Another Part of Me

[Cover Story] [Thriller Resurrected] [Smell the Glove]

Watching Michael Jackson has always been a study in contrasts. Ever since a prepubescent Michael sang so precociously in The Jackson 5, the Michael we’ve heard and the Michael we’ve seen have never fit neatly together. The lesson has only been reinforced by his changing face, and by a public trial that invited us to judge what we thought we knew along with what we wanted to believe.

Michael’s musical sensations are deceptively similar to his paparazzi sensations, the two linked by a consistently wry sense of symbolism, and by the sense that every one of his media spectacles is another carefully wrought Michael Jackson production. Indeed, one could characterize the disheveled, pajama-sporting Michael outside the Santa Maria courthouse as a brilliant diversion executed with “Thriller”-caliber theatrics. Every detail called others into question.

So will Thriller’s re-release. Some may find it a desperate makeover or resuscitated nostalgia. But Michael has never quite left our imaginations—or our iPods, as proven by the #1 debut of “Thriller” in 2005 when iTunes first added videos. It was the short film for “Thriller,” after all, that taught us how to take in the then-newly crowned King of Pop, a Michael who plays multiple roles in a spectacular story that doesn’t always make sense. Rather, it turns like a kaleidoscope each time we see it.

In Jackson’s trial, media coverage concluded that “Wacko Jacko” had lost touch with reality. But Michael has long toyed with his iconic image, which we too often take at face value. Michael’s pajama performance expertly personified trial speculation while minimizing attention given to his accuser’s testimony. His acquittal provided an ending worthy of the “Billie Jean” video, where a private investigator pursues but never catches our Michael. Only the tiles lighting his feet come close.

Seth Clark Silberman coordinated Regarding Michael Jackson, the first academic conference on the icon, when he taught at Yale University in 2004. He currently lives in New York, where he deejays and works on the manuscript This Day in Michael, part of which he blogs at ThisDayMichael.blogspot.com.