Ed’s Note
On a Sunday morning, my boxing coach, Andson Kazembe, former Malawian Olympic boxing team head coach and trainer of the pros at Durandt’s and also me, will give in to nostalgia. The soundtrack in the gym takes a turn toward semi-old-school hip-hop: Run-DMC, Public Enemy, LL Cool J, and the Beastie Boys. Appropriate fare for our given context. Sundays have a sacred quality — we are often alone in the gym, just the coach and his die-hard clients — and his mood may turn to a different beast: he busts out the Michael Jackson. It’s a regular Proustian madeleine tucked right in there with the jabs, the hooks, and all the fancy footwork. It’s an hours-long deep dive into the entire and very substantial oeuvre of the strange man-child who thrust himself into our consciousness and apparently never left.
I know this because I went to watch the selective memory biopic with crowds of thousands — many dressed in Michael drag — on the opening weekend. And I felt their frenzied sentimental waves of adoration wash over me as if for the first time.
It was a form of time travel, directly to my teenage self, every word carved into that section of my heart that beat for this peculiar avatar. This fey sorcerer who sang like an angel and moved like the devil. This magical creature who channelled all the new, unbridled, unexplained feelings coursing through my body, but also presented like an innocent, which is what we all were back in that liminal phase between childhood and the great looming spectre of adulthood. You could dance yourself into the ways of your elders but moonwalk back to your inner child as soon as shit got tricky. Plus, a single glove was the only accessory of choice for the disco birthday parties sprouting up on weekends with the frequency of pimples and bad perms.
Michael was morphing before our eyes, just like we were — vulnerable, messy, sassy, provocative — an epic bard with a catchy hook, the soundtrack of our times. A pied piper leading us into uncharted territory, together.
The film brought it all rushing back. Without the mediation of his dark side. The producers and director had to edit like demons to navigate the grubby, dirty, monstrous stuff that crawled out of his psyche when that fame exploded into a global frenzy and the adults in the room had pockets to fill.
The audience happily played along with the freshly cleansed version of this universally appealing marker of mass popular culture that cut across race, class, and ethnicity like a knife through butter. The sanctification complete.
I can’t blame the people for suspending disbelief — I was fully along for the ride. Could he really have assaulted all those boys? Not this Michael: a tender-hearted brother, an abused child, a lonely folk hero, a spectrumy genius who bust his gut singing his heart out on the way to Neverland even though he was so very bad. The stuff left unspoken was clanging. Also, where the hell was Janet? But still, despite or perhaps because of ourselves, we still love him.
X
Aspasia
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