing with children. So we
haven’t often seen him on stage. Rather than engaging in trips around the world,
it was his chance tour his own world, i.e.: around the merry-go-round.
When a seven-year-old has to delve into bank accounts and yell at roadies; when
one begins at the end, one finds oneself at age 45 being photographed alongside
Mickey Mouse, simply by virtue of having postponed (for scheduling reasons)
immaturity until later in life.
Michael Jackson is, indeed, a being who had a chronology in reverse.
But this isn't the only reason he was a man in reverse. Indeed, the "reverse"
aspects of his life are also reflected in his relationship with celebrity.
Michael was a global star at a time when others went quietly home to drink hot
chocolate and do their homework. He began his existence at the height of
celebrity, which, again, corresponds to a pattern in reverse: it usually takes
years and years to gain worldwide fame and notoriety. Mick Jagger, for example,
had to finish his studies in economics before becoming Mick Jagger. When she
was twenty-years-old, no one knew who Madonna was. But when Jackson was 25, the
world had already known him for 20 years. Here again, having started at the end,
Michael would have had no choice but to end with the beginning. Hence his
obsession, at mid-life, for anonymity, withdrawal and seclusion. He wanted to
erase himself from the walk of fame. He wanted to end, not only as a
non-celebrity, but as never having been one. He dreamed of not merely being unrecognized,
but never to be recognizable again. (Let’s admit - in this he almost
succeeded.)
It's clear that we're now at
the heart of his desire to "change color": in a world not only of
Whites - but made of white. To whiten himself was a way to blend into
the background, to disappear from view, to be nothing but a flake of snow in snow-covered landscape.
Jagger and Presley spent their whole lives working hard to become Black; but
upside down in every way, Michael did everything he could to become a White man.
What's also fascinating about
this inversion, this sought-after passage from celebrity to its absence, is
that his transformation had become so monumental that to cross paths with
Michael Jackson in the street (the streets of Disneyland) had become evidence
that it could not in fact have been him. This abnormal form of celebrity served
to provide him with anonymity. Who else in the history of humanity has
experienced being endlessly mistaken for a lookalike - far too real to be true?
What's so surprising is seeing Michael Jackson so poor at the end of his life.
But nothing could be more logical. Since he was a millionaire during
adolescence, he was once again the victim of a reversal of all traditional
human careers. His goal was always to finish his days as they should have begun
- in poverty. Here again, he succeeded.
He had accomplished three unheard-of
things by the age of 35: at last he had become a child, he finally became
anonymous, and he ultimately became poor. But he was a child living as an adult,
achieving anonymity by virtue of his notoriety, and he became poor only with
the assistance of his wealth (his manner of plunging into debt is possible only
for those with colossal fortunes). He made for himself, with the force of his
own hand and by deploying unheard of means, a natural point of departure. He succeeded
through much slight of hand and displays of fireworks. Even his death appears
as a birth in reverse: having died from taking too much medication to live.
Yes, a man living in reverse
- but who appeared to be moving forward. That's the very principle of the dance
that made him famous: the Moonwalk. That is the very definition of a revolution
- to move ahead toward the past. It is advancing toward the rear. In this, Michael
Jackson has not only revolutionized music, but his times. And today, with the entire
planet shedding - Muslims, Jews, Christians and atheists - impeccably
planetary, identical and universal tears, one can at least rejoice about one
thing: that all people are suffering from the same thing. Michael has provided us,
with his way of walking in place, something unexpected: the first global peace.
