The Passing of Michael Jackson

**Rowland Croucher**

2009-07-07 00:06:11 UTC

Sightings 7/2/09

The Way You Make Me Feel
-- Kathryn Lofton

You=92re tired of it already: the inundating coverage, the progressively=20
whitening chronology, the recollection of malfeasance. Make it stop,=20
you think. Let us move on to better problems, to anything but this.

I=92m with you. Make it stop. But first, before the casket closes, take=
=20
a moment, and download =93The Way You Make Me Feel.=94 Listen. See what=
=20
you do. See what your five-year-old does. And think, briefly, about=20
what sort of sublime work a pop song does.

The memorializing vocabulary describing Michael Jackson mirrors the=20
confusions of his life. Described simultaneously as =93childlike=94 and =
a=20
=93troubled soul,=94 Jackson seems to possess qualities of someone both o=
ld=20
too young, and young too far into old. The desolation of Neverland=20
became a metaphor for his inner fetal rocking, but also an eerie=20
embodiment of his uncanny set of skills. Despite his gestures to stock=20
manliness (the crotch grab, those video damsels), his exclamatory rock=20
falsetto endures as his signature. To the archive of transcendence he=20
donates the flight of that sound, of his voice reaching for high-flying=20
punctuation. The transitioning body, too, slunk in ways supernatural,=20
no matter what fedora or sequins or epaulets flashed. Cultural memory=20
will conjure him as a tragic infant divine, never quite managing to keep=20
the best of little Michael into the multimillions of an international=20
reign. Yet divine his muscularity remained, pulsing and pouncing=20
through screens and stages with an impetus that had no obvious natural=20
source.

Divine parallels prove limiting, however, since it was the case that=20
Michael never moved by magic. He invented that stage. He choreographed=20
his dance. He hustled his single-glove wares. In this, he was not so=20
incomparable. Something happened to the celebrity icon in the Eighties.=20
Scholars identify this as a decade of exponential magnification of the=20
paparazzo=92s lens, and the multimedia diversification which created a ne=
w=20
sort of permeating brand identification. But the iconic shift=20
noteworthy here is the differential work ethic. Marilyn and Jackie O.=20
did work, but by the Eighties they seemed rather indolent when posed=20
alongside the laboring stagecraft of other single-name celebrities.=20
Consequentially the icon=92s eroticism calcified: Ms. Ciccione, Mr.=20
Jackson, and Ms. Winfrey were working too hard to be sexy. Indeed, they=20
worked too hard to be believed. The Eighties celebrity became a=20
machine, one known as much for its handlers and backstage rigging as it=20
was for its productions. The celebrity was no longer the demigod of=20
Olympian descent; it served as its own deus ex machina.

On the subject of Michael Jackson and the specific machina of his=20
religious meaning, one might consider the invocations of religion or=20
religious meaning in his music (i.e., =93Human Nature=94), the role of=20
religion in his biography (from Jehovah=92s Witnesses to errant rabbis to=
=20
flirtations with Islam), or the religion of his fans (all those=20
screaming Japanese armies). Such commentaries are unlikely to provide=20
much interpretive heft. Michael Jackson was not, in the end, a terribly=20
thick subject for religious consideration: he dallied and discoed on the=20
smooth tip of substance. Someone named =93God=94 did, as he testified,=20
inspire nearly every lyric. Pressed on the point, he mostly repeated=20
himself, or offered vague dismissals of patriarchic doctrine. His cited=20
divinity offered verbal mortar for his explanatory limits.

What is most tugging to those questing for the religious Michael Jackson=20
is not to be found in biography. Rather, it is, always and forever, in=20
the deus of those songs. It is difficult to think of another singer who=20
has produced more music that serves such ritual function, be it=20
Halloween (=93Thriller=94), peace summits (=93We Are The World=94), or th=
e=20
midnight club surge (=93Don=92t Stop =91Til You Get Enough=94). This mus=
ician=20
knew how to capitalize upon the liminal gap between fear and pleasure,=20
between acrimony and unity, between exhaustion and electricity, between=20
rape and desire, between genders, between races, and between ages. He=20
performed on the rite de passage. Perhaps righteously, the reporters=20
and detectives found in that wobble foul play. But in the dancing=20
delight of our most sentimental rites=97at the wedding, at the middle=20
school dance, or in the child=92s bedroom=97such talk of Michael=92s mole=
sting=20
grotesque seems sacrilegious. Or it seems to miss the point: the glory=20
of this voice, and the beats he pulled with a snap, was in its denial of=20
this world, of its codes and clarities. The way you make me feel, you=20
really turn me on, he sang. You give me fever like I=92ve never, ever=20
known, and you knock me off my feet. And so it was. And so it ever=20
will be.

Kathryn Lofton is an assistant professor of American studies and=20
religious studies at Yale University. Her first book, Oprah: The Gospel=20
of an Icon, is forthcoming from University of California Press.

http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/webforum/

Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of=20
Chicago Divinity School.

Attribution

Columns may be quoted or republished in full, with attribution to the=20
author of the column, Sightings, and the Martin Marty Center at the=20
University of Chicago Divinity School.

Shalom/Salaam/Pax! Rowland Croucher

http://jmm.aaa.net.au/

Justice for Dawn Rowan - http://dawnrowansaga.blogspot.com/