Michael Jackson is a Problem for Me

Mood: Conflicted

Michael Jackson was the first artist I loved. As young as four years old, I’d habitually play Thriller and Dangerous on my Walkman while aimlessly ambling around my house, submerged in a sound so deep I had to move to receive it. I became a musician eight years later when I picked up my first pair of drumsticks and twenty-three years after that, I’m still going. Recently, I revisited those classic albums for the first time in years. I was stunned by the stark presence of everything I still love about music. The rhythms, structures, textures and priorities were all consistent with the stuff I write and still listen to. This was a difficult, though unsurprising, realization. While it makes sense that my earliest exposures would have permanently influenced me, I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and retain no illusions about who Michael was.

What we denied in the 90’s when I was playing his music on cassette became unavoidable after Leaving Neverland showed us how foolish our willful ignorance had been. Michael was obviously a pedophile and abused many children. He was also one of the most popular and influential recording artists in history. As a survivor, I intimately know the severe trauma he transmitted to his victims. It is a complex, oppressive wound that is very difficult to heal. As a musician, his work permanently inspired and shaped my sensibilities. I’ll always be grateful for that influence. How do I reconcile that paradox?

I don’t think I can “separate the art from the artist” any more than I could separate sugar from sweet tea. They are too entwined, making that approach illogical. Alternatively, I’ve noticed that our culture tends to wholly denigrate people it used to idolize after we learn something like this. A pedestal that high cannot support a crime that severe so we condemn them to an equally low gutter. We’re right to stop celebrating Michael after decades of adoration but no matter what he did, his work is just too big to cancel. Total condemnation is not an option. In fact, many remain who still pretend that Michael was innocent. It seems to me that their denial stems from the same inability to handle his contradiction as the full repudiation sought by those who think his historic influence can be ignored.

Maybe denial and demonization are both just failures to sincerely accept the frightening polarity of the full person. His acts of genius and violence, though hard to reconcile, did coexist, regardless of how that makes us feel. Personally, it’s hard for me to accept that in him because it’s often hard to accept that life in general is the same: with beauty and brutality, in equal measure, permanently mixed.

The very fact that I’ve idolized and idealized artists like Michael points to an attempt to deny the dark side of things. When someone is that talented, I elevate them as a fantastic symbol of promise. When they reveal their other side, I resent the deflation of that hope. In Michael’s case, he simultaneously expressed some of humanity’s highest potential and deepest sickness. As long as I can’t face that dichotomy at large, I can’t accept it in him. The only real solution is to make steady eye contact with the clear and disappointing truth and not look away. Then, my wishful thinking suspended, I can finally see the fullness of what’s there. Yes, it’s brutal, but it’s also beautiful. I can learn to love that beauty without rejecting the rest and, by adapting my mind to reality instead of expecting the inverse, I can gain peace. After all, darkness and light seem to be meaningless without the contrast between them. With that in mind, today I played Thriller again and marveled at how such sublime genius could come from such a cruel and wounded heart.