Now that Michael Jackson is finally dead, can we assume there won't be Elvis-, JFK-, or Marilyn Monroe-like sightings of him around the globe? Can we rest assured that there won't be tell-all books by everyone that ever so much as operated the street sweeper that went past the entrance to his personal theme park? Will we not have to slog through hours of analysis of his will, child custody hearings, etc.?
And I say, no! We will mostly certainly will not have to do any of this! How can I be so sure? Because I have done it, people! As soon as there is a hint of the one-gloved-wonder on television, online, and even on my beloved NPR, I switch the darn thing off. I do not read the article in the paper. I smile blandly while others hotly debate an MJ topic and mentally write out a grocery list. I am as ignorant as I can possibly be.
It's not that I don't think he did great things for minority entertainers. And as a former dancer, I appreciate his rhythm and most of his innovative moves. However, as a fifth grade teacher in the 80s, I did not appreciate his influence on the movement style of my fifth grade boys. I remember a boy I will call Michael Freeman.
Michael was small for his age and very white. He was blond, freckled, and had such a pronounced overbite and overjet that he could not eat a sandwich. But the boy was so ugly he was cute. He was courteous and honest to a fault. Michael's grades barely made it to the average mark, but he was a person you could count on. He enjoyed people and liked making them laugh and smile. He was a "good boy," but not so much that he couldn't do a fun prank every once in a while as long as no one was seriously injured. Michael liked girls, but girls paid no attention to him because he was not cool enough. He was stuck in the friend zone.
Then "Thriller" came out and one day Michael came to school with one white glove. He began dancing during break, and wasn't as bad as you might think a skinny white boy might be. But he wasn't that good, either. Other guys could break dance and moonwalk. Michael hadn't made it that far.
So Michael grabbed his crotch to give himself, as it were, a leg up.
This was the 80s, not the 90s and this was blue-collar Alabama, not L.A. Michael effectively shut down his social life for the next seven years. All the girls' lips curled ever so slightly, and they went back to their desks with the expression of people who suspect the person in the next row might have passed gas on purpose.
If I were to see Michael Freeman today, I wonder if he remembers that day at break. I wonder if it effected him the way I thought it did. I wonder how many other people who wanted to be like Michael Jackson got burned even remotely like Michael Freeman did, however insignificant it might seem. What about those who mimicked him and it worked? How far did they go with it? And what if any responsibility do people in the public eye have to the public? Or is it all up to the parents?
Comments (3)
I, too, have skipped much of the memorializing of Michael Jackson. I was actually a little miffed that Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, and Billy Mays seemed to get shorted on coverage because MJ's death, too. But, on the other hand, we didn't have to hear any more press conferences from that South Carolina governor who just doesn't know when to shut up; so perhaps it balances out.
I think Michael Jackson was a great entertainer, and a somewhat tragic person otherwise. I didn't love him, didn't hate him. I just don't want to hear about him for hours and hours each day. So, my TV stays off a lot of the time. Or we watch DVR stuff. On the day of his funeral, I chose to memorialize the guy by pulling up Jackson 5 stuff on Pandora radio (www.pandora.com). That's enough for me.
As for the 5th grade Michael who made a poor choice trying to be noticed. Well, I'd like to think he got over it and learned not to grab his crotch.
Poor kid! I always wondered what the point of crotch grabbing was in men. I know men can find it kind of a turn on when a woman does that, but not so much for women when a man does that. Of course, I am mystified by the MJ thing because I never had MTV. At least that's my theory... He was a sad sad person, though. I always wondered (well, not always, just very very occasionally) what was going through his head.
PS. Nice to see you back! (-: