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American singer-songwriter and dancer Michael Jackson was one of the most successful and influential entertainers of all time. His contributions to dance, musical performance, music television and popular music—immeasurable in all of its subgenres, derivatives and corollaries—made him a key cultural figure of the past century. The magnitude of his commercial success in America and around the world earned him the title “King of Pop,” an honor in popular culture that remains generally unchallenged.

At a young age Jackson showed remarkable musical talent and was regarded as a child prodigy. Beginning in Gary, Indiana, he joined his brothers to form the Jackson 5. They performed in nightclubs, talent shows and signed with a local record label before gaining national recognition with Motown Records. The Motown style formed the basis of Jackson's musical education, which nurtured him into a crossover, televisual performer. Although Jackson was already a child star at the time, he rose to superstardom as a solo artist. In 1982, he reached the apex of his career with the release of Thriller and the joining of music and television, which provided a platform for his “short films” (see “Music Videos” below) that became inseparable from his artistry and iconography. The LP became the best-selling album of all time—a record it still holds today. Following albums, though less impressive than Thriller, flourished in their own vein and sustained Jackson’s status as the “King of Pop.” An entertainer of visual and performing arts motivated by a universal temperament, Jackson transcended boundaries between audiences that music industry experts believed were unassailable. His genre-defying style and its proven achievements desegregated popular music and introduced an era of multiculturalism and integration that future generations of artists inexorably followed.

His exceptional fame, success and personal eccentricities in the eyes of the public sparked discourses of him as a cultural phenomenon throughout his career. Those who contributed to these conversations include public intellectuals, critics, scholars, politicians and peers at large. Topics range widely from celebrity studies to visual culture to gender and sexuality studies, and many more to include the ones directly related to his profession. The British Council named Jackson on their list of "80 Moments that Shaped the World."

Performing arts

Music

During Jackson’s time at Motown, Motown founder Berry Gordy instilled in Jackson the ambition for crossover, chart-topping, universal music. Similarly, the singer’s musical influences varied widely from the Chicagoan R&B of his father Joe Jackson's band to Western classical; many of which were his personal passions. With the combination of artistic diversity and mass appeal, Jackson’s achievements as a musician have defined a category of contemporary popular music that is characterized by fusions of different eras, styles, media and genres, but also rooted in R&B and soul.

Jackson’s first solo album Off the Wall was generally categorized as a disco album, yet music critic Rob Sheffield described it as one that “invented modern pop as we know it.” The album was a turning point and a distillation of the disco era. Music critic John Lewis called it a “Rosetta Stone for all subsequent R&B.” In 2008, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The Rolling Stone placed it #68 on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Released in 1982, Thriller was the peak of Jackson’s career and established him as arguably the most successful solo artist of all time. Music critic Joseph Vogel described the album as a “multimedia cultural phenomenon that has never been matched in scope, before or since.” Musically the songs formed the ultimate crossover album, fusing elements of R&B, rock, funk, soul, Afrobeat, jazz and gospel. As a monument in music history, Thriller changed the trajectory of popular music. Jay Cocks, writing for Time in 1984, said the album was “a thorough restoration of confidence, a rejuvenation its effect on listeners, especially younger ones, was nearer to a revelation.” It revived black music on mainstream radio, which until then had been banished after the so-called “restrictive special-format programming” (a genre-driven radio content philosophy that segregated music by race) was introduced in the mid-1970s. Jackson, whose success was compared to that of Elvis Presley and the Beatles, subsequently appeared on the cover of Time, featuring a portrait of him designed by Andy Warhol. In 2008, the Library of Congress added Thriller to the National Recording Registry for its "stratospheric national and international success."

Popular music scholar Tamara Roberts observed: "Jackson’s sonic mash-up of the previous 30 years of popular music history resonates loud and clear in the contemporary pop artists of our time. His music transcends the racialized categories that drive the music industry, blending styles historically labeled black and white into an interracial formation."

Jackson’s music have been covered by other artists in various styles extensively, including Mariah Carey, Miles Davis, Willie Nelson, and Alien Ant Farm. Artists who often mention Jackson in their music include Kanye West, Missy Elliott, Ghali, Logic, and Drake.

Dance and choreography

Elaborate and inventive choreography accompanied Jackson’s music to express his virtuosity in the form of dance. Most spectators know Jackson’s dance routines from his live performances and music videos. Few people know that, as an instinctive and natural dancer, Jackson frequently danced while recording music. His dancing is as inseparable from his artistry as his other visual trademarks, for he had practically invented stylized ensemble dancing in pop music.

Jackson popularized certain forms of street dance, such as popping, locking, the robot and the moonwalk—the latter of which became his signature dance move. Because Jackson is so well-known, and the moonwalk was in contrast relatively unknown before the success of “Billie Jean”, the dance move is yet another essential piece of the singer-dancer’s iconography. Other forms of Jackson’s iconography developed from the moonwalk; for example, his fans are sometimes known as “Moonwalkers,” and his autobiography was deliberately titled Moonwalk. Professor of performance studies at NYU Tavia Nyongo described Jackson’s importance to dance: “No dancer has done as much to popularize the art form since Fred Astaire.” After Jackson performed “Billie Jean” at Motown 25, Astaire called the young Jackson and said, “You’re a hell of a mover. Man, you really put them on their asses last night. You’re an angry dancer. I’m the same way.”

Likewise, Jackson has received a copious amount of praise for his talents in the art form. Ronni Favors, the rehearsal director at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, said, “Even if it wasn't a movement that created he made it look brand new.” Anna Kisselgoff described Jackson’s dancing as “avant-garde” and “ a technician, he is a great illusionist, a genuine mime.” Janet Wong, associate artistic director of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, compared Jackson’s work to that of contemporary dance: “Race is read into it, gender, politics. Intentionally or unintentionally, Michael Jackson did the same thing in his work.”

Jackson is also credited for spreading dance to a global audience. Nigel Lythgoe, executive producer and judge on So You Think You Can Dance, said that “countless hopefuls who audition for the reality show tell him they began dancing because of Jackson.” The music video Black or White was one of the inspirations for the show. Favors said Jackson was “a trailblazer for his generation,” and that “he broke ground in opening up live performance on a large scale to the point where now, performers like Britney and Beyoncé almost have to have as part of their act.” Artists who were influenced by Jackson’s music were often influenced by his dancing to a similar degree. His famed style and movements spawned the "Michael Jackson impersonator" as a vocation.

Visual arts

Music videos

Jackson's music is near inextricable from the music videos that accompany them. As a young entertainer, Jackson was trained in the Motown tradition of audio-visual performance. Berry Gordy saw it important that the Jackson 5, like other Motown artists, was commercially attractive and entertaining on televised performances.

Although the Jackson 5 was undoubtedly part of Motown's breakthrough of R&B music on television in the ‘50s and ‘60s, it was not until 1983 with the release of music videos from Thriller did Jackson become a visual phenomenon in and of itself. At the time, Ebony magazine proclaimed the singer "The World's Greatest Entertainer.” Time declared him "the biggest star in the world." People devoted an entire issue to celebrating the performer's "superstar" status. Rock music biographer Albert Goldman pinpoints Jackson’s ascendancy to stardom: “When pop archivists page back to find the moment of Michael Jackson’s epiphany as a superstar, they will pin the date as March 2, 1983. On that day the first Michael Jackson video was telecast on MTV to ten million American homes.”

Before the advent of Jackson’s music videos, or as he preferred to call them “short films,” the music video was primarily a promotional tool, featuring poor production, small budgets and little storytelling. Videos like The Triumph, Billie Jean, and Beat It initiated a transformation, replacing cheap montage promos with elaborate short films. They featured strong narratives, spectacular visuals, and Jackson’s signature choreography and dance moves. Jackson was perhaps the first artist to attract well-known movie directors to work with him, including John Landis, Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee and John Singleton.

Critic Hampton Stevens noted the importance of Jackson’s visual achievements in the music industry: “It’s more like the music industry ballooned to encompass Jackson’s talent and shrunk down again without him. Videos didn’t matter before Michael, and they ceased to matter at almost the precise cultural moment he stopped producing great work.” With the decline of the music industry’s fortunes and the rise of viral videos, the standard that Jackson raised has dropped. Smaller label budgets and the popularity of online videos have reduced the need for a visual epic.

Thriller

Inspired by Landis's An American Werewolf in London, Thriller cost more than $1 million to produce and became the best-selling VHS home movie of all time. It is now almost universally considered the most influential music video in history. It remains the only music video in the National Film Registry. Nina Blackwood, a former MTV executive, said, “ we saw videos get more sophisticated—more story lines, way more intricate choreography. You look at those early videos and they were shockingly bad.”

Images from Thriller have become a modern Halloween phenomenon. Vox described the short film as "so closely associated with Halloween that it can be easy to overlook the fact that it’s also the most influential music video ever made, for a host of reasons only partly related to its spooky subject matter." In 2016, Barack and Michelle Obama danced to the song with local schoolchildren at a White House Halloween event. Flash mobs of its choreography are frequently found around the world.

Homages and parodies

Other forms visual media throughout popular culture have paid homage in the form of parody or Easter eggs to the singer. Some notable ones include:

• League of Legends: Both Zombie Brand and Warwick's dance emotes are the zombie dance from Thriller. The two characters are a zombie and a werewolf, respectively, which correspond with the two physical forms Jackson takes in the music video. Talon's dance emote is a rendition of Jackson's moonwalk from the live performance of "Billie Jean".
• Plants vs. Zombies: A zombie character named "Dancing Zombie" appeared in early versions of the game. Its appearance was a clear rendition of Jackson as a zombie from Thriller. The estate of Michael Jackson objected to the game's use of Jackson's likeness, despite that it described the character with the fine text "any resemblance between Dancing Zombie and persons living or dead is purely coincidental."
• Rapper Eminem parodied Jackson in the music video for “Just Lose It”. The song made references to Jackson’s allegations of child molestation, cosmetic surgeries and the 1984 Pepsi commercial accident which ignited Jackson’s hair and scalp.
• "Weird Al" Yankovic parodied Jackson's "Beat It" and "Bad" videos in spoofs "Eat It" and "Fat", respectively. They were two of his most popular videos at the time.
• "Michael Jackson eating popcorn" meme: A GIF featuring Jackson eating popcorn from Thriller first appeared on YTMND in 2007. The original has spawned other popcorn-eating GIFs and the "I Just Came Here to Read the Comments" meme. Vox named this GIF the "greatest reaction GIF of all time."

Fashion

Jackson had an innovative and daring sense of style; he often requested tailors to design for him clothes that defied convention. In his autobiography Moonwalk Jackson said, “If fashion says it’s forbidden, I’m going to do it.”

Jackson was one of the most recognizable celebrities in the world such that images of him frequently feature his unique sartorial choices. Since the Thriller era, he became known for wearing an array of sequined gloves, fedora, red leather jacket, aviator sunglasses, black high-water pants, and white socks. Jackson was also enamored with British hereditary and military history, which reflected in his love of encrusted military jackets and regalia. His military jackets and tuxedoes were often designed with a single colored armband on one sleeve. These military visuals and symbols, and sometimes ostensible glorification of a charismatic leader, prompted some critics to interpret them as sympathetic to Nazism. Others simply described it as eccentric and theatrical. British Vogue called the singer "a fashion pioneer who gave new meaning to moonwalking, immortalised solitary, sparkly gloves, initiated the trophy jacket trend in the Eighties and was brave enough to couple dress with Madonna on the red carpet."

In 2012, singer Lady Gaga, who named Jackson as an inspiration, purchased over 1,000 lots of Jackson’s items worth over $5 million. Many of the items included Jackson’s clothes, such as a crystal glove and the black biker jacket from the music video Bad. She had considered opening a Jackson-themed museum showcasing the memorabilia. In 2016, Gaga wore a jacket that looked identical to the one Jackson wore, when he visited the White House in 1990, at Hillary Clinton’s final campaign rally during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Race politics

The music of Michael Jackson might be seen as black by some and not by others. However, it may also be argued that in sociological terms, such disagreements over ‘blackness’ are relatively fruitless . More important, it may be suggested, is an examination of the complex roots of Jackson’s music (and indeed his identity) and how it is produced and consumed in particular ways. This is not to say that the attribution of blackness has no effect. However, this is most important in the discussion of how particular forms of music articulate and connect to political issues.

— Brian Longhurst, Popular Music and Society (2007)

Breaking barriers

Jackson was a major figure in the desegregation of American popular culture and music. First beginning with his time at Motown Records, the Jackson 5 was the last of the record company’s “assembly line” of talents. The group was one of Motown's major crossover influences in bringing R&B music—which was practically synonymous with black popular music at the time—to a young white audience. The Wiz, which starred Jackson and his fellow Motown star Diana Ross, was the only major production with any kind of black focus by 1978; it reinterpreted the original The Wizard of Oz with an urban African-American style.

In 1981, Off the Wall was the best-selling album ever by any black artist, a feat later trumped by Jackson’s following album Thriller in 1983. Off the Wall succeeded during a time when disco was perceived as inferior to rock by critics. Part of the distaste stemmed from long-held stigmas about “black” music that went back at least as far as jazz in the 1920s. Music historian Craig Werner wrote, “The attacks on disco gave respectable voice to the ugliest kinds of unacknowledged racism, sexism, and homophobia.” These same attacks were frequently aimed at Jackson. One of the greatest achievements of the album was to integrate a diverse collection of talents from different races, cultures and countries, and to coalesce them seamlessly into the record. Despite its enormous success, the album was only nominated for two Grammy awards and won one. Jackson wept at the snub and felt the music industry was trying to keep him in his place: a black singer making dance music.

Jackson’s most revolutionary breakthrough in racial politics came through the album Thriller. Billie Jean was the first music video by a major black artist to show on MTV, which hitherto had been a segregationist channel dedicated to a white, rock-oriented audience. MTV initially refused to play the video because of its commitment to rock music. When CBS Records executive Walter Yetnikoff threatened to remove all of their products off MTV and expose its discriminatory policies, the network caved. Following music videos from the album were also part of this transformation of racial politics in music television. Culture critic Peter Childs interpreted Thriller as “preach both a fear and acceptance of ‘the Other’ outside and within society.”

The success of Thriller not only broke down racial barriers in music but also just about every other apparatus of the entertainment industry (radio, print, award shows, publishing). For African Americans, it was an enormous source of affirmation and achievement. Critic Greg Tate said, “Black people cherished Thriller’s breakthrough as if it were their own battering ram apartheid.” Michael Eric Dyson praised Jackson's artistry more broadly, saying, "It would be a crime to limit his music to one race, sex, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or nationality. Michael’s art transcended every way that human beings have thought of to separate themselves, and then healed those divisions, at least at the instant that we all shared his music." Jackson remains highly respected among black Americans, with some even comparing his achievements to that of Barack Obama. The two figures shared the same ambitions for integration and racial harmony while refusing to allow their race hold them back. Al Sharpton said, “Way before Tiger Woods or Barack Obama, Michael made black people go pop-culture global.”

Political activism

Part of Jackson’s artistry was devoted to fighting prejudice and injustice. Black or White the music video, aired in 1991, showed Jackson dancing with dancers of various ethnic groups and traditions while singing lyrics pleading for racial tolerance and understanding. During the last few minutes of the video, Jackson smashed with a crowbar the windows of a car vandalized with hateful messages and then transformed into a black panther exiting the scene. It was simultaneously an angry outcry against intolerance and an assertion of black identity. This sensual and violent dance-routine caused an immediate uproar. Entertainment Weekly, placing the controversy on its front page, called it “Michael Jackson’s Video Nightmare.” Fox television and MTV relented to complaints and removed the final four minutes of the video. In response, Jackson issued a statement saying he meant to portray the animalistic instincts of a panther and the destructiveness of discrimination. Despite the controversy, the song was one of only a handful of political songs over the past thirty years to become a number-one hit.

In 1995, "They Don’t Care About Us" was released as one of the singles in HIStory. It is perhaps the most powerful protest song of Jackson’s career and among the most enduring pieces of musical agitation to come out of the 1990s. In the mid-2010s, the track was resurrected as an anthem for the Black Lives Matter movement. The song was originally recorded as part of the Dangerous sessions and was inspired by the Rodney King beating in 1991. The lyrics became more personal after Jackson felt dehumanized by the Santa Barbara County police during the investigation of alleged child molestation in 1993.

From the outset the song attracted immense controversy for its supposedly antisemitic lyrics. Bernard Weinraub of The New York Times cited the lines “Jew me, sue me / Everybody do me / Kick me, kike me / Don’t you black or white me” as “pointedly critical of Jews.” Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center described the lyrics as “deeply disturbing” and potentially harmful to young people. Jackson issued multiple statements clarifying his lyrics as being about “the pain of prejudice and hate” and that the song was “a way to draw attention to social and political problems.” He described himself as “the voice of the accused and the attacked.” The lyrics were eventually scratched. Some, particularly black Americans, saw the controversy as manufactured and a clear display of double-standards. Spike Lee, who directed the song’s music video, said, “Michael was brought to his knees because of . He had to pull the record from the stores, redo the lyrics, and then make an apology to the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Now how is it that Michael Jackson has to do all that ? Even if we want to leave out Tarantino’s body of work and just focus on Pulp Fiction, where he used the N-word thirty-eight times, why is it that Tarantino is an artist and Michael Jackson is anti-Semitic?”

Identity

Jackson’s story was that of a successful black man who fulfilled the American dream after coming from a humble Indiana family, working hard, and finally becoming the “King of Pop.” However, his whitening skin and changing appearance caused many critics, particularly black Americans, to question his inner perception of his own identity. Critics wondered if Jackson was deliberately bleaching his skin because he was ashamed of his blackness, or that because he was trying to appeal to a different demographic. Steven Shaviro said, “In a white supremacist society he wanted to become white.” Henry Louis Gates Jr. described Jackson's transformation as "a function of Negro self-hatred and self-loathing, which is a function of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation and racism, which made blacks hate the very things that make them beautiful.” Jackson often attributed his self-consciousness of his appearance to his father’s abusive behavior when he was a child. Nonetheless, Jackson was regarded with suspicion for having destabilized racial boundaries by trespassing frontiers between one and the other. His skin change has served to reveal the artificial cultural construction of racial hierarchies and distinctions.

Scholar Andrew Broertjes noted Jackson’s “persecution” among black Americans when his vitiligo grew more apparent. Black leaders like Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan projected their fears and anxieties onto Jackson, revealing deep-seated prejudices like antisemitism, hypermasculinity, and paranoia among certain African-American factions. Farrakhan was one of Jackson’s most vocal opponents in the ‘80s. He called Jackson “this Jheri-Kurl, female-acting, sissified-acting expression, it is not wholesome for our young boys nor our young girls.” It was not until 1993 when Jackson revealed in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that he had vitiligo and could not control its effects. Jackson said, “I am a black American. I am proud of my race. I am proud of who I am.” In the same interview, he said he would be “horrified” to find a white actor play him in a biopic.

At the same time, Jackson was perceived as someone who was persecuted on the account of his success as a black man, achieving prominence that would lead to attempts by white society to destroy him, as they had destroyed other prominent black men in the past. Lawyer Alton Maddox said, “Whites have had a propensity to beat down a Black person despite the lack of credible evidence,” speaking of Jackson’s allegations of child molestation. A large part of the blame was also directed at the white media, who were seen as “avidly anti-Black” and complicit with white authorities in targeting Jackson.

Jackson himself held tolerant and worldly beliefs about race. He believed one of his overarching purpose as an artist was to bring people together. He once said he would like to adopt two children from each continent around the world. While his artistry was rooted in the African-American tradition, his range of influences grew far beyond any one race or ethnicity. Jackson said, “I love great music. It has no color, it has no boundaries.”

Tabloid scrutiny

The Michael Jackson cacophony is fascinating in that it is not about Jackson at all. I hope he has the good sense to know it and the good fortune to snatch his life out of the jaws of a carnivorous success. He will not swiftly be forgiven for having turned so many tables, for he damn sure grabbed the brass ring, and the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo has nothing on Michael. All that noise is about America, as the dishonest custodian of black life and wealth; the blacks, especially males, in America; and the burning, buried American guilt; and sex and sexual roles and sexual panic; money, success and despair—to all of which may now be added the bitter need to find a head on which to place the crown of Miss America.

— James Baldwin, "Freaks and the American Ideal of Manhood" (1985)

Outside of his music, Jackson was notable for his eccentric persona that was oftentimes perceived as confounding, contradictory and occasionally downright ridiculous. The singer (along with his publicity team) and the media have worked in tandem to cultivate this image to a certain degree.

Personally, Jackson was fascinated with masks, costumes and the creation of illusions like the work of a magician. He once declared to his managers, John Branca and Frank DiLeo, that he wished to set his “whole career to be the greatest show on earth” similar to that of P.T. Barnum. At the height of his fame during the ‘80s, Jackson began to embrace and perpetuate the public perception of his strangeness. Early tabloid stories of his being obsessed with the Elephant Man's bones and sleeping in an “oxygen chamber” were likely publicity stunts. Around this time, British tabloid The Sun began calling Jackson “Wacko Jacko,” a name which he came to despise. Other tabloids and media outlets soon followed. Music critic Joseph Vogel argued that the epithet has racist connotations, dating back to the 1820s when a fighting monkey at the Westminster Pit was named “Jacko Macacco.” Nevertheless, the tabloid moniker stayed with Jackson for the rest of his career. Stories of his achievements gradually turned negative. As Vogel put it: “Critics maligned him for buying the Beatles catalog, mocked his changing appearance, called him a sissy, questioned whether he actually wrote his songs, reduced his art to commercial ephemera.”

Scholars have analyzed this widely acknowledged and often polarizing perception of Jackson as a postmodern spectacle such that the “real Michael Jackson” remained perennially elusive. Brian Rossiter noted, “The media, aware of the marketable potential of Jackson’s ambiguities, consistently used them to manufacture the notion of an authentic or private self behind his public persona. Audiences were always given liberty to select which Michael Jackson they deemed to be the real or authentic one .”

Susan Fast, on the other hand, gives a more sympathetic view of Jackson: “While some of difference was demonstrated through what was viewed in the mass media as ‘eccentric’ behavior it was really his more substantive, underlying differences that were most troubling—racial, gendered, able-bodied/disabled, child/teenager/adult, adult man who loved children, father/mother.” She argues that Jackson’s persona was “so unsettling to the hegemonic order that it had to be contained through ridicule, misinterpretation, sensationalism, and finally criminal indictment.” It is generally regarded as unusual for a man to want to be a single parent, to adore children like a mother; the thought of a man obsessed with cosmetics and appearance agitated the public to disbelieve the idea of him being an object of heterosexual desire. Fast argues that Jackson suffered from these perceptions, which stemmed from anxieties of masculinity, despite the fact that he created highly heterosexual art like “Black or White” and “In the Closet”; and that this idea extended to Jackson’s alleged child molestation, in which some of the public did not believe an innocuous relationship between Jackson and children, despite the evidence of wrongdoing being slim (and at times ludicrous) and the evidence of extortion being strong.

Global impact

Ben Beaumont-Thomas, music editor for The Guardian, said Jackson "ushered in a global culture" and was a "subject of global adulation in areas previously untouched by Western pop culture." Popular music scholar Tamara Roberts said, “Using the grandiose title ‘King of Pop’ to describe Michael Jackson’s impact on the past forty years of popular culture is quite possibly an understatement.” Hampton Stevens called Jackson “the most influential artist of the 20th century” beyond the likes of Pablo Picasso, Charlie Chaplin, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, and many more.

In Africa

Throughout his career, Jackson had visited various countries across Africa, including Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia, Egypt, Gabon and Cote d’Ivoire, to a welcoming reception from fans and local leaders. Fans of Liberia found his song “Liberian Girl” uplifting in spite of their war-torn history. News of Jackson’s death in 2009 was deeply felt by fans in Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana.

According to his memoir, former President of Ghana John Dramani Mahama felt a kinship with Jackson for their similar backgrounds: “I had more in common with Michael Jackson than any of those boys who purposely spoke in awkwardly high voices or stood in front of the mirror every morning and diligently picked their Afros.” In 2016, Mahama alluded to Jackson’s charity song “Heal the World” in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly to encourage globalization, acceptance of refugees, and to denounce xenophobia.

In 1992, Jackson was reportedly crowned king of the Agni people in the Kingdom of Sanwi.

Jackson was a friend of Nelson Mandela and paid visits to the South African revolutionary several times. In 1996, Jackson attended Mandela’s 78th birthday party in Johannesburg. Speaking in front of reporters at an event, Mandela said of Jackson, “I can see who is the world leader. I have never seen so many journalists. That shows how popular you are.” After Jackson’s death in 2009, Mandela sent a statement to the singer’s memorial service: “Michael became close to us after he started visiting and performing in South Africa regularly. Michael was a giant and a legend in the music industry.”

In Brazil

In 1996 Jackson visited Dona Marta, a favela in Rio de Janeiro, to film one of the videos for "They Don't Care About Us". When Jackson arrived in Brazil to shoot the video, directed by Spike Lee, Rio's local government became concerned that the singer would show the world an unflattering picture of poverty. Officials in the state of Rio feared images of poverty might affect tourism and accused Jackson of exploiting the poor. Others supported Jackson's wish to highlight the problems of the region, arguing that the government was embarrassed by its own failings. A judge banned all filming but this ruling was overturned by an injunction.

Speaking of the music video in The New Brazilian Cinema, Lúcia Nagib observed: "When Michael Jackson decided to shoot his new music video in a favela of Rio de Janeiro he used the favela people as extras in a visual super-spectacle . The interesting aspect of Michael Jackson's strategy is the efficiency with which it gives visibility to poverty and social problems in countries like Brazil without resorting to traditional political discourse. The problematic aspect is that it does not entail a real intervention in that poverty." In 2009, Billboard described the area as "now a model for social development" and claimed that Jackson's influence was partially responsible for this improvement.

In the music video, Jackson collaborated with 200 members of the cultural group Olodum, who "swayed to the heavy beat of Salvador".

See also

Template:Misplaced Pages books

• Michael Jackson-related games

References

Footnotes

1. Segal, David (2009-06-27). "After Michael Jackson, Fame May Never Be the Same". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-10-02.
2. Brackett, p. 172.
3. Brackett, David. "Jackson, Michael." Grove Music Online. Accessed 1 Oct. 2019.
4. Roberts, "Kingdom", p. 36.
5. Roberts, "Popular Culture", p. 1.
6. Chandler, Cory (May 20, 2010). "Librarians Prove Michael Jackson Was a Rock Star in Academic Literature". Texas Tech University. Retrieved May 31, 2015.
7. "80 Moments that Shaped the World" (PDF). British Council. 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
8. Vogel, (Kindle locations) 244-294.
9. Vogel, (Kindle location) 373.
10. Vogel, (Kindle location) 748.
11. Vogel, (Kindle location) 1121.
12. MJD (2017-09-21). "Understanding: the true sales of Michael Jackson's Thriller". ChartMasters. Retrieved 2019-09-30.
13. Vogel, (Kindle location) 1400.
14. Vogel, (Kindle location) 1438.
15. "Why Michael Jackson's Biggest Success Was a Surprise". Time. Retrieved 2019-09-30.
16. ""Thriller" in the Library of Congress: 2007 National Recording Registry Announced". Library of Congress. May 14, 2008.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
17. Roberts, "Kingdom", p. 36.
18. Stone, Rolling; Stone, Rolling (2014-06-27). "The 10 Best Covers of Michael Jackson's Songs". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
19. Vogel, (Kindle location) 488.
20. Fast, p. 261.
21. ^ Kisselgoff, Anna (1988-03-06). "Stage: The Dancing Feet Of Michael Jackson". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
22. ^ Smith, Olivia. "Michael Jackson the dancer moved us beyond measure; among other gifts, Jackson was dance genius, too". nydailynews.com. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
23. Vogel, (Kindle location) 414.
24. Vogel, (Kindle location) 414.
25. Vena, Jocelyn. "Justin Timberlake, Usher, Ne-Yo Talk About Michael Jackson's Influence". MTV News. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
26. Harper, p. 105.
27. Harper, p. 111.
28. ^ Vogel, (Kindle location) 391.
29. ^ "Michael Jackson's videos set a new standard". Reuters. 2009-07-03. Retrieved 2019-09-30.
30. Vogel, (Kindle location) 403.
31. "'Thriller' Lands in National Film Registry". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2019-09-30.
32. Clifford, Edward. "Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' remains a Halloween hit". Massachusetts Daily Collegian. Retrieved 2019-09-30.
33. ^ Romano, Aja (2018-10-31). "Michael Jackson's "Thriller" is the eternal Halloween bop — and so much more". Vox. Retrieved 2019-10-04.
34. McCarthy, Ciara (2016-11-01). "Barack and Michelle Obama make Halloween a thriller for DC kids". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-10-04.
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36. Firefang Warwick (2017) Skin Spotlight - League of Legends, retrieved 2019-10-01
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• Childs, Peter. "Pop Video: Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ and ‘Race’: Approach: ‘Race’ Studies." In Texts: Contemporary Cultural Texts and Critical Approaches. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006.
• Fast, Susan. “Difference That Exceeded Understanding: Remembering Michael Jackson (1958-2009).” Popular Music & Society 33, no. 2 (May 2010): 259–66. doi:10.1080/03007761003640574.
• Flory, Andrew. I Hear a Symphony: Motown and Crossover R&B. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017. ISBN 978-0472036868
• Harper, Phillip Brian. "Synesthesia, "Crossover," and Blacks in Popular Music." Social Text, no. 23 (1989). doi:10.2307/466423.
• Longhurst, Brian. Popular Music and Society. Polity Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0745631639
• Oliete, Elena. "Michael, Are You OK? You've Been Hit by a Smooth Criminal: Racism, Controversy, and Parody in the Videos 'Smooth Criminal' and 'You Rock My World'." Studies in Popular Culture 29, no. 1 (2006).
• Roberts, Tamara. “Michael Jackson’s Kingdom: Music, Race, and the Sound of the Mainstream.” Journal of Popular Music Studies (Wiley-Blackwell) 23, no. 1 (March 2011): 19–39.
• Roberts, Tamara, and Brandi Wilkins Catanese. “Michael Jackson in/as U.S. Popular Culture.” Journal of Popular Music Studies (Wiley-Blackwell) 23, no. 1 (March 2011): 1–2. doi:10.1111/j.1533-1598.2010.01260.x.
• Rossiter, Brian. “‘They Don’t Care About Us’: Michael Jackson’s Black Nationalism.” Popular Music & Society 35, no. 2 (May 2012): 203–22. doi:10.1080/03007766.2011.618050.
• Vogel, Joseph. Man in the Music: The Creative Life and Work of Michael Jackson. Vintage, 2019. ISBN 9780525566588
• Warwick, Jacqueline. “‘You Can’t Win, Child, but You Can’t Get Out of the Game’: Michael Jackson’s Transition from Child Star to Superstar.” Popular Music & Society 35, no. 2 (May 2012): 241–59. doi:10.1080/03007766.2011.618052.

External links

• Michael Jackson
• Cultural depictions of Michael Jackson
• Cultural impact