I typically don't comment on pop culture on this blog -- I'll never compete with Perez Hilton, TMZ.com, or People magazine, and I don't want to. But the day after Michael Jackson's death, I came across an article on Twitter with an intriguing title: "What Can We as Advocates of those with Disabilities Learn from the Story of Michael Jackson?" The article was from PediaStaff, a company that recruits and places pediatric therapists, so I was interested in their perspective.
The article, by marketing VP Heidi Kay, suggests that what we can learn from Michael Jackson is that we should have treated him better while he was with us. That instead of criticizing him as a "social misfit," we should have tried to understand him better -- just as we should try to understand and accept children with physical, neurological, emotional, and behavioral challenges. Heidi goes so far as to say, "The story lines of the lives of Michael Jackson, Susan Boyle, and others might have played out differently if the collective 'we' had shown more compassion for them in their hour of need."
That's where I disagree. Yes, some people mocked Michael Jackson for his eccentricities, but the main criticism was reserved for his interactions with children, which were some combination of 1) unusual (no doubt), 2) inappropriate (little doubt), or 3) illegal (not proven). In his own words, from an extensive interview aired as "Living with Michael Jackson":
Martin Bashir: "But is it really appropriate for a 44-year-old man to share a bedroom with a child that is not related to him at all?"
Michael Jackson: "That's a beautiful thing."
Bashir: "Did you ever sleep in the bed with them?"
Jackson: "I have slept in a bed with many children. I slept in a bed with all of them when Macauley Culkin was little: Kieran Culkin would sleep on this side, Macauley Culkin was on this side, his sisters in there...we all would just jam in the bed, you know....Because what's wrong with sharing a love? You don't sleep with your kids? Or some other kid who needs love who didn't have a good childhood?...Why can't you share your bed? The most loving thing to do, is to share your bed with someone."
Like many other people, Heidi defends Jackson by saying he was robbed of his own childhood and that he was cleared of all charges. To some extent, I agree. By many accounts, Michael Jackson was like a child psychologically up until his death at age 50. And apparently he had a special ability to connect with children because he never let go of his childhood. That's not a bad thing. But when you're 30, 40 years old, you're an adult, and sleeping in bed with other people's children is wrong.
And that's the real lesson for advocates of children with disabilities -- because those children are up to 10 times more likely to be sexually abused than their non-disabled peers. So I will respectfully mourn Michael Jackson's death, feel sympathy for his family and friends, and honor his musical legacy -- but I will not endorse his troubling behavior with children just because he has died. What are your thoughts?
4 comments:
This is a thoughtful commentary and on the mark. I think that I can mourn the man (and I do) without excusing his behavior. I'm just sad that he didn't get the help he needed, sooner, and either 1. harmed other people or 2. put himself in a position where he could be accused of harming other people.
This is an excellent discussion point. I also read the article from PediaStaff, and I don't believe there was any implication that she was endorsing inappropriate behavior, rather, questioning whether Jackson's odd personality and pathology contributed to his social isolation. I, too, am very troubled by his own admissions about his relationships with children, especially given your reminder on the extreme vulnerability of kids with disabilities. Sometimes we also need to remember that people with mental illness are, themselves, suffering from disabilities which, if left untreated, often lead to inappropriate, and sometimes criminal, behavior. Much of which could have been avoided with early identification and treatment (let alone education!). Thanks for this interesting conversation starter!
I think that the story of Michael Jackson is primarily a story of child abuse. His genius is another part of the story, of course.
Constant abuse and beatings from his father left Michael Jackson a deeply wounded person who clearly hated the sight of his own face.
The boys who shared his bed were willingly offered up by their parents, who then accepted handsome payoffs to shut up about it.
The thing that haunts me is the abuse Jackson endured as a cash cow for the Jackson family. And no one - no manager, record producer, nobody - was willing to defend the young Jackson from his father.
A tragedy, utterly.
Thanks Mark for your well written "rebuttal" to my article. I totally agree that MJ's behavior absolutely cannot be condoned. I think the collective "we" I refer to in my articles includes all of his inner circle and the other people who enabled Jackson to conduct himself in a manner inappropriate of an adult, as well as those people who supplied him with his pain killers. Obviously, there was no successful intervention because we never heard of him in rehab and surely the paparazzi would have told us if he was.
I am just thinking that with a little more support from ALL of us, including his inner circle, he might have avoided his tragic ending.
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