Reclaiming the Freak: Michael Jackson and the Spectacle of Identity

Abstract

Brooke Shields seemed to address lingering questions about Jackson’s sexuality (or lack thereof) in her comments about her platonic friendship with the late singer. “Yes, it may have seemed very odd to the outside, but we made it fun, and we made it real.” Comedian Eddie Murphy had joked about the unlikely couple in his 1987 comedy special, Raw. Directing his comments to the white members of the audience, Murphy teased, “This nigga took her to the Grammys, and nobody said shit. If I took Brooke Shields to the Grammys, y’all would lose your minds. ’Cause y’all know Brooke would get fucked that night . . . and Brooke knew, too.” As Jackson’s friend and contemporary and himself a crossover star due to the immense popularity of films like 48 Hours (1982) and Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Murphy knowingly acknowledges the differences between the public perceptions of his own sexuality versus Jackson’s carefully cultivated reputation for being sensitive, childlike, even asexual. Furthermore, the very idea that Jackson might bring Shields back to his place for a late-night rendezvous was certainly offset by the idea that the oxygen chamber he used for a bed might make the deed slightly more difficult or that pet chimp Bubbles might burst into the room at an inopportune moment. America’s shoulder-shrugging acceptance of Jackson’s romantic escapades with Brooke Shields, Tatum O’Neal, Madonna, Debbie Rowe, and Lisa Marie Presley did not necessarily signal the arrival of a postracial America as much as the acceptance of Michael Jackson as some kind of bizarre, raceless, sexless, man-child freak. And even rinning maniacally, he swung the newest addition to his family, “Blanket,” over the railing of his Berlin hotel room balcony. Tiny, chubby, cream-colored legs kicked into the air four stories above the concrete street below, the infant’s face obscured by a towel draped over his head. It may seem gauche to revisit the infamous moment depicted in this photo, given the sudden and shocking death of pop superstar Michael Jackson. In countless discussions that have followed his death fans have attempted to grapple with their own complicated feelings about the icon by choosing to focus on Thriller-era Michael and trying hard to erase memories of Michael in the post-Dangerous years, that uncomfortable period exemplified by moments like Jackson’s awkward kiss with Lisa Marie Presley at the 1994 MTV Movie Awards and his cringeworthy interview with Martin Bashir in the documentary Living with Michael Jackson (2003). As journalist Greg Tate so astutely notes, “The unfortunate blessing of his departure is that we can now all go back to loving him as we first found him, without shame, despair, or complication.” In contrast to this impulse to erase the messier parts of Jackson’s legacy, I propose that we celebrate his freakishness as a vehicle that permitted him access into social spaces and identities typically denied to black male entertainers while allowing him to sidestep the pitfalls that tend to punish nonnormative expressions of race and gender.