Michael Jackson was a freak and that’s why we loved him
Image via Wikipedia
American popular culture was born at the freak show. It was P.T. Barnum who figured out that by displaying freaks for fun and profit, and then circulating images and stories of the freaks thoughout the country and even the world, fortunes could be made.
And who were the freaks? They were, as freak show scholar Robert Bogdan pointed out, performances, acts, lies, and fantasies. The freaks were any one of us. Are you tall? Really tall? You could be a giant. Are you a woman with facial hair? Stop plucking and you could be the bearded lady.
And if you happen to inhabit a body that is anomalous, what a freak P.T. Barnum would have made of you. Anomalous bodies, the “born” freaks, were easy to make money off of. Unusually formed hands? Let’s say you’re half lobster, half boy. Unusually hairy? How about half wolf, half man.
By making exhibits half human, half something else, Barnum could engage his audience’s sense of wonder and awe and even, sometimes, outrage over the obviousness of his humbug. The hybridity of these bodies, a hybridity that were lessons from God before Barnum, made onlookers feel both fully human and left them wanting another look.
No one understood the genius of P.T. Barnum, the absolute centrality of the freak show to American popular culture like Michael Jackson, who died tonight at the age of 50.
Michael Jackson, Pop Icon, Is Dead at 50 – NYTimes.com.
When Jackson grew up, he turned his back on the religion he’d been raised in (Jehovah Witness) and handed his manager P.T. Barnum’s autobiography. Supposedly Jackson said of the book “this is my bible now.”
Jackson spent years making himself hybrid. Was he black or white, male or female, straight or gay, adult or child? When asked to define himself, he refused and became even more famous and more beloved.
But Jackson made one fatal, perhaps even postmodern, mistake. Unlike his god, P.T. Barnum, Jackson put himself , not others, on display. He invited us to look, to gawk, at his hybridity. While at first Jackson could play with the figure of the freak, like when he pretended to buy the bones of the Elephant Man, by mid career Jackson was no longer able to stop us from defining him. Child molester. Innocent victim. Musical genius. Nutcase.
But what Jackson really was was a freak. And that’s why we loved him.
Post Your Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment
T/S Members
Log in with your True/Slant account.
In the 1980s, Michael Jackson lays hands on a biography which will forever change his life: Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810–1891).
Barnum, a genius promoter and circus owner, is said to be the first show business millionaire. Michael devoured this biography and distributed copies among his inner circle declaring, “I want my career to be the greatest show on earth.”
One hundred years after Barnum’s death, his face is featured on the Dangerous (1991) album cover.
Rather than homage, it’s an expression of gratitude. Jackson borrows a lot from Barnum.
For example: In 1835, at the age of 25, Barnum staged his first show in which Joice Heth, a wrinkled black woman said to be 161 years old, was introduced as George Washington’s wet nurse. As he launched the show, Barnum wrote to newspapers under pseudonyms. In some letters to the editor, he denounced himself as a swindler. In others, using his true identity, he defended his good faith. He made people curious. The crowds came. Money poured in.
Launching rumors, using the media as a megaphone, increasing pressure, issuing shameless denials — Michael Jackson, thrilled by this role of great hoaxer, appropriates these techniques.
To learn more about P.T. Barnum, please visit this link:
http://backdoortoneverland.com/12-01JacksonPTBarnum.html