Michael Jackson: The Man, The Myth, The Legend, The Fractured Mind

With a voice to match his sweet face, Michael Jackson stole hearts of audiences across North America and the rest of the world as he spent his childhood in the limelight as the youngest member of the Jackson 5, a Motown group, with four of his brothers. Before he was able to vote, he was a millionaire and solo recording artist.  By the time he was old enough to legally drink alcohol, he was a hit-making machine, recording the brightest and best pop-dance songs, and when he was just 25, he was the biggest recording star in the world. But, in the ’90s and the new decade the self-proclaimed “King Of Pop” persona was taking over, and particular negative actions started to dissolve his once fairy-tale life.  In an incredible turn of events, a man of immense talent and admiration becomes a punching bag and source of worldwide revulsion and shame.  How did this come to pass?

Michael Jackson evidently experienced much sorrow in his life.  By most accounts, his father was a strict disciplinarian who’d beat his children and ridicule their appearances.  His father was a tyrant–he drove those poor kids into show business, and drove them hard.  There was an interview where he boasted about how he made sure his kids were all a little afraid of him all the time–it kept them in line.

In a documentary which aired on ABC, Jackson insisted that he was Peter Pan.  Unfortunately, Peter Pan is a fable, a product of make believe.  Michael seems completely unwilling and/or unable to make the distinction between fantasy and reality, instead clinging to an illusionary world of an ever going adolescence.  Plus, examining his profile shows a disturbing feature: his up-turned nose and leafy hair left him with the visual appearance of Disney’s cartoon version of Peter Pan, and such a change surely was not by accident.  But childhood is a stage in life… and like all stages, it has a beginning, middle, and end.  Fortunately for the young at heart, there’s ample time in adulthood for long periods of regression.  Through our younger brothers and sisters or through the children of our own, we can share again some of childhood’s magic.  Through video games and old movies, we can recreate a time when our only fear was the end of playtime, for playtime does, unfortunately, have an end.  For reasons personal and damaging, Michael Jackson simply lost the ability to put away his toys, stop regressing, and return to adulthood.  The end-result is a 44-year-old man with an unhealthy fixation on childhood. Most of the children he brings to his ranch are either sick or disadvantaged, leaving them strangely vulnerable for abuse.  And since these children lack the financial resources to divorce themselves from reality, the purpose of their childhood is not to continually play with a self-described Peter Pan… but to prepare themselves for adulthood.  Flatly put, spending time with a 44-year-old man who covers his face in makeup and encourages kids with milk and cookies to spend the night in his bedroom is wrong.  It’s not cute.  It’s not endearing.  It’s not magical.  It’s a prime example of deviance.  Even if sexual contact doesn’t take place under Jackson’s roof, the message it teaches children is one that lowers defenses, rendering these kids at greater risk for abuse later in life.  But he didn’t.  And the reason is, deep down, he doesn’t really care about children as individuals or as groups; rather, he’s obsessed with using children as human props in an unyielding effort to recreate his own childhood.  He’s a parasite of children, justifying his fetish by claiming his relationship is symbiotic.  And maybe it is.