The Roots and Routes of Michael Jackson’s Global Identity

Abstract

In 2011, the realm of American popular culture experienced a jolt when an American icon decided to go global. In DC Comics issue #900, Superman renounced his US citizenship. A stalwart of “the American way,” Superman decided that his mission for justice should encompass people and phenomena beyond the territorial boundaries of the U.S. after feeling morally compelled to support non-violent protesters in Iran. The repercussions of Superman’s actions created complications for US foreign policy, and forced the aegis of American heroism to officially differentiate his stance from that of the US government. Yet while Superman continues to see the world as increasingly interconnected and strives to become a global citizen, DC Comics publishers Jim Lee and Dan Didio insist that Superman remains committed to his American base. After all, Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent, grew up in the heart of Americana. It is not only fictional icons who represent some facet of “all-American” identity who have become cosmopolitan subjects in our ever more connected world, but real ones as well. While few have taken the drastic step of renouncing their US citizenship, American icons such as Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey have been influenced by the global circulation of their products as well as their persons. Yet, although the frequency with which people and media increasingly cross borders reveals that transnationalism constitutes a deep-rooted and striking feature of American identity (Appadurai 1996; Grewal 2005), national identity remains a prevalent frame as a social reality and an object of analysis for its specific formations and expressions (Bernal 2004), complicated as it is by race, class, and gender. Like Superman, Michael Jackson is an American icon who went global. His ability to fuse together West African, African American, and Anglo–European musical influences as well as choreography styles from the American inner city, Fred Astaire, and French mime Marcel Marceau lent Jackson’s craft a broadly inclusive appeal. From Sweden to South Korea, footage from Jackson’s world tours shows fans cheering, chanting, weeping, and fainting as he performed, despite controversies surrounding him. His geographic mobility developed his transnational perspective; at many stops on his world tours he would also visit hospitals and orphanages to which he donated money, gifts, and resources. In 1992 he established the Heal the World foundation which airlifted 46 tons of supplies to war-torn Sarajevo. According to the Guinness Book of Records, Jackson donated an estimated $300 million to charity in his lifetime. Of his philanthropy Jackson commented, “I just couldn’t see myself not being touched by the things I have seen, like that village in China, and the things I have seen in Africa and Russia and Germany and Israel” (Shmuley 2009, 138). These experiences shaped his messages in songs such as “Heal the World,” “They Don’t Care About Us,” and “Earth Song” (see also Vogel 2011). Since his 2009 death, fans have commemorated Jackson by erecting statues of him in England, China, Russia and India. However, Jackson was an American icon and it was his status in the U.S. that launched his global iconicity. Indeed, the day af ter Jackson died, the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington D.C. called for a moment of silence for the American pop star. Yet what are the precise contours and components of Jackson’s American iconicity? And how do we understand the nuances of his racial identity 1 The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation initiated a Global Development Program andOprahWinfrey opened an academy for girls in South Africa.