A Final Word on Michael Jackson, hopefully.
When you post a blog about a polarizing figure such as Michael Jackson, you expect to receive varying types of feedback. Some asinine, some judgmental, and maybe some that’s informative. After spending much more time than I would have liked looking into some of the Jackson mythos, I would like to post a follow-up regarding his skin condition/ wanting to be more white.
After years of obvious skin lightening, Jackson finally announced on his own to Oprah Winfrey that he had a skin disease called Vitiligo, that affects the pigmentation of one’s skin. If you read about the disease, you find that it is quite real and difficult to cope with.
Unfortunately, in the same interview, Jackson went on to mention that millions of white people spend much time sunbathing and using tanning salons in an attempt to make themselves have darker skin. He noted that this attempt to ultimately make their white skin more dark was widely accepted and never criticized. Why, he then asked, is it such a big deal if someone does the opposite?
One statement halts criticism and demands sympathy. The next demands speculation. The ordering of these comments causes one to think that the disease claim is a veiled attempt to hush the public scrutiny of his dislike for his own ethnicity.
There are some videos out there that show photos of Jackson with obvious effects of Vitiligo. They are not numerous, but they exist. The photos show enough evidence that I can be sold on the fact that the man did have this skin disorder. I can also imagine that the stress of having a disease that so greatly affects the appearance, especially around the mouth and nose, would cause unyielding stress for the most recognizable face on the planet.
There is only one thing that begs questioning? Why not just come straight out with it? Or when you announced it on Oprah, show it. Remove the make up, bring some photos of yourself fresh out of the shower with no cosmetic effects. This would have stopped the media and the world dead in their tracks. This would have brought worldwide attention to the disease. This would have brought understanding to the regular folks suffering from the same thing.
That middle school kid being teased might get an easier time because the King of Pop has the same thing. He could have stopped having to answer questions about his heritage.
I have sympathy for him, always have, but it is only to a degree. Strangely, though, I do not blame the media regarding this chapter of the Jackson story. And I hate the media. The bottom line remains that he had the power to easily stop all of the speculation and did not.
Shane
You can not know what it is like to be inside a person’s mind who has suffered with a disease like vitiligo. The emotional and physiological effects of the disease are massive. They cause a person to become very introverted and ashamed of the way they look..makes them want to cover their body. It is not something that is EASY to talk about and show to the world. Especially a black man and someone with such a severe case as MJ’s. It is mentally traumatic and crippling.
First off, Michael “proving” he had the disease would NOT stop the media and the obsession with him and the way they treated him. It makes me laugh to think that you honestly think that would have just “fixed” everything. They would have still ridiculed him. Michael Jackson choose to keep his private life and medical conditions his own..to not go chasing behind the media in everything they said about him and giving them the attention they want. He did not have to prove anything if he didn’t want to and that does NOT mean that he deserved to be treated and judged the way he was. Michael Jackson was an extremely shy and very private person. The idea of him displaying his body to the world like that is unthinkable for someone like him. He decided to just ignore it all and focus on his music. He would not fuel the media by letting them into his personal life.
What he meant on Oprah when he made the comment about people in the world who WANT to change their skin and try so hard to. He simply mean that he didn’t understand why people so obsessed over his skin when everyone else in the world was actually TRYING to change who they were..and this was something he could not help. He wanted people to look at the bigger picture and think “why are white people who want black skin not an issue?”..he did not mean that he WANTED white skin.
Fact is, Michael Jackson was already a painfully shy and private person. So when you throw Vitiligo into it…it makes those qualities in you a million times worse. He was ashamed of his skin and the way it was changing….it was painful. Maybe YOU would want to show pics of yourself after getting out of the shower of show your body on national television or give private pics of your medical condition out to the word. That does NOT mean that is something he was mentally able to do…you cant judge someone on something like that if you have not been in their shoes.
It was his business, his life, and that was something extremely private and hard….just cause he didn’t try to “prove” it to the media does NOT mean he deserved the treatment he got. Let’s be honest…I think we all know that trying to prove it would not have changed a damn thing with the medias treatment of him. It would have just been twisted in some way.
To say that MJ could have “stopped” the bad press about him is easy for you to say having lived the life you have. You don’t know how it was for him and what he was able to do or not do…no one in the world has lived a life like Michael Jackson has since he was 5 years old. No one.
But all in all…I think your point is flawed cause I don’t think you have done the proper research on the psychological effect of the condition. If you understand those.. and then add them to the most famous man in the world…maybe you will have a better understanding as to why he was so private about it and why he ran from it instead of facing it to the entire world.
Jen - July 4, 2009 at 9:05 pm |