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A talent for lies and abuse
Robert M. Kaplan | July 08, 2009
Article from: The Australian
THE death of Michael Jackson triggered a predictable frenzy of eulogies from individuals who could not run far away enough from him when he was facing child abuse charges.
Simultaneously, from the media perihelion, infused with the spirit of Jerry Springer, arose confessions, observations and revelations about a lifestyle that would have nauseated even William S.Burroughs, involving drug dependence, financial lunacy, lack of concern about the sentient world and disregard for others.
Hypocrisy or schadenfreude aside, the eulogies were unanimous on one point, confirming that Jackson had been successful in achieving his most important goal: claiming the mantle of victimhood as justification for leading an exploitative and predatory life.
Jackson, we are told, was deprived of a childhood because of his early involvement in the music world and this, in some mysterious way, provided him with a lifelong excuse to perpetrate just about any self-indulgent, destructive, futile or mindless behaviour that an inordinately self-obsessed adult male who kept sleeping with young boys could wish to do for as long as he had the fame, money or credit to do it.
Jackson started singing at the age of four and, by eight, was performing in the Jackson 5. When he reached adulthood (at least chronologically), he went solo and, in 1983, achieved the world's best-selling album. This was followed by two more hits, after which followed a long slow slide into perdition. American life, as F.Scott Fitzgerald pointed out, rarely permits a second act.
Jackson has eight siblings who were exposed to the same environment; why did none of them turn out the same way? Jermaine may not be a rocket scientist and tends to whine at times. One may have objections to the music of Janet, let alone her public wardrobe malfunction, but she is hardly as rebarbative as, say, Madonna. As for the rest of the siblings, who ever hears much of them, surely the best indication of a normal American life?
Some say that the lack of a normal childhood fostered both Jackson's phenomenal artistry and his regressed infantilism. Yet Jackson was no Elvis Presley, John Lennon or Bob Dylan.
Furthermore, a childhood spent in travelling, acting or entertainment families is not unusual. Any number of people have been raised in the same way and there is no evidence that this in itself is pathogenic. Indeed, spending one's childhood with a close family on the road can be a lot happier than trudging off to the same school every day for 12 years.
Jackson constantly branded his parents, especially his father, as "abusive", the psychobabble word that conveys instant freedom from responsibility for the victim. Jackson's parents came from humble origins at a time when being black in America was often a one-way ticket to a life of downward social mobility, poverty, crime and misery. To their credit, they refused to bow down to this and like many people from migrant or minority backgrounds they looked to succeed in those areas where sheer determination, ambition and talent will overcome virtually any institutional obstruction: sport and entertainment.
Considering the competition and pressures they faced, they would have had to be as hard on their charges as any parents of talented child stars. The results were little short of spectacular, and their children were given opportunities denied to many others.
Remembering the ghetto life from which he was saved, Jackson should have lit a candle in church every day of his adult life thanking his parents. While it is easy to be snide about their brick pile in the Los Angeles suburb of Encino, they deserve every bit of their wealth.
Does any of this explain the star's infantilism? Jackson did not have a sweet childlike nature, living in a perpetual Wendy world. Far from it. The evidence at his trial showed that he was a caricature of the cynical, calculated and predatory adult, soaked in booze and drugs, constantly conniving to manipulate children into a coercive environment where he could exploit them as he wished without bearing the consequences.
The outcome of Jackson's adult choices was not pretty. Behaving like a combination of the boys from Brazil and Monty Python, he created a band of captive children; sucked-in con men, sycophants, fools, hags, desperados, even the cetacean-like Marlon Brando; and engaged in an extraordinary career of self-mutilation, usually via surgery, making him a body dysmorphic of extraordinary degree. He used so much mercury to lighten his skin colour that he went prematurely bald, side-effects not seen since it was used for treatment of syphilis in the 19th century.
In claiming that he wanted nothing more than to recreate the imaginary innocent sweetness of childhood to make up for what he had lost, Jackson was perpetuating a lie of such magnitude that only Joseph Goebbels - who said that the bigger the lie, the more people want to believe it - would have approved.
There is only one epitaph for Jackson. He was a disgrace: to his family, his people, his fans, his talent, his industry, his country and to every child who dreams of creating a better life for themselves as an adult without abdicating responsibility for their actions.
Robert M. Kaplan, a forensic psychiatrist, is the author of Medical Murder: Disturbing Cases of Doctors Who Kill.
Robert M. Kaplan | July 08, 2009
Article from: The Australian
THE death of Michael Jackson triggered a predictable frenzy of eulogies from individuals who could not run far away enough from him when he was facing child abuse charges.
Simultaneously, from the media perihelion, infused with the spirit of Jerry Springer, arose confessions, observations and revelations about a lifestyle that would have nauseated even William S.Burroughs, involving drug dependence, financial lunacy, lack of concern about the sentient world and disregard for others.
Hypocrisy or schadenfreude aside, the eulogies were unanimous on one point, confirming that Jackson had been successful in achieving his most important goal: claiming the mantle of victimhood as justification for leading an exploitative and predatory life.
Jackson, we are told, was deprived of a childhood because of his early involvement in the music world and this, in some mysterious way, provided him with a lifelong excuse to perpetrate just about any self-indulgent, destructive, futile or mindless behaviour that an inordinately self-obsessed adult male who kept sleeping with young boys could wish to do for as long as he had the fame, money or credit to do it.
Jackson started singing at the age of four and, by eight, was performing in the Jackson 5. When he reached adulthood (at least chronologically), he went solo and, in 1983, achieved the world's best-selling album. This was followed by two more hits, after which followed a long slow slide into perdition. American life, as F.Scott Fitzgerald pointed out, rarely permits a second act.
Jackson has eight siblings who were exposed to the same environment; why did none of them turn out the same way? Jermaine may not be a rocket scientist and tends to whine at times. One may have objections to the music of Janet, let alone her public wardrobe malfunction, but she is hardly as rebarbative as, say, Madonna. As for the rest of the siblings, who ever hears much of them, surely the best indication of a normal American life?
Some say that the lack of a normal childhood fostered both Jackson's phenomenal artistry and his regressed infantilism. Yet Jackson was no Elvis Presley, John Lennon or Bob Dylan.
Furthermore, a childhood spent in travelling, acting or entertainment families is not unusual. Any number of people have been raised in the same way and there is no evidence that this in itself is pathogenic. Indeed, spending one's childhood with a close family on the road can be a lot happier than trudging off to the same school every day for 12 years.
Jackson constantly branded his parents, especially his father, as "abusive", the psychobabble word that conveys instant freedom from responsibility for the victim. Jackson's parents came from humble origins at a time when being black in America was often a one-way ticket to a life of downward social mobility, poverty, crime and misery. To their credit, they refused to bow down to this and like many people from migrant or minority backgrounds they looked to succeed in those areas where sheer determination, ambition and talent will overcome virtually any institutional obstruction: sport and entertainment.
Considering the competition and pressures they faced, they would have had to be as hard on their charges as any parents of talented child stars. The results were little short of spectacular, and their children were given opportunities denied to many others.
Remembering the ghetto life from which he was saved, Jackson should have lit a candle in church every day of his adult life thanking his parents. While it is easy to be snide about their brick pile in the Los Angeles suburb of Encino, they deserve every bit of their wealth.
Does any of this explain the star's infantilism? Jackson did not have a sweet childlike nature, living in a perpetual Wendy world. Far from it. The evidence at his trial showed that he was a caricature of the cynical, calculated and predatory adult, soaked in booze and drugs, constantly conniving to manipulate children into a coercive environment where he could exploit them as he wished without bearing the consequences.
The outcome of Jackson's adult choices was not pretty. Behaving like a combination of the boys from Brazil and Monty Python, he created a band of captive children; sucked-in con men, sycophants, fools, hags, desperados, even the cetacean-like Marlon Brando; and engaged in an extraordinary career of self-mutilation, usually via surgery, making him a body dysmorphic of extraordinary degree. He used so much mercury to lighten his skin colour that he went prematurely bald, side-effects not seen since it was used for treatment of syphilis in the 19th century.
In claiming that he wanted nothing more than to recreate the imaginary innocent sweetness of childhood to make up for what he had lost, Jackson was perpetuating a lie of such magnitude that only Joseph Goebbels - who said that the bigger the lie, the more people want to believe it - would have approved.
There is only one epitaph for Jackson. He was a disgrace: to his family, his people, his fans, his talent, his industry, his country and to every child who dreams of creating a better life for themselves as an adult without abdicating responsibility for their actions.
Robert M. Kaplan, a forensic psychiatrist, is the author of Medical Murder: Disturbing Cases of Doctors Who Kill.
