Michael Jackson is without a doubt one of the most discussed celebrities of all time. Even over a decade after his death in 2009, people are still intrigued to learn more about the King of Pop. As he was one of the most talked about celebrities during his lifetime, there was thousands if not millions of articles talking about him and his controversies throughout his lifetime, all with different representations that were unfortunately mostly negative.
Fortunately, there were good representations out there, mostly from fans and close friends. But one of these came from himself with his music video for Beat It in early 1983. Even though he wasn't the the true auteur behind this, most of the ideas like the dances, his clothing and the representation of himself all came from Michael. In the video, MJ is portrayed as a young gang member growing up on the streets who realises what he's doing is wrong, so he attempts to stop his gang and a rival gang from conflict. In the end he does stop both gangs and they all do some incredible dance choreography. This is a perfect example of how Michael wanted to portray himself; as someone who has done wrong in the past but has the power to set things right. His choice of clothing is also noticeable as most of the gang members in the video are wearing dark colours like black and grey. However Michael is wearing a bright orange jacket to show that he is not representing the darkness in our world, but the good and the hopeful. The orange and shining silver material also make MJ look like the sun, representing his pureness and good. Overall Michael succeeded massively with portraying himself as a bright light and good guy. As this was the first of 3 music videos that year that would propel Michael's celebrity status into the Stratosphere.
As I said before unfortunately during his life MJ was constantly misrepresented by the tabloids, and this newspaper proves that. Throughout his life, Michael was constantly criticised for his unusual purchases. One of these purchases was an Oxygen chamber which he purchased in 1994. Even though the oxygen tank was to help MJ age less, the tabloids never saw it that way. Every picture that was taken of Michael with the Oxygen tank makes it out that he is an alien of some sorts who needs to use it to survive. The newspapers also always talked about the negatives of the oxygen tank like how if you sleep in it for over 8 hours you die, and they made it out as if only lunatics used them. It never talked about the positives though, like if you were to rest in one for 2 hours a day it would help with aging, and if you suffered with sleep deprivation (which MJ did) it would help get rid of it. Overall, MJ wasn't portrayed like a monster on this newspaper, but some newspapers like the Sun did. Instead he was mostly portrayed as an extra-terrestrial like E.T because of how unusual he was to the average everyday person.
The final representation of MJ comes from the everyday people on Social media. This is the representation that is purely about opinions and not for making money or portraying yourself. The Tweet talks about the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland in which 2 people accused MJ of sexual assault when they were children. Most of the tweets as a whole were talking about how the 2 accusers where 'chatting out of their asses', which shows that most people around the world saw MJ as innocent and saw the 2 accusers as 'Money grabbing whores'. (Their words not mine) Also with the tweet shown here people find it ridiculous how 2 people are representing MJ as a monster, whilst MJ cant even represent himself since at the time he'd been dead for a decade. This shows that people were finally representing MJ as how he wanted to be represented, as a kind loving human who could do no wrong. Some even went out of their way to blame money for the whole situation representing MJ as someone who had power, with so many others wanting to take it. Overall this represents that people saw the good that MJ did for people throughout his life, and when he obviously couldn't defend himself, they to his rescue.
As a whole, Michael Jackson was portrayed in so many different ways that it became impossible to fully understand how he wanted to represent himself. Mostly the Tabloids haunted him throughout his life damaging his mental health and his representation. At the end of the day most people forgot one simple thing about him, he was just a human being like everyone else.
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