Raising Boys World

Regardless of whether or not you enjoyed Michael Jackson’s music, there’s no disputing that he was an incredibly talented yet equally troubled man. His songs, particularly in his early solo years, could serve as a musical timeline of my own childhood. For each of his hits, I could associate a childhood memory, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this. That’s how deeply he has woven himself into our shared pop culture history.

Even though my interest in his music waned, there was no escaping his fame. So it’s no exaggeration to say that each of his most popular songs vividly connects to a memory I have of that time in my life. Michael Jackson’s music touched the world as the first African American artist to amass a diverse following from such an incredibly vast audience; he influenced artists from different genres for generations. And he broke the color barrier on MTV, which had not played the music videos of African American recording artists until he came along.

As the world continues to mourn the untimely death of the American pop icon, I can’t help but comment on how disturbing it is that as a society we celebrated his talent while mostly ignoring his troubling messages to children, especially boys. His fame appears to have given him carte blanche to communicate questionable messages mostly unchallenged by society. Or was it his money that extended to him the privilege of floating above criticism?  Michael Jackson, an incredibly philanthropic man, donated and raised millions of dollars to support his numerous foundations and charities. He had good impulses, and he had unacceptable ones as well. And yet, we accepted them. And let him continue to do whatever he did behind closed doors.

Michael Jackson lived with a toxic combination of demons tormenting him throughout his life. Their ugly faces were visible in both his personal life and his music. Jackson seems to have possessed tremendous self-hatred, possibly stemming from alleged physical and emotional abuse by his father beginning at a young age. I’m assuming that it was this self-loathing that made him want to alter his appearance as he was probably not satisfied with how the physical appearance he was born with, even though he was in fact a good-looking guy. As an outsider, his desire to make himself appear more feminine (long straight hair, more petite nose, thinner and feminine cupid’s bow lips, smooth pale skin) represented a battle with his sexuality. As I see it, he had a Peter Pan complex as he didn’t seem to want to grow up. When he dangled his son from a balcony or confessed to sharing a bed with children, he didn’t see the wrong doing in his behavior.

Regardless of the cause, his actions sent a very odd message to boys, particularly African American boys. Was the lightening of his skin color and facial plastic surgery on his nose and lips an attempt erase his ethnicity?  If so, why?  I should mention that Jackson was said to have vitiligo, a condition that causes people with darker skin to develop light patches of skin that lack pigment, however whether he had this condition has remained in question. What was he saying and would we have wanted our kids to really listen as he cried for help?

His surgically altered appearances and bizarre behavior (including accusations of child sexual abuse) generated significant controversy that ultimately damaged his public image in the US (outside the US, his popularity remained fairly strong). We loved him for who he was, but for some reason, he didn’t. We found him appealing and attractive as a black man, but he couldn’t accept himself despite the adoration of millions and chose features for himself that felt inauthentic and read “white.”

I’m not putting Michael Jackson down or being racist. It’s just that I find it disturbing that society embraced this very talented man, but ignored some very serious deep-seated issues. And one of the biggest issues had to do with his sexuality. If you watch his videos, there frequently appears to be a struggle between two sides, a confrontation resulting in a fight or sexual images (especially against women) combined with gyrating, crotch-grabbing dancing in his videos. What’s troublesome to me is that during the height of his career, his messages were shown to many innocent children unaccompanied by media criticism that might put his actions in the larger context.

Lastly and even more disturbing about Michael Jackson is the role of his mother in his life. I wonder about the presence or absence of his mother, Katherine Esther, during the abuse that marked his childhood. I also find it questionable that Jackson was able to convince his wife, Debbie Rowe to give up her parental rights for the two children they bore together while the third was conceived through a surrogate mother who remains unnamed. Was Jackson deliberately raising his children devoid of any real mothering influence and isolating them from women besides their nanny, a hired caregiver? If so, this is very different from the usual American system, where contact with the mother is always maintained wherever possible and where the courts work hard to keep the mother in the picture. Why would society have accepted this?

The endless paparrazzi and the relentless scrutiny; fame can have be such a terrible burden, as celebrities lives are not their own. Now Jackson, free from our worldly challenges and his inner demons, can rest peacefully while we appreciate his musical contributions for generations to come.