SO, the King of Pop has gone, either, finally, to his Billy Jean, or his Dirty Diana. Not I hope, considering his unsavoury years in and out of court, to his Lost Children.

 

 

The outpouring of grief for Michael Jackson has been positively Princess Diana-like. What is surprising is that his image has not been seen, as hers was, floating eerily on a wall, hips and legs twitching, bewitching, as they did in life. Or perhaps it has, California being the place that if anything can happen it does, especially if the right kind of plant life has been consumed.

 

We all remember his high tenor voice piping though the Jackson Five - Black America's answer to the Osmond Brothers - his solo career bridging what used to be a disgraceful music industry divide between ‘white' and ‘black' music (the editor of  Rolling Stone reportedly once refused to put him on the cover because "black musicians don't sell magazines"), his marvellous phraseology, dancing and those videos that brought both
together in an artistic whole, and his entire influence on music and people around the world.

Remember that prison in the Philippines where over a thousand orange jump-suited inmates went through a perfect dance routine from Thriller?

Every green lawn, however, has its weeds and Jackson had them a-plenty. He had a chimp called Bubbles, a baby called Blanket. His growing eccentricity was fed by a tortured psyche, and the fact that he was rich
enough to get what he wanted and his love of children that left him open to accusations of sexual abuse of minors. A dangerous combination. Yes to all that, but his frequent changes of shape, facial features and skin colour are what the critical guns are also being trained on. A hypocrite, they say, wanting to remain a boy,  wanting to deny his black ancestry by turning white.

Like Peter Pan, however, Jackson wanted to be forever the slim young man who twirled his way into our hearts. Whereas, at his death, he was a 50-year-old man who weighed about 57 kilos and probably danced a lot, ate like a bird and ingested chemicals in order to stay that way. Many women (and some men) go to similar lengths to do exactly that, spending thousands on diet plans, creams, Botox injections, plastic surgery, hair transplants and in the gym. You can see the Botox Brigade in the immovable faces around us, the Liposuction
Ladies, the Spa Set fresh from being buffed up, the manicures, nail extensions, breast reductions, breast enlargements... you name it. All because they want to look younger, prettier and, well, someone other than who they really are. Just like Michael Jackson.

And what of the skin lightening and facial changes? Jackson's own explanation is that he had a pigment deficiency called Vitiligo and that he was just whitening up the rest of his skin to match it. After all, whoever heard of a splotchy pop star?

That may be so, but his changes were also an exaggerated form of what we too go through in life. He was an entertainer, not just a singer and dancer, and part of the entertainment was him the person. This ‘him' was also his art and he made sure that the ‘him' was constantly changing and challenging. You pluck an eyebrow, he changed a nose. And don't we colour our hair, seek sun tans, or use our own Asian ‘whiteners'? Shame on us for pointing a finger when so many are pointing back at us.

Hypocrisy is a breathtaking thing: fuelled by malevolence or sometimes just barefaced cheek, greedily grasping in character and with ambitious targets centred on the self in mind. It lives in all of our daily dealings with each others, in politicians, public servants, perhaps in parents - in almost everyone to a greater or lesser degree.
Jackson may have sometimes been deluded about himself and his persona, but he was an entertainer and in this, at least, no hypocrite. Can we with our shameless about faces, pious statements and posturing say the
same?

Jackson sang:
I'm starting with the man in the mirror,
I'm asking him to change his ways,
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place.

Have a good look at that man in the mirror. It may not be who you expect to see.

● Cheryl Dorall (cheryldorall@yahoo.co.uk) is based in London.