It is virtually forbidden—as an unpatriotic act—that the American boy evolve into the complexity of manhood. —James Baldwin
You look at the performance until it disappears. —Fred Moten
Having been refused the dignity that is the right to disappear, the black entertainer shape-shifts, making of himself a chimera, so that when we assassinate one version of Michael Jackson, the successor is preemptively activated. All a misleading film about him—one that dissembles by being too literal and too vague—has to do is trap all those characters in one cast that forbids their meaningful integration. Michael’s an eternal child, a teenaged heartthrob, an exotic prodigy, vampire, vampire slayer, slave to the industry, rebel against its mores, venture capitalist who purchases the Beatles’ catalog, stake in all your recorded fantasies, half of Sony/ATV, under siege for it but complicit with codes of conduct in other areas as a compromise, cheerful on the surface, discrete about his grievances, touring in Israel and writing odes to Palestine in the same year.
Read Full Article »