Mikey are you OK?
It is impossible to overestimate the impact of Michael Jackson on the entire generation that grew up in the eighties. He was everybody's immortal hero, the most amazing showman in the universe, the living myth who danced like a God. I don't know anyone who hasn't shuffled across many floors in a feeble attempt at the moonwalk, or hidden behind the sofa during the Thriller video. And Billie Jean, twenty years after the song's release, still makes entire crowds leap to their feet. Let's admit it, we're all Michael Jackson worshippers, though some of us hide this like a shameful secret.
So when Martin Bashir's interview of Michael Jackson was aired last week, featuring an unprecedented glimpse into the singer's life and soul, it was a whole generation's collective subconscious that was dissected under the eyes of 15 million viewers.
And yes, the documentary confirmed everything we already knew: Michael Jackson is a weirdo, a deluded 44-year old who thinks he can be a little boy all his life. The show was followed by the expected avalanche of self-righteous indignation: "Jacko the child-abuser!" "Failed publicity stunt of the century!" And even, in The Scotsman, "Bashir goes to meet Peter Pan and finds the Elephant Man!" This last headline shows the public's exploitative relationship with the singer: we gasp in horror at his freaky lifestyle, but there would have even more of an outcry had we learned that he's just an ordinary guy who likes pizza. Michael Jackson is the modern Freak, the object of the self-righteous contempt of the masses who'd rather demonize a lonely eccentric star than question all the things that are freaky and messed-up about our world.
Certainly, there was plenty in the documentary to fuel the wild unabated gossip-mill which has surrounded Jackson since the late eighties: the strange cocoon of self-worship, the hallucinatory spending- sprees, the obsession with childhood.
But my dominant impression at the end of the show was mainly sadness at the fate of a scarred and naive man manipulated by a ruthless public. Yes, he is a weirdo, and yes, his relationship to his children is manic and overprotective. But this is all the result of frenzied media worshipping, obsessive-compulsive coverage, and the heroicizing and multimillion brokering of a vulnerable starry-eyed five-year old. So beat it. Get out of his life. Leave Michael alone - he doesn't want to spend his life being a colour.
6th Feb 2003