The Michael Eric Dyson Reader

by Michael Eric Dyson

  Jackson’s spirituality, though, is a secular spirituality, which may at first appear to be an oxymoronic formulation. Jackson’s spirituality is secular precisely because its primary site of execution and expression is not the church sanctuary but the concert stage, and because it is not embedded in conventional ecclesiastical structures or transmitted in traditional religious linguistic or liturgical practices. Furthermore, his secular spirituality does not assume that a prior grounding in the shared language of a religious community is needed in order to grasp its basic premises.

  Neither does it make identity formed in intellectual exchange or conceptual dialogue needed for comprehension or participation. Jackson articulates powerful forms of human identity in images, symbols, and language that are shaped by, but not limited to, his own religious experience. Thus, the many traditions of moral reflection and ethical analysis that derive from a common Judeo-Christian heritage in American society are consonant in many crucial respects with Jackson’s own vision of peace, love, and justice. Similar to the way that devotees of African-American religion participating in the civil rights movement appealed to a language of rights, thus allowing them to express their conceptions of peace, justice, and liberation in secular terms, so does Jackson’s spirituality find a “language” that is understood by members of an American culture not sharing his own religious experience.11

  Furthermore, Jackson’s spirituality is secular because it is created for, and best thrives in, the cultural, psychic, and social spaces of the concert world, and not the ekklesia. It is not situated in, or sustained by, conventional procedures of church participation, service, or worship. This does not mean, however, that Jackson’s spirituality is devoid of religious drama involving rituals, pageantry, and spectacles.12 On the contrary, Jackson’s secular spirituality, particularly as performed on the concert stage, is replete with references to certain African-American religiocultural practices that signify in the musical arena.

  For instance, Jackson’s concerts thrive on call and response. Jackson’s live performances mediate ritual structures of antiphonal oral and verbal exchange between artist and audience. Such antiphonal exchange permits the artist to articulate his or her vision and authorizes the audience to acknowledge its reception and even shape its meaning by responding to the emotion being expressed, refracting the message being sent, or reaffirming the idea being communicated. In this context, meaning is an open-ended process that resists premature or permanent closure. This secular koinonia of communicants (artist and audience) constitutes a text whose understanding necessitates mutual participation in order to explore and unpack its multiple meanings. In the best of the African-American religious tradition, meaning is produced by an ever evolving, perennially transforming, historically conditioned set of cultural practices, rhetorical strategies, and religious signifiers. Jackson’s phenomenal and protean energies in live performance exemplify this point.

  Furthermore, Jackson’s performances richly fuse Bakhtinian conceptions of carnival with African-American forms of spiritual ecstasy, producing a highly animated hybrid that creates space for cultural resistance and religious agency.13 Both carnival and African-American religious ecstatic experience have been devalued as cathartic, excessive, and celebrative of the “low” in human nature. But it is just this emphasis on the “low” religious expression of ecstasy, empathy, and subjective experientialism versus the “high” religious expression of control, stolidity, and objective experientialism that marks, in part, the subversive potentialities and powers of African-American religion.

  Also, it is the “low” cultural expression of laughter, bodily pleasure, and vernacular language—versus the “high” cultural expression of solemnity, repression, and classical language—that expresses the powers of culturally degraded masses to revolt and survive. Carnival prevents rank and social hierarchy from tyrannizing social expression, much as progressive Christian conceptions of democracy allow the free social expression of equal beings.14 Bakhtin says, “Carnival celebrated temporary liberation from the prevailing truth and from the established order: it marked the suspension of all hierarchical rank, privileges, norms and prohibitions.”15 Jackson taps into and ties these traditions together in a highly skillful and empowering fashion.

  The primary form of Jackson’s secular spirituality is televisual. In fact, the major moments in Jackson’s vocation have been catalyzed by the visual medium, either on television or in music video. For instance, Jackson’s passage from music superstar to a world historical and cultural figure was ritually enacted on May 16, 1983, with his mythic dance performance of the “moonwalk” on the Motown 25 television special, which was beamed to almost 50 million viewers around the globe. Jackson’s uncanny dexterity, disciplined grace, and explosive imagination coalesced in a series of immortal movements, which, in their turn, freeze framed the recrudescent genius of street dance, summarized the important history of Fred Astaire-like purposeful grace in executing dance steps, and extended the brilliant tradition of African-American performers like Bojangles, Sammy Davis, and Katherine Dunham surging against the odds to create vital art.

  Jackson’s epochal routine skyrocketed his record sales and catapulted him into the stellar reaches of fame, landing him on the cover of the Guiness Book of World Records for selling over 40 million copies of his album Thriller, the most in music history. His autobiography Moonwalk, edited by Jackie Onassis, was aptly named, for it captures the watershed moment in Jackson’s career and symbolizes his transformation into a personality of almost universal appeal.

  The televisual medium, then, is central to Jackson’s expression of his musical vision of life. When he was making the album Thriller, Jackson writes:

  I was determined to present this music as visually as possible. At the time I would look at what people were doing with video, and I couldn’t understand why so much of it seemed so primitive and weak. I saw kids watching and accepting boring videos because they had no alternatives. My goal is to do the best I can in every area, so why work hard on an album and then produce a terrible video? I wanted something that would glue you to the set, something you’d want to watch over and over. . . . So I wanted to be a pioneer in this relatively new medium and make the best short music movies we could make. I don’t even like to call them videos. On the set I explained that we were doing a film, and that was how I approached it. (pp. 201–202)

  Since the televisual medium is so crucial to Jackson’s vision of life, it is here that I want to concentrate my analysis in examining the confluence of music, medium, and message in Jackson’s art. In the remaining part of the essay, then, I will trace some of the themes that constitute Jackson’s African-American secular spirituality as they are presented in a major (but not exclusive) mode of expression for him—the music video. These themes include, as stated above, the nature of good and evil; the potentialities for transformation of the self, human nature, and society; the nature of real manhood in American culture; the politics of racial identity in America; and the place of love in changing the world. In exploring these themes in Jackson’s art, I will examine two representative Jackson videos, “Thriller”16 and “Bad,”17 and a live performance of “Man in the Mirror”18 at the 1988 Grammy Awards.

  Jackson’s “Thriller” marked a revolutionary use of the music video. As Jackson indicated in the quote cited above, he intended to make a singular contribution to the field. In fact all of his videos are distinct and defy easy categorization.19 “Thriller” (which capped Jackson’s first period of music video creation) presents a fantastical, wild, even scary vision of human transformation that rests upon conventions developed in the horror film genre and utilizes the werewolf figure as a metaphor of the potential for personal transmogrification. “Thriller” employs a variety of horror film staples, such as sophisticated makeup, special effects, eerie music, and even the chillingly familiar voice of thrill master Vincent Price. It is a mark of Jackson’s unique imaginative powers that he is able to explore questi
ons of human nature and identity in this film genre.

  The video begins with a written disclaimer: “Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult.” Jackson was then still connected to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and this statement was a concession to their concern about the possible misinterpretation of the video’s content. The opening scene of “Thriller” depicts Jackson and his girlfriend, portrayed by Ola Ray, driving in a white 1950s Buick. Suddenly they are out of gas, and Jackson faces the embarrassing task of reporting this to Ray, knowing his companion will suspect a typical male ruse to initiate romantic tomfoolery. Jackson says that they are honestly out of gas, to Ray’s incredulous ears. They get out of the car and begin to walk. Finally, however, Ray apologizes for her initial disbelief.

  Jackson’s character then begins to talk with Ray, expressing his affection for her and hoping that she will return a similar affection to him. As they embrace, Jackson asks her to be his “girl.” To make it official, Jackson gives her a ring. He then tells her that he must vouchsafe a piece of important information to her, namely that he is “not like other guys.” This, of course, is a statement with which Jackson observers, fans and detractors alike, would heartily agree. After Ray says she understands this, Jackson insists that she is missing his point, that he is different in a way much different than she appreciates.

  Until now, the sterile placidity of the couple’s nocturnal surroundings remain undisturbed, and only reinforce the engaging and affectionate emotions being mutually expressed between Jackson and Ray. But Jackson’s announcement of Derridean difference shatters the unity of natural and personal calm. The pain of his self-awareness is the occasion for subsequent turmoil in Jackson and his companion. It is at the very point of Jackson’s announcement that he begins to exhibit the specific and exaggerated character of his difference. The physiological structure of Jackson’s countenance becomes radically altered, as he commences an ontological descent into animalistic debasement: he becomes a werewolf.

  The transformation is now complete, and Jackson is the Freak, the one whose being and appearance cause utter horror and total repulsion (much like London’s famed “Elephant Man,” with whose remains Jackson is fascinated). He begins to chase his companion, who runs shrieking from the immense vulgarity of his transformed visage. Just as the werewolf corners her, we see a movie audience and understand that what we have just seen is a film being watched by an audience on film.

  In the audience are Jackson and Ray, she horrified by what she has seen, Jackson relishing the gore of every cut, slice, and painful grimace. Ray removes herself from the audience, and Jackson, after savoring a final glimpse, follows her. After assuring Ray that “it was just a movie,” the music to “Thriller” begins, with its menacing bass line foreshadowing the ominous events about to occur. Jackson sings the words to “Thriller,” speaking about the evil lurking in the dark, the terror-filled night visions, and the paralysis that results from such visions. As he continues to sing, graves begin to open up, and unseemly creatures begin to emerge from long sleep, recalling some night of the living dead.

  Just as the words indicate that “no mere mortal can resist the evil of thriller,” Jackson is transformed into one of the creatures, growing fangs and developing dark-circled eyes. In the next scene, Jackson’s face is returned to normal, as he continues to warn of the consequences of the “Thriller night.” Once again, Jackson is transformed, even transmogrified, into a horrible creature, and along with other ghoulish “demons” he begins to pursue Ray. They chase her into a house, where her crying screams are met with more creatures coming out of the floorboards and through the windows. As they crowd in for the final assault, Ray offers her ultimate terror-struck shriek, and Jackson, once again changed to his normal face, greets her and asks her what is wrong. As he helps her to her feet and they leave, he turns to the camera, with fangish mouth and devilish yellow eyes.

  It would be obviously stretching the truth to suggest that “Thriller” offers Jackson’s self-conscious attempt to theologically thematize his conception of human nature and human identity. Also, there are troubling aspects to Jackson’s adoption of the horror film genre, which has notoriously sexualized victimization by constituting women as objects of male monster violent desire. However, I believe that “Thriller” does provide a lens on aspects of Jackson’s views about human nature and on problems of evil that reflect his religious and moral views.

  The lyrics to “Thriller” were not written by Jackson, but by Rod Temperton, a former member of the group Heatwave, itself a product of diverse American and British cultural and musical elements in the mid-1970s. In his lyrics, Temperton represents the threat of horror approaching from the outside. The human beings (Jackson and Ray) are victimized by events external to their nature or control, and evil intent is expressed through creatures radically unlike themselves:

  It’s close to midnight and something evil’s lurking in the dark / Under the moonlight you see a sight that almost stops your heart / . . . You hear the door slam and realize there’s nowhere left to run / You feel the cold hand and wonder if you’ll ever see the sun / You close your eyes and hope that this is just imagination / But all the while you hear the creature creepin’ up behind / You’re out of time / . . . There ain’t no second chance against this thing with forty eyes.

  Jackson provides Ray protection, however, from the marauding monsters:

  Now is the time for you and I to cuddle close together / All through the night I’ll save you from the terrors on the screen, I’ll make you see.

  The further innuendo points to Jackson’s ability to romantically thrill Ray:

  . . . It’s a thriller, thriller night / ’Cause I can thrill you more than any ghost would dare to try / Girl, this is thriller, thriller night / So let me hold you tight and share a killer, diller, chiller, / Thriller here tonight.

  In his minimovie version of “Thriller” (which was nominated for an Oscar in the short film category), Jackson extends its range of meaning and expands its spectrum of signifiers, with the result that he expresses some of his views about human nature. First, Jackson represents the horror of evil as both an external event embodied in transhuman creatures and as an internal experience embodied in human creatures. Even more pointedly, the terrain of evil embodiment is the self, which has grave consequences for the human being, especially in altered behavior, attitudes, and physiological appearance. It is a totalizing process that affects, even infects, the whole human organism. In the movie, Jackson’s turn from magnanimous protector to malicious pursuer indicates the dialectical tension of good and evil that defines the human predicament and illumines the difficult context of choice between moral opposites, particularly when they are embedded in the same human being.

  For Jackson’s “Thriller,” human identity is an imperfect, messy amalgam of good and evil, of humanitas and animalis, of oppositional tendencies that inhabit the same psychic, spiritual, and biological space. A full comprehension of the social practices, personal habits, and cultural behavior manifested in acts of goodness must be chastened by an awareness of the potential for wrong and harm. Likewise, the judgment of the expression of evil social practices, personal habits, and cultural behavior must be tempered by the recognition of the human possibilities to do good acts and to generate productive lifestyles. In short, there are discernible traces of religious conceptions of human nature and identity in Jackson’s video version of “Thriller” that acknowledge the limits of human capacities for good and also acknowledge an awareness of the human capability to do harm. It is not altogether unlike the view of human nature that informed Reinhold Niebuhr’s political realism and influenced the thought of Martin Luther King Jr.20

  Furthermore, in “Thriller” Jackson has, at least inadvertently, raised the issue of marginality, difference, and otherness in much the same way that he indirectly precipitates conversations about such topics in real life (especially because of his
alleged multiple cosmetic surgeries). The werewolf signifies the Embodied Other, the spectacle of a difference so gross that it evokes responses of fear, terror, or horror in gasping onlookers. Some may view this as a proleptic revelation of Jackson’s own existential grappling with his Otherness, to be subsequently revealed in the “horrifying” spectacle of Jackson’s transformation of his own face.

  On the matter of his plastic surgery, Jackson complains that as he went from a “cute,” chubby-faced kid to a lean young man, “the press started accusing me of surgically altering my appearance, beyond the nose job I freely admitted I had” (p. 229). Jackson denies having his cheeks altered, his lips thinned, or his skin peeled. In exasperation, he asks rhetorically, “What does my face have to do with my music or my dancing?” (p. 230). Apparently Jackson fails to understand that, as a cultural icon, the seeming de-Africanization of his face and the Europeanization of his image reflect a wrestling with profound questions of identity and selfimage that influence the way his artistic achievements are perceived. In any regard, the werewolf character, although a highly stylized signifier rooted in Jackson’s fantasy life, communicates the aesthetic dissonance, social terror, and personal repulsion that may result from (racial, sexual) forms of otherness and difference.

  That the site of otherness would be the body (versus the mind, for example, in forms of madness) speaks volumes of the African American confrontation with debilitating forms and uses of embodiment. The socially, morally, and economically repugnant uses of African-American embodiment, rooted in the commodification of the black body, began under slavocracy in American culture. The black body was articulated as the primal other, the form of difference par excellence. Such uses of the black body were repudiated in African-American religious practices, which redeemed the use of the body by employing it in rites of sanctification, rituals of purification, and acts of celebration. Jackson’s expression of religious joy through his celebrative dance routines captures at least one pole of the redemptive use of the black body articulated in black religious practices.