The International Writers Magazine: Comment: Realty Check

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MICHAEL JACKSON IS IN DEEP • James Campion Pretty soon Michael Jackson will go on trial for molesting a prepubescent cancer survivor. I think I need to write that again, because for reasons best left to sociologists or the producers of Entertainment Tonight, I’ve been seeing a great deal of undue attention paid to his fashion choices on the way to the courthouse, his entourage, the whole umbrella waving thing and the occasional babbling nonsense from a family member.

Let it sink in: Pretty soon Michael Jackson will go on trial for molesting a prepubescent cancer survivor.
In all due respect to those of you that complain of the coarse "gutter" language displayed weekly in this space; that is some serious shit.
And if you even remotely read this column, you know well that for the very first time (drum roll please) I believe a major league celebrity is actually going to see time.

So if you care about such things, I’d alert those people who managed to interpret the O.J. Simpson verdict as some kind of culture victory, because this generation’s Fatty Arbuckle isn’t just hitting the gold record wall, he’s fixing for an orange jump suit.

Don’t get me wrong; there is still a sinisterly cynical part of me that fully expects there to be some kind of pay off scenario. But so far, unlike the last time (as if there being a last time is anything less than unconscionable) there is a motivated witness and no sign of a civil suit. These people, the kid and the guardian, are serious, and that is bad news for the King of Pop.

But for those still holding out hope that this is all about greed, celebrity bashing, or let’s pick on the easy mark with the mannequin face and the Howard Hughes existence, the facts of the claim seem somewhat hazy. Specifically the gray area between a confused and embarrassed child unwilling to come forth that had to be coerced by adults and the ensuing imagined revisionist cries for help to expunge any blame or embarrassment. Kids do this all the time, regardless of the gravity of the event. To wit: A few years ago the kid (and by kid I’m stretching it, because at 12 years old myself, or anyone I grew up with would have found it laughably ridiculous to end up being seduced by a 45 year old weirdo with cotton candy and merry-go-rounds) was seen across the globe in a highly publicized British documentary putting his little head on Michael Jackson’s shoulder as the singer effused gleefully his joy and inalienable right to sleep in the same bed as visiting young boys. From there the poor kid was understandably abused by his friends, given the third degree by mom and sent to counseling where he began spinning explicit stories of inappropriate behavior and blatant sexual encounters.
Once the councilor alerted the authorities light bulbs went on.

Jackson has a past with the LAPD. They were railroaded in 1993 when a second accuser bailed and the remaining alleged victim reportedly took $20 million to make the case go away. Now with the latest allegations, there would be a hue and cry. "What the hell are you people doing about that crazy middle-aged man running around a private compound with little children, many of them unsupervised and ending up in residence?"

For those not buying the paranoid mania defense, there is also the handy; if Jackson had a sexual proclivity toward young boys he would have been more careful about hiding it. Instead, almost immediately after the ’93 case was settled he was back in the public eye romping about with children and inviting scores of prepubescent boys by for sleepovers and whisking their star-crossed parents to Vegas or around the world in his private jet. There were never any of the usual fronts, unless you count the overtly business-arranged marriage and child rearing that is far too bizarre to sanely extrapolate here.

But forgiving Michael Jackson for a robbed childhood splashed upon the public, repeated beatings by his father, and the heaps of mental abuse a child must endure when being whisked around the world and sharing hotel rooms with older, sexually-charged brothers is one thing. Letting him walk on what could be the ugly results of these abuses by abusing (in one form or another) other children is an entirely different animal.

Hey, I think anyone paying attention realizes that for whatever reason Michael Jackson, through his art, his lifestyle, his physical manipulation, his strangely affected public image has been crying out for help. He is a victim in too many instances to cite, but this should not get him off this time. Neither will the fame nor the money that has sheltered him for decades.

And it’s not only paybacks for Jackson. This is a far different culture than when the O.J. Simpson Trial became the Great American Circus. There is a serious lockdown on social mores today. The Republican/Conservative government take-over, the FCC threats of imposed decency (spear-headed in an ironic twist by Michael’s sister Janet’s Super Bowl incident), explosion of hard-line religious fanaticism, and a 9/11 backlash that has given the FBI free range to spy, confiscate and infiltrate anyone anywhere. Not to mention the comeuppance for a long nasty history of Los Angeles Police Department screw-ups. And we are talking about a prepubescent cancer survivor here.

This is a classic example of wrong time, wrong place, wrong defendant. Michael Jackson is America’s celebrity experiment. Some kind of preternatural Skinner Box child, who grew up in a fishbowl with no boundaries and sense of self beyond what the Billboard charts indicated. He is a mess. And that’s fine, as long as it doesn’t get the rest of us messy. And this case is messy. Very messy.

If he is guilty, he goes to prison. Case closed. If he is not, and this is merely a way we can regurgitate our cultural mistakes, exorcise our age of celebrity worship/assassination by making Michael Jackson a pariah because he cannot relate to anyone over the age of 13, or, god forbid, a woman, that we need him chained in the attic like our own Motown Boo Radley, then we wear his shame.
Either way Michael Jackson is in deep shit.
© James Campion Feb 14th 2005
www.jamescampion.com
realitycheck@jamescampion.com

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