The First Book of Michael (4 page)

Brazilian people represent the African diaspora, and Michael’s choice to work with the Brazilian percussionist outfit,
Olodum
, for the Brazil version of the ‘They Don’t Care About Us’ short film was indubitably a political one. The colours worn by
Olodum
are red, black, green, white and yellow. Combined, the colours symbolise ‘the movement of Jah people’ - as Bob Marley put it - with each colour conveying a significance: the red evocative of the blood spilled under sufferance; green portraying the rainforests of Africa; yellow signifying gold, for prosperity; black for the colour and pride of the people; with white being totemic of world peace.

The location of the actual video shoot also holds poignant historical gravitas. It was filmed in the province of Dona Marte in a favela called "Largo do Pelourinho" - the exact spot where centuries ago, slaves were whipped and tortured by their masters. Hence the name "Pelourinho", or “The Pillory”.

By 1996, the favela had become a drug baron’s dream. Claudia Silva – the press officer for Rio de Janeiro’s tourist board – later exalted Michael’s positive influence on the area by saying, “This process to make Dona Marta better started with Michael Jackson… There are no drug dealers anymore, and there’s a massive social project. But all the attention started with Michael Jackson.”

Olodum
express the historical and ongoing oppression of the people in an ecstatic, artistic way. But the weight of their statement should not be underestimated, and neither should Michael’s decision to align himself with them; nor the fact that responsibility for both of the songs’ short films directorship was entrusted to Spike Lee, whose canon of work up to that point had exclusively been of a political nature.

The chorus chanted by the backing singers in the short film versions of the track sound a lot like they have been adapted to, “They don’t really care about Mike.”

During the aforementioned Sawyer interview, Michael says - in his defence at allegations of being antisemitic - that, “Some of my best friends are Jewish” – listing Steven Spielberg amongst them. This was in spite of the two men’s recent falling out over a reneged deal concerning the fledgling
Dreamworks
venture, and despite Spielberg being the driving force behind the imposed alteration of the words ‘Jew’ and ‘Kike’ (claiming Michael had resurrected the latter term from practical extinction and brought it back into common usage). And as true as Michael’s statement regarding Jewish friends may or may not have been – it’s about as clichéd a statement as one can make in any defence against accusations of bigotry.

However, it’s worth bearing in mind that Michael’s genuine advocate Elizabeth Taylor was also Jewish, as is the mother of his two eldest children (as well as her employer – principal Dr. Feelgood, Dr. Klein). Too, for the violin element of another
HIStory
track, ‘Little Susie’, Michael borrowed the melody from ‘Sunrise, Sunset’ - a song from
Fiddler on the Roof
: a film celebrating Jewish people. The
Invincible
album itself was dedicated to Benjamin Hermansen - an Afro-Norwegian boy stabbed to death by a group of neo-Nazis in January 2001.
Furthermore, Michael begins the very song ‘They Don’t Care About Us’ with the words, “Skinhead, dead head” – which is a blatant and direct rebuttal of Neo-Nazism.

Other lyrics in ‘They Don’t Care About Us’ include the ambiguous reference to being “In the suite / On the news” – words easily misconstrued as “Innocent / On the noose”, and the use of the homonymous lyric ‘black male / blackmail’. As part of the Chandler settlement agreement, Michael was prevented from using certain terminology with which he could directly vindicate himself, so this was his method for overcoming any potential legal backlash. Another ostensibly surreal lyric in ‘They Don’t Care About Us’ is, “Everybody dog food.” It’s open to interpretation, of course, but ‘dog’ is another particularly derogatory term used against Jewish people.

Michael namechecks both Martin Luther and Roosevelt in ‘They Don’t Care About Us’. The only question is: which of the namesakes is he referencing? The other famous Martin Luther – the one preceding the celebrated black luminary – was a notorious antisemite who authored a book entitled
On the Jews and Their Lies
. And - whilst one of the two presidents that carried the surname of Roosevelt is revered as a unifier – the other remains under suspicion as being less than sympathetic towards the Jewish plight. These ambiguities are seemingly clarified in the ‘Prison Version’ of the ‘They Don’t Care About Us’ short film (where an incarcerated Michael is portrayed as the vulnerable human being he was - sweating armpits and all) – in which the images incorporated are of the publicly palatable examples of the Martin Luther and Roosevelt namesakes.

As ever, Michael successfully courted controversy and demanded debate. Still. ‘They Don’t Care About Us’ is track two on the
HIStory
album. ‘This Time Around’ is track four. On track four, he incorporates a word with just as contentious connotations: ‘Nigger’.

The media response? Not a squeak.

***

In Michael’s autobiography,
Moonwalk,
he recalls an incident when the
Jackson 5
were being interviewed, with their answers being scrutinised by Motown coaches sensitive to subjects that could be considered controversial. A black interviewer attempted to garner their views on the civil rights movement, but the Motown public relations representatives refused to let the
Jackson 5
respond. Michael remembers how he and his brothers threw up the black power salute as they left the interview.

Michael grew up immersed in the social tumult generated by the assassinations of both Dr Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. His mentor was Stevie Wonder, of whom he said,

“That’s why I love Stevie Wonder’s biggest-selling album called
Songs in the Key of Life
. He has a song on that album called ‘Black Man’... I just jumped up screaming when I heard that record because he’s showing the world what the black man has done and what other races have done, and he balanced it beautifully by putting other races in there, what they have done. Then he brings out what the black man has done. Instead of naming it another thing, he named it ‘Black Man’. That’s what I loved about it....And that’s the best way to bring about the truth, through song. And that’s what I love about it.”

A sixteen-year-old Michael, in 1974, even performed backing vocals on Stevie Wonder’s anti-Nixon track, ‘You Haven’t Done Nothing’.

In the introduction to the dance sequence of the ‘Black Or White’ video, a background statue of notorious slaver US President George Washington, is poised as if guiding the black panther (which takes a moment to growl at the statue) into the pantheon where it shapeshifts into Michael, who is clad primarily in black - though sporting a white arm brace and a chain belt around his waist.

The ensuing dance in which Michael destroys racist graffiti sprayed on car and shop windows was construed as gratuitously violent by some. This led to Michael having to issue a statement in which he apologised for any upset caused and explained that he had merely been interpreting the instinct of a black panther. The dance sequence is shot in a street illuminated by hues on a spectrum from black to light blue. The black panther is the universally recognised symbol for the liberation of the black race. The official colours for the
Black Panther Party
(the original peaceful protest incarnation of the group, as opposed to the later militant offshoot), are black and light blue.

After the dance, Michael morphs back into a black panther, whereupon the final shot of the sequence is of the panther poised in an identical representation of the
Black Panther Party
logo. Michael would later incorporate the tail from this logo into his own ‘MJ’ emblem.

The political message in the ‘Black Or White’ short film is teased from the beginning. We start immersed in a point-of-view shot of some entity soaring through a night sky of black and blue, before it plunges through the clouds into a middle-America suburbia that has white-rock as its soundtrack. The entity seems to be searching for something to possess. It stalls for a double take on one particular house, before inviting itself in.

The perspective then alters to become a standard view. A fat, white American man and his blonde, petite wife sit in the lounge; the man is trying to watch a baseball game, though is evidently irritated by the noise of the loud music emanating from his son’s bedroom upstairs. The man is eventually compelled to stomp upstairs and chastise the boy, demanding he "Turn that noise off!" On his way out, the man slams the door behind him, and a framed poster of Michael with his fist in the air during a
Bad
tour rendition of ‘Beat It’ falls to the floor with a smash. Out of vengeance, the boy then proceeds to construct an enormous speaker system in the living room. Once assembled, his distracted parents finally notice what their son’s been doing (at which point - just to tantalise the next chapter – is it just me, or does the man commentating on the baseball match in the background really say “Satan”?). Having gotten his father’s attention, the boy exclaims, "Eat this!” and plays a chord on his electric guitar - the noise from which blasts his portly father through the roof, and up into the moonlit black and blue sky. The fat, white man and his armchair then land in sub-Saharan Africa with a thud. Just in time to witness tribesmen hunting down a pack of imperious lions.

The ensuing ‘pop’ segment deconstructs the world’s myriad ethnic dance stereotypes by pulling the camera away and exposing the artifice of each scene. It emphasises the delineation between the cultures of the world, yet simultaneously celebrates the possibilities of unifying the world through the medium of song and dance.

The upbeat melodies in ‘Black Or White’ (bar the bridge in which Michael furiously spits, “I ain’t scared of no sheets” and where, in the short film, Ku Klux Klan imagery is engulfed by the flames he is bursting through (Michael had also incorporated Ku Klux Klan imagery in the video for ‘Man In The Mirror’, three years previously), are deceptive in the same manner that Michael’s first self-penned track, ‘Blues Away’ (1976) also are - in which the lyrics concern heartbreak. The narrative of ‘Black or White’ tells the story of a mixed-race couple being questioned, with the black male protagonist being derogatorily labelled as “boy”.

‘Black Or White’ was not the first time Michael had employed the term “boy” in such a way. The short film for the song ‘Speed Demon’ shows the black-voiced protagonist “heading for the border” before being told to “pull over, boy and get your ticket right” by a white cop. A cop who then instructs Michael that it’s against the rules to dance (but demands an autograph from him anyway).

(As an aside supporting the idea of Michael always striving for precision in his art, it’s interesting to note that the grammatically erroneous lyric from the ‘Black Or White’ rap, “I’ve seen the bright get duller” was corrected for live performances to “I’ve seen the sharp get duller”.)

In response to the controversy evoked by the panther segment, one news anchor mused, “My guess is that it’s Michael’s childlike playfulness that got him into this problem, and his childlike openness that solved it.”

It is a musing that takes on far greater gravitas when considered in the context of what was to happen in the ensuing months.

***

The follow-up single to ‘Black Or White’ was ‘Remember The Time’, directed by black film-maker John Singleton (another collaborator - along with Spike Lee - who worked on
Black Panther Party
films. Michael even provided the song ‘On the Line’ for Lee’s film
Get on the Bus
, about the Million-man March).

Michael had previously approached Steven Spielberg about the possibility of making a movie about Ancient Egypt, using black actors. This was a bid by Michael to use Spielberg’s influence on popular culture as a way of giving mass exposure to the magnificence of a time in human history when black people were the dominant race. Following Spielberg’s rebuttal, Michael wrote and recorded the song ‘Remember The Time’ and sought Singleton to direct.

Michael’s typical reaction to rejection was to counterpunch with a mightier force. Upon its release, the
Off The Wall
album was hailed by fans and critics alike as a milestone in musical history – a punctuation that encapsulated and defined the disco era of the 1970s. The subsequent failure of this consensus to be reflected in its award tallies inspired Michael to determine "They won't be able to ignore me next time". And sure enough, Michael’s next visit to the
Grammy Award
s saw him leave with an unprecedented eight gongs (although it seems by the time of
Bad
, the establishment had had quite enough of this young upstart, with him then receiving a scandalous none). A sense of having been unfairly treated motivated Michael into reaching his commercial peak. Heartbreak fuelled Michael’s success. ‘Remember The Time’ was dedicated to Michael’s object of unreciprocated erotic love, Diana Ross, and it’s easy to infer from the lyrics that she was the inspiration for the creation of the song. But here exists a duality between the song’s muse and the short film’s theme. Michael’s propensity for generalising an idea was both ingenious and necessary.