On Michael Jackson [Paperback]

This is a very well thought out book - musings - on the life and work of Michael Jackson. It is especially fascinating on child stars and what we ask of them.

Research-wise, she does lose sight of the facts surrounding MJ at times and chooses supposition over evidence on occasion. For example, she does not seem to give much credence to his vitilgo yet he first consulted a doctor about it in 1981 or thereabouts, long before the public had any idea of it. A picture exists of him from the early eighties which shows what he looked like with out make up to cover the patches.
She also makes out that Michael dismissed Debbie Rowe when hed had enough of her - but I believe this was not the case. She twists the facts somewhat.
But on the whole this book is worth reading by anyone interested in fame, our celebrity culture, race, gender.

Some MJ fans won't like this book and I'd say it is aimed at the general reader, the curious or the fan who is open minded. Though her language may seem harsh, on reflection, Margo Jefferson does come down on MJ's side in the end.

In the eloquent prose of a Pulitzer prize-winning critic for the New York Times, Margo Jefferson does one thing rather well. She puts Michael Jackson into cultural context. The most valuable contribution of this slim volume is to demonstrate that although her subject may appear to be the strangest human on the planet, he also exemplifies major themes in American popular culture.

Jefferson's exploration of this terrain succeeds not in normalising Jackson, but rather in linking him to a broader stream of strangeness - the freak show element present in American showbiz at least since the days of P. T. Barnum, whose methods Michael himself once studied avidly. The author's other principal strength is her rich appreciation of Michael's art: her rapturous riffs on his music and its meaning smack more of the fan than the detached critic.

Her title, On Michael Jackson, suggests a high-brow essay. Stylistically, she does not disappoint, delivering many fresh insights in diamond-sharp language. Scholastically, though, she fails. The book is "on" Michael Jackson but she never tells us what she is "on" about. What is the objective? Much of the time she is actually talking not about Michael Jackson at all but rather - in "cultural studies" vein - about public perception of the superstar. This enables her, like all that mealy-mouthed academic tribe, to be vague and evasive on the big issues, in this case whether Michael has or has not been sexually involved with young boys. Her unspoken agenda seems to be Michael's rehabilitation, judging by her emphasis on what his art has meant for her and her generation. I have no quarrel with that mission. It's fine by me.

What is a good deal less fine is her sly disinclination to confront inconvenient facts. She has a chapter on Michael's trial but totally ignores the evidence of sexual conduct given by his accuser. Likewise she refers obliquely to the earlier crisis of 1993-4 but never touches on what the boy in that case told the authorities. She prefers instead to ramble on about the competing lawyers and their tactics. What a sense of priorities!

It is not just sly, it is slipshod, relying on research she did a decade or more ago, if at all. For instance, she cites J. Randy Taraborrelli as an important biographical source. Fair enough, but had she done her homework she would have known about, read, and cited the 2004 edition of his work, not, as she does, the 1991 one, which obviously could not have covered Jackson's first brush with the law. Likewise, despite pretending to some knowledge of "child sex abuse", it is obvious from the uncritical way she buys into the abuse industry's language, and from the paucity of her (dated) references, that her understanding is as near to zero as makes no difference. It is embarrassingly clear she has not the foggiest notion of why boys are so important to Michael Jackson or indeed to other men who wreck their lives in pursuit of taboo relationships.

I must take issue with those reviewers who make a point of Margo Jefferson's factual errors, as if her book was meant to be definitively biographic. The title--"On Michael Jackson"--reveals her approach from the git. Hers is an extended--and exquisitely attuned--essay; a volume of musings on a deeply paradoxical subject that dips profoundly into cultural issues, and continually delivers treasure. The misguided will demand a summation, a tying-up; but this is a book of and about perception. Don't miss it if you enjoy the play of an extraordinary mind on an extraordinary subject.

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