Between reading Jean M. Twenge's Generation Me (great read) and slow sipping Apple Fruit Punch crack (Wal-Mart's 64 oz bottle of deliciousness), I flipped to E! to check out the followup coverage of the Late Great MJ's memorial service. In the sea of devoted Thriller fans, celebs and heartbroken family members alike, there was a familiar Perm. A Perm that I witnessed verbally devour naive Colgate students back in the 2001. My first thought was, "Oh here we go, the Perm has a big stage and chance for a middle finger to the White super powers." But I was punch in my prejudice mouthpiece when Rev. Al Sharpton said "And to his kids, wasn't nothing strange about your father, it was the situations he had to deal with that was strange." BANG! The crowded arena erupted and I started to think "man please, Mike was crazy as hell."
Fast forward...Today I had a conversation with my co-worker who stated, "Al Sharpton was OK, I just don't think he should have lied to the children. Michael was strange." To this I asked "How was he strange?" She looked at me as if I had pale skin, soft voice, a little nose, and surgically adjusted cheek bones and said " according to today's standards of what a normal person is, he is VERY weird."It's funny that less than 12 hours before our conversation I agreed with her 110%. "Mike was crazy." However, at that moment I felt the biggest disconnect to such a statement. I thought to myself "is/was Michael weird?" In a society where plastic surgery is almost as normal as mascara, where having a bag of Ethiopian kids is a fashion trend like crocs and tight jeans (gotta buy all of them in pairs), and where we overwhelmingly emphasize to our children to "be yourself, be different," was/is Mike strange? Is he any different than Meg Ryan whose lips look like she is always preparing to blow on hot soup? Or Pamela Anderson who I still believe to be smuggling small orphans in her DKNY? Or Nelly who wore a band aid under his eye to be different (a fashion adopted by D.Wade during a stretch of the NBA season)? Today's standard of what is normal is illustrated by being different. Are you normal? Then show Us how different you can be? Wouldn't it be weird, according to today's standards, to see Mike, Tito, Jermaine and Joe dressed alike? Or would that be normal due to the fact that it was different? After all, we do not see too many middle aged men dressed in matching flip flops and tank tops unless they are at work. So, I ask, does Mike's abnormalities or "strange" qualities, make him... normal? Maybe society is so screwed up that we push "normal" people to do abnormal things in order to fit in with us normal abnormals. The result being a miserable normal person who would have been fine if not for our push for him/her to be perfectly abnormal. I guess it's perfectly normal to be different, just not THAT abnormal. It's all making sense now. I finally understand what Dr. Twenge means when she says "Why American's are more confident, assertive, entitled and more miserable than ever before."
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What probably holds authenticity for MJ being "normal", was the fact that he was in some crazy medical dilemma; he was sick. Therefore, by no fault of his own (or so we think), I would think that MJ was perfectly fine. Despite his skin complexion, he is/was still the same MJ that people can trace back to Billie Jean and still love and praise it/him.
ReplyDeleteNow if he were to have just "bleached" his skin, without any medical reason to justify it, now that would be weird. If he just wanted to mess with his face to appear like some supernatural alien, then yes, that would be weird.
In the end, in this case, MJ's authenticity as a normal human being must be tied with the unfortunate possession of a physical illness.
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