The First Book of Michael

by Syl Mortilla

  The ‘Remember The Time’ short film had also been conceived as a response to the criticism of Michael’s changing skin colour. As Michael promoted the Dangerous album, every country he visited ground to a halt upon his arrival; with the unparalleled extent of his fame providing him with a very real power to influence the hundreds of thousands of people he encountered. Every time Michael pounced on a stage during the Dangerous world tour - using what he called the ‘toaster’ - he did so to the sound of an attacking panther.

  Within six months of the successes of the first two single releases from Dangerous, Michael began being ruthlessly pursued by a District Attorney mooted to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Though it was not until after Michael had had the gall to advertise the logo (an interracial shaking of hands) of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee - a society founded by the leaders of black rights protests – during a 1993 Superbowl halftime performance that was viewed by hundreds of millions of people all over the world; and not until after Michael had disclosed an explanation for his changing skin tone as part of a record-breaking Oprah Winfrey interview – that the child molestation allegations against him were made public.

  ***

  The monster that is the ‘Thriller’ short film means that Michael’s other macabre magnum opus – ‘Ghosts’ – is often overshadowed by its older, colossal cousin. Nevertheless, the festival of Halloween always presents a cobwebbed window of opportunity for the less well-known of the two short films to shine. And although the ‘Thriller’ choreography may well be iconic - in comparison with the sophistication of its kindred cinematic spirit - its artistic significance has the mere pallor of the dead. ‘Ghosts’ is not only a spectacular visual and sonic treat – it is also politically-charged and multi-layered in its themes. Part of the choreography evokes the image of a hanging man.

  Michael conceived ‘Ghosts’ as a response to the 1993 child molestation allegations. In the film, Michael plays the roles of a spectre, a skeleton, a demon, an oppressive village mayor, and a demonically-possessed version of said mayor. The aforementioned character played by George Wendt in the ‘Black Or White’ short film, meant we had already encountered one fat, white embodiment (and a substantial body at that) of the reactionary, radical capitalist mentality of Bible Belt (and a substantial belt at that) America. The mayor in ‘Ghosts’ was borne of a rather more specific muse, however - the late District Attorney Tom Sneddon.

  It was perhaps fitting that at the hour of Tom Sneddon’s death in 2014, many people across the world were continuing to celebrate the festival of Halloween – the time of year when many people believe that the boundary between the physical and the psychical realm is at its most permeable. Michael’s song ‘Thriller’ and its accompanying short film are synonymous with the mischief of October 31st, its hand-in-glove theme and phenomenal success resulting in it now being universally accepted as the official anthem for the holiday.

  The echelons of fame that the Thriller album vaulted Michael into contained two major drawbacks for him. Firstly, that he would forever be shackled with the impossible task of striving to improve upon the album’s unprecedented commercial achievements; and secondly, that becoming the most famous person alive meant that the bounty on his head suddenly became dangerously high. Especially after his being shrewd and audacious enough to invest his capital into the white man’s game of music publishing. A very young and uniquely influential black man suddenly became perceived by the establishment as one who was getting disconcertingly above his station.

  The first inklings of political nuances in Michael’s self-penned work began with the track ‘Beat It’ from Thriller. The political references are necessarily subtle – yet once you have interpreted the lyrics to ‘Beat It’ as concerning nothing less than the narrative of a lynching, it’s hard to imagine the song as being about anything else. Consider the line “Don’t wanna be a boy, you wanna be a man” as a simple reworking of the famous Malcolm X quote, “I ain’t a boy! I’m a man!” Michael sampled Malcolm X for his 1995 track ‘HIStory.’ Consider that “The fire’s in their eyes.”

  In ‘D.S.’ – the HIStory album diatribe directed towards Tom Sneddon – Michael labels Sneddon a ‘BSTA’. This could be construed as an insinuation of the word ‘bastard’, but certainly as a play on the acronym ‘SBDA’, or ‘Santa Barbara District Attorney’. The repetitive occultist chant that forms both the chorus as well as the denouement to the track dictates that “Tom Sneddon is a cold man”. This mantra is finally terminated by the sound of a gunshot being fired. The start of the song features the unsettling sound of an angry, id-driven baby’s cry.

  Michael understood that millions of people around the globe would be chanting along with him to the chorus of ‘D.S’ – with him even taking the unusual step of including the track on the HIStory tour set-list. Michael had never before performed such an obscure album number on tour, but he brought out ‘D.S.’ to doubly ensure a communal chant of the ritualistic incantation. The song is shamelessly lip-synced, with Michael at one point handing over the microphone to a backing singer who is wearing an executioner’s mask that completely covers his mouth. One desire of the 1993 extortionists was that Michael would “never sell another record.” Michael was touring the world, performing in front of the largest crowds of his career, promoting the biggest selling double album of all time.

  Sneddon had cynically and relentlessly attempted to systematically annihilate Michael. It was Sneddon’s turn to be scared.

  Tom Sneddon had written to the FBI asking them to convict Michael under the Mann Act – a law created in 1910 used to entrap boxer Jack Johnson in 1912 for what are now regarded as racially-motivated reasons. In spite of the LAPD having been enthusiastic about this line of enquiry in their pursuit of Michael, the FBI disagreed. Following his failure to bring Michael to trial as a result of the 1993 Chandler case, an unperturbed – or perhaps simply incensed – Sneddon then oversaw a successful change in the law that enabled him to resume his baseless chasing of Michael in 2005.

  As part of this second wave of allegations, Neverland was stormed and ransacked. It was a strange, entirely fruitless act that involved hitherto unseen levels of scrutiny, undertaken by the ominous luminosity of metaphorical burning crosses; mob-rule insisting that the “freak circus freak” left the village. Michael had portentously referenced these events in the ‘Ghosts’ short film. And the last thing organised racists would do after carrying out a lynching such as that alluded to in the ‘Beat It’ lyrics? Seize the property of the lynched.

  It’s important not to elevate Sneddon as anything more than a footnote in the epic cultural event that was the life and career of Michael. However, it’s an unfortunate and inescapable truth that the emotional agony suffered by Michael at the hands of the sinister Sneddon is what exacerbated Michael’s use of analgesics as an emotional crutch.

  There were many facets to Sneddon’s malice: he was the relentless motor obsessed with maintaining the norm, repulsed by the myriad things his pitiful close-mindedness couldn’t begin to comprehend; to Michael’s celebration of imagination, Sneddon was the equivalent of the rote-learning of dead facts; to Michael’s revelry in the ecstasy and infinity of rhythm, life and creation, Sneddon was the monotony of a drone engine seeking to destroy innocence.

  And it was this engine that powered Sneddon’s indefatigable, merciless hunt of Michael for over a decade. This trait of irrational tenacity was such an innate one of his, that it earned him the nickname ‘Mad Dog’ – a sobriquet Michael refers to with audible glee as he spits the words “Go’on you dawg, down boy!” during the adlibs of ‘D.S.’

  That dog is dead.

  ***

  Michael understood that in order to fight bigotry and prejudice, he had to use his elevated position to capture the minds of children and turn them against the ingrained views of their parents. Which is why “Black Or White” begins with a boy standing up to his father.

  The philosopher Friedrich Engels claimed the p
atriarchal family structure as the basic building block of capitalism: the father as owner, the wife as the means of production, and the offspring as the product. Both the means of production and product were the property of the patriarch. Michael, being black and belonging to the slave class of “the owned”, was daring to steal their most precious of property - their children. As well as also hijacking the hearts of white women.

  Another esteemed philosopher, Noam Chomsky, suggests the media’s function is to “…amuse, entertain and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs and codes of behaviour that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society.”

  Similarly, the film and music critic Armond White described the media as being “the superego of the status quo”.

  And this was another factor that generated the inordinate rage directed towards Michael during the 1993 allegations: the feeling that he was undermining the security of the patriarchal system; that he was somehow “stealing” children away from their fathers. Evan Chandler, the father of the 1993 accuser, even admits in his book that he was jealous of his son wanting to spend more time with Michael than him. Evan Chandler was an estranged father insecure in his role, and felt threatened by the possibility of Michael replacing him.

  Which is a natural reaction, albeit one borne of the more bestial elements of human nature – as all jealousy is. The more sinister and premeditated part of Evan Chandler’s scheme, however, was the ruthless extortion attempt in which he was content with the idea of annihilating an innocent man. In truth, Michael did indeed steal the children from the orthodox patriarchy, and provided a new, non-patriarchal model; one exemplified by his later becoming both father and mother to his three children. Michael’s reimagining of the family construct is often viewed as pathological, due to its non-conformity. As Michael said, “They don’t understand it so it makes them feel very uncomfortable”.

  The traditional “loving family” does not need to be biological. As humanity is becoming more individualised, there is an evident increase in “tailored families” - tailored to maximise the potential for love.

  ***

  On May 6th 1992, Michael anonymously covered the funeral expenses for Ramon Sanchez, a student killed by police during the Los Angeles riots. The following year, Michael was subjugated to a humiliating strip search by the same LAPD.

  Inspired by these events - and by the failure to bring to justice the LAPD police officers that were filmed murdering Rodney King - in 1995, Michael published the protest song ‘They Don’t Care About Us’.

  ‘Scream- the first track and first single from the HIStory album also contains a reference to racism and police brutality. During the bridge, in the background, a radio broadcast reports, “A man has been brutally beaten to death by Police after being wrongly identified as a robbery suspect. The man was an eighteen-year old black male.”

  A revelation borne of the 2014 Sony emails hack exposes how ‘They Don’t Care About Us’, prior to its publication, was purposefully dismissed and undermined by New York Times journalist Bernard Weinraub. The furore generated by Weinraub’s description of Michael’s entire HIStory album, which he described as "profane, obscure, angry and filled with rage" and of ‘They Don’t Care About Us’ as containing “bigoted lyrics” meant that radio stations were reluctant to support Michael. The ‘Prison Version’ of the ‘They Don’t Care About Us’ was banned in the United States.

  Weinraub is the husband of Sony Pictures Chief Amy Pascal, who had previously been Vice President of Columbia Pictures, where Michael had had a movie contract that was never honoured. Pascal then became head of Sony Pictures. Weinraub also considered David Geffen amongst his friends. Geffen being the man that chose Michael’s management, as well as being in cahoots with Spielberg for the deception of Michael during the burgeoning Dreamworks venture.

  On Twitter in December 2014, the hashtag #TheyDontCareAboutUs was trending globally, in reaction to the racially motivated unrest resulting from persisting police brutality in the United States. Michael’s song was resurrected at the grass roots level in many cities across the United States. In Ferguson, the song could be heard emanating through car windows. In New York City and Berkeley, performances of the song formed part of the protests. The Morgan State University choir’s contribution to the protests was a rendition of ‘Heal The World’.

  The integrity of the campaign group Ferguson Action - set up as a part of the protest movement - was reinforced with their statement in response to the death of two white police men killed by a mentally ill black man in an unrelated incident, that was seized upon by the media,

  “We are shocked and saddened by the news of two NYPD officers killed today in Brooklyn. We mourned with the families of Eric Garner and Mike Brown who experienced unspeakable loss, and similarly our hearts go out to the families of these officers who are now experiencing that same grief. They deserve all of our prayers. Unfortunately, there have been attempts to draw misleading connections between this movement and today’s tragic events. Millions have stood together in acts of non-violent civil disobedience, one of the cornerstones of our democracy. It is irresponsible to draw connections between this movement and the actions of a troubled man...Today’s events are a tragedy in their own right. To conflate them with the brave activism of millions of people across the country is nothing short of cheap political punditry."

  Michael never forgot his humble beginnings, nor the suffering of black America. Indeed, a recent ancestor of his very own had himself been a slave: one named ‘Prince’ by his slavers. The same Prince that Michael named his white son after. The same son who stood trial as a plaintiff in the fight to get justice for his father, who died as a result of a slavish contract.

  It may have taken twenty-five years for the minutiae of an event witnessed simultaneously by half a billion people - as well countless hundreds of millions since - to start being deciphered (as starkly obvious as they now seem), but with the ‘Black Or White’ short film, Michael further solidified his position as an artistic visionary. It was not merely that Michael had no other option but to convey his messages subtly, due to an awareness of the pitfalls he was doomed to succumb to; it was also that he remained fully cognisant of humanity's ongoing evolution of consciousness, and thus prepared his art within this context.

  Much of Michael’s art will take time to unravel and reveal its true significance; the messages will crystallise over time. The process of change is so often invisible to the naked eye: the weathering of a rock; the growth of a tree. Noticeable catalytic leaps are few and far between. The distance of hindsight is necessary.

  As evidenced in the case of the hacked email scandal, and true to Michael’s oft-quoted sentiment, “Lies run sprints, but the truth runs marathons”, our persistence in exposing the truth of Michael - on many fronts - will eventually see justice realised.

  With perhaps the most misunderstood and maliciously maligned example of this phenomenon, residing in Michael’s philosophy of the genius of children and society’s tragic dismissal of its usefulness.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Even a man who is pure of heart / And says his prayers by night / May become a wolf / When the wolfbane blooms / And the autumn moon is bright.

  TRADITIONAL

  Michael was a master marketeer. He adopted the renowned self-publicist PT Barnum as his public relations mentor, and learned to use Barnum’s legendary tactics and abilities for his own self-promotion: the image of Barnum’s head even appearing on the cover of the Dangerous album. Atop of this depiction of Barnum’s head stands a ‘midget ringmaster’, who - in one of two Dangerous promos directed by David Lynch (the portent in that surname!) - would be played by ALF actor Mihaly “Michu” Meszaros, and hence join Emmanuel Lewis, the crew of Captain Eo, and Bubbles the chimpanzee on the ever-expanding list of Michael’s diminutive circus friends.

  Michael always knew how to work with the right people to convey the desired image. After working with A-list
movie directors Landis, Scorsese, Lucas and Coppola in the eighties, Michael, through necessity, changed tack with the changing of the cultural winds. The self-manufactured eighties controversies of Merrick’s bones and Hyperbaric Chamber had now evolved into the far more damaging issue of race-denial. Michael was now the tabloid press’ Most Wanted. The swift and sudden fall of 1993 had not yet occurred, though Michael portentously alluded to its possibilities on the Dangerous album: both overtly in ‘Will You Be There’ and more indirectly in the ‘Jam’ lyric, “I’m conditioned by the system.”

  Michael’s eminence in the sphere of self-promotion was unsurprising considering his upbringing. The Jackson 5 had been used to advertise cereal, and his time with The Jacksons was what kick-started Michael’s ill-fated, life-altering relationship with Pepsi: a partnership that began with adverts with his brothers and the Pepsi-sponsored Victory tour (during the ‘Billie Jean’ and ‘Beat It’ performances, Michael even wore a subliminally Pepsi-themed T-shirt). The joint venture continued for Michael’s solo work, with Pepsi also sponsoring the Bad and Dangerous tours and projects. In response to the 1993 scandal, however, Michael was unceremoniously dumped by the company. Typically, Michael’s riposte to being abandoned by his long-term marketing partners was a musical one. On the subsequent HIStory album, Michael placed ‘Come Together’ after the track ‘Money’. ‘Come Together’ containing the lyric, “He shoot Coca-Cola”.

  The prosperous Pepsi partnership was rekindled by Michael’s estate after his death.

  The HIStory campaign was Michael’s very personal retaliation to the molestation accusations, and for the first time, Michael profaned on record. A typically undermining critic of the time claimed Michael had started swearing to appeal to “the children of Cobain”. In fact, Michael started cursing in his music because he was understandably and justifiably rather upset. (These persistent asinine attacks on Michael even stooped so low as one reviewer of the HIStory tour – which grossed as much as the Bad tour, with profits given to charity – claiming that Michael must have pushed a sock down the front of his trousers in order for him to have “achieved that bulge”.) Michael also fought back with his message of environmentalism. ‘Earth Song’ was a phenomenal worldwide success (bar the out-of-favour USA, where it wasn’t released), with Michael tapping into a universal anxiety concerning the welfare of the planet.