Michael Jackson & Michel Foucault Walk into a Bar

Author(s): D. Gilson
Source: The Threepenny Review, Vol. 143 (FALL 2015), pp. 22-25
Published by: Threepenny Review
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24719228
Accessed: 08-05-2020 07:09 UTC

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MISCELLANY cells divide and multiply, or praise
reports when a doctor tells him his lat In society,
his theory of a put
Foucault modern
forthsurveillance
the idea
est blood counts look promising. Our that the Panopticon—that circular pris
father, a Vietnam veteran, also refuses on where inmates were constantly
to call this a "battle" with cancer. He is watched—is a model for many other
too rational, explaining that scientists systems. He especially distrusted the
are seeing an uptick in lymph node can medical gaze, as outlined in his later
cers amongst veterans who fought in book The Birth of the Clinic, where the
Southeast Asia and were exposed to philosopher imagined doctors as co
Agent Orange. I want to post rabid lib conspirators with governing régimes,
Michael Jackson & Michel Foucault eral rants on social media about how arguing "the struggle against disease
the military industrial complex gave my must begin with a war against bad gov
Walk into a Bar dad cancer. Maybe my father, a scopoernment... Man will be totally and
phobe, should be concerned about his definitively cured only if he is first liber
ated" from eyes that gaze upon him.
atheist son, too, the one who writes this
D. Gilson essay, this act of writing both an agentThe symptoms Foucault began exhibit
and conduit of surveillance. What are ing in the early 1980s would be clear to
those burdensome categories of essayisus now, though biographers, scholars,
tic nonfiction, if not our surveillance ofand activists waver on whether or not
"Is it surprising that the cellular prison, with its regular chronologies, forced the world, and memoir or confession, if Foucault knew he had AIDS.
labor,
not the surveillance of ourselves?
its authorities of surveillance...should have become the modern instrument of penalty? In a February 2014 interview with
Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all the Telegraph, the American novelist
resemble prisons?" Edmund White, a friend of Foucault's,
—Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish claimed that in 1981
If"Somebody's
you begin to search
Watching for
Me," Google
assumes you are looking for Michael I was warning Foucault about AIDS. When
I first told him about the disease he said:
Jackson, though it is not his song.
Jackson appears on the track as the"Oh that's perfect Edmund: you American
puritans, you're always inventing diseases.
melodic voice of the chorus—I always
surveyed we are, of course, depends on And one that singles out blacks, drug users
feel like somebody's watching me.
late Seventies into the mid any number of factors. I live in and gays—how perfect!"... I tried to insist
A STRING OF aspire
Eighties songstofrom the of
the identity Washington, D.C., one of the most sur
Michael Jackson's fame, of course,that it was real despite its ideological
eclipsed that of Rockwell, who rests aspects... The doctors were intimidated by
the American everyman. These veyed are cities on the planet, and cameras, now in relative obscurity. This wasFoucault's anti-medicine stance. They
visible and invisible, watch me as I
mostly white, working-class anthems: especially true in 1984, a year whendidn't want to be accused of having a
John Mellencamp's "Jack &c Diane," commute to work, order coffee, go to "Somebody's Watching Me" steadilypaternalistic or an I'm-better-than-you
the gym, and then walk to Captain
Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'," Bon
climbed the Billboard charts, yes, but attitude. He himself wasn't sure what his
Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer," and espe
Cookie & The Milk Man, a food truck also a year when Jackson ascended hisillness was until the last few months.
cially Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the
with the most delicious vegan chocolate throne, with Thriller taking home eight
USA." These are power ballads fallenchip cookies I have yet to find. (An Grammy awards and becoming the I find it hard to believe Foucault was so
iPhone app, MyFitnessPal, estimates
out of time but not out of favor, sung
best-selling album of all time. Theingrained in his own ideology that he
alike by middle-aged men who were this cookie has 250 calories and I will didn't know he had AIDS until the
album's title track begins "It's close to
have to run 2.55 miles to burn them
teenagers when the songs first climbed
midnight and something evil's lurking very end. He lived in Paris, after all,
Billboard charts, thirty-something off). If you travel regularly by plane,in the dark." The something remains spending a majority of his time outside
train, or automobile on our nation's
women stuck in traffic listening to rush France in either San Francisco or New
lyrically vague, though in hindsight this
hour radio, and drunken fraternity turnpikes and interstates, your pictureseems a pivotal moment for both York, epicenters of gay men's health.
boys in karaoke bars from Topeka is totaken, your identity checked and Jackson personally and Jackson the culWhile in residence at Berkeley during
Tokyo. It would be difficult for me,cross-checked
as for general security purtural Zeitgeist. Perhaps the somethingthe Seventies, he was a frequent visitor
poses.
it would be for many, I suspect, to say I Some of this—and my libertarievil was us, a public that would notto Bay Area bathhouses. How could he
don't love these songs, though en masse
an friends would scoff at me for sayingstop watching his every move, a gaze not know? But this is easy for me to
they become a ubiquitous blur, a this—seems innocent enough, and at Jackson most often welcomed, but a say, as a gay man in the twenty-first
sprawling shopping center with times necessary. I've seen enough movgaze that eventually devoured him. century. And in examining Foucault's
McDonald's, Wendy's, and Subway, ies where terrorists take over the White Perhaps the something evil was alsopast, I aim not to shame but to under
where the chords might be different, House to know we need their picture, Jackson, or rather, his vexed need to be stand: he, like many of us, didn't want
but the meat tastes blandly familiar and that it helps us not only determine whoseen and then not seen, a change thathis body to be under the surveillance of
comforting. they are and what they want, but also
would render the adult Jackson conanyone, let alone prodding doctors at a
One song from this era also claims which rogue agent (Kiefer Sutherland,fined to his secure homes or various moment when many thought those
Harrison Ford, Matt Damon) to send
universality, but stands astride the hotel rooms for much of his life. In his with AIDS had only themselves to
crowd: Rockwell's 1984 hit in. God Bless America.
1975 study Discipline & Punish, phiblame. Perhaps he chose not to know,
"Somebody's Watching Me." Well,
"I'm it's just
easy to say God Bless losopher Michel Foucault argues that one of the few choices we are truly
an average man," contends the
America as first
a white guy. If you are a not only modern prisons but also
offered.
verse, "with an average woman,
life. Iourworkcountry is obsessed with schools, hospitals, and the general
from nine to five; hey hell, I pay
surveying yourthe
body. In 2012, the state mechanisms of public society have used
of Virginia
price. All I want is to be left alone passed
in a law requiring the idea of surveillance to make us all
women tohome
my average home." Rockwell's get an ultrasound before AS A teenager I was diagnosed with
hypochondria, so my need to
self-disciplining citizens. His original
was anything but. His givenhaving
namean abortion.
was During the early French title, in fact, is Surveiller et know has long trumped any desire to
Kennedy William Gordy; stages
he was of pregnancy,
the when most abor Punir. Jackson, though I cannot claim remain blissfully unaware. At sixteen, I
son of Motown founder Berrytions are Gordy,
performed, this must be done he read Foucault, seemed keenly aware let a businessman jack me off in the
who claims he named his son after by penetrating the woman's vagina of the principles therein, and of the steam room of the Pat Jones YMCA in
John Kennedy and William "Smokey" with a camera. If you appear Latino, irony inherent in the fact that the thing Springfield, Missouri; I immediately left
Robinson. In 1984 the father and son you can be asked to prove citizenship which made him famous eventually the gym and stopped at Walgreens,
were estranged, and Rockwell livedat any point, and if you are African also made him a prisoner. purchasing an $89 HIV-home-testing
with Berry's ex-wife, R&B star RayAmerican, your body is far less likely kit, which I performed in the bathroom
Singleton. Somehow, without his to be protected by and three times of a library and dropped in the mail to
father's knowledge, Rockwell attainedmore likely to be assaulted by our u\VJ herever you go from nowawait my phone-in test results. Of
a recording contract at Motown and nation's police forces. And god bless W on, people will be watchingcourse this was ignorant, both of how
wrote his biggest hit about the para you, indeed, if you appear even vaguely HIV is spread and its incubation peri
you," Diana Ross told ten-year-old
noia of living under the shadow of such Muslim in post-9/11 America. Michael Jackson in 1968. By 1981,od, but when it comes to issues of the
a figure. He might have claimed to be Jackson explained to Rolling Stone, body,
"I I have always assumed the worst.
average, but he wonders as the first So when I returned from Washington
would sleep on the stage if I could." As
verse moves into the song's bridge, the Scarecrow in 1978's The Wiz, to Missouri one weekend last June to
"Why do I always feel like I'm in theWhencancer, my father calls
his first to say
request is he has Michael quoted Henry IV, "Uneasy visit my parents, and my father com
"Now
Twilight Zone?" I don't want this posted on Facebook." lies the head that wears a crown," butplained of a swell on the right side of
He's mostly concerned two of my sis it wasn't until 1991 that he became his neck, I quickly asked, "Could it be a
ters, both evangelical Christians, will known as the King of Pop, a title he tumor?" No, said my father and moth
narrate his battle online, posting a requested for himself in a memo er, to both of whom worked in medicine
Thezens
digital age has made
of a surveillance usHow
state. all citistream of prayer requests as the cancer MTV. before retiring; it was just summer

22 The Threepenny Review

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allergies or a cold. When one, then two, escape that drove Jackson to wear dispictures of assholes who double-parkferent therapist in a different state. He
then three rounds of antibiotics didn't guises, to surgically alter his appeartheir BMWs at my local Whole Foods.would tell me this wasn't deflection, but
relieve the swelling, my father's doctor ance. As he prophesied in 1987's "PriceWhat am I saying? I am an asshole.my unconscious surfacing: "Classic
ordered a biopsy. By mid-August, Dad of Fame": "I want a face no one can What is perhaps more frightening: Oedipal
peo complex. Your biggest fear is
called to tell me had cancer. recognize." ple have liked these, shared these,
your father catching you with a penis in
Of course, sometimes, the complicat retweeted them. I can log on at any
your mouth."
ed decision to know renders us sus point in the day and know exactly
pended in life, if not entirely saved. In what my friends are doing, what
SC0P0PH0BIA,S0METIMESCalled0ph
an exploratory surgery, my father's thalmophobia, is the fear of being they're reading, where they're eating,
doctors found a cluster of small tumors
stared at. In the age of social media, it When
and how they feel about this unseason Michael
accused Jackson
of molesting was
Jordan
in his throat and nasal cavities. The would seem few suffer from this condi Chandler in 1993, Santa Barbara
ably cool September day. What is per
prognosis was good, albeit complicattion. We snap selfies, pictures of the County sheriff's officers were issued a
haps more puzzling is that at any point
ed: the growths were lymphoma, anfood we are eating, the coffee we are warrant
I can log on and know what people I to photograph and video
easily treatable cancer, but one my drinking, the friends we are hanging would not even consider friends are Jackson's entire naked self, "including
father would live with for the rest of out with, and approaching thunder doing: that guy from elementary schoolhis penis, anus, hips, buttocks and any
his life. For the rest of his life, my storms from the patios of our parents' who moved to Japan, an old co-workerother part of his body." Allegedly, the
father will have quarterly positron homes, as I did while sitting with my from the Gap who is now a Jehovah'sthirteen-year-old Chandler had des
emission tomography (PET) scans, father the afternoon before his first cribed to police white blotches on
Witness, or my second cousin in Iraq.
where a radioactive tracer will course Jackson's genitalia, which incensed the
through his body and make diseases public even more, many of whom
glow neon green or electric blue on a thought Jackson was not only a child
laboratory computer screen. I ask Dad, molester but also attempting to become
who hates to be photographed or dis white before our very eyes. In reality,
cussed or dwelt upon, if this bothers Jackson bleached his skin because of
him. "What are you going to do?" he vitiligo. But the police demanded to
answers, shrugging his shoulders. examine the most intimate parts of
A similar philosophical quandary Jackson's body, a surveillance that left
rocked Michael Jackson from his late us, his public, tantalized.
teens onward, though under different
circumstances altogether. Diagnosed in
1983 with vitiligo, a disease that causes
areas of the epidermis to lose pigmen InO'Hare
line for security one
International, at Chicago's
of the bus
tation, Jackson began treatments—not iest airports in the world, I found
to appear whiter because he was myself approaching a sexy TSA agent. I
ashamed of being black, but to even do not particularly have a uniform
out his increasingly blotchy complex fetish, but suffice it to say he filled out
ion, an understandable vanity, given his baby-blue shirt and navy slacks
the public circulation of Jackson's quite nicely; about thirty-five, he wore
image. He was, Jackson regularly his facial hair long enough to accentu
claimed, first and foremost a dancer, ate but not hide his Roman jaw; his
destined to be gazed upon. Thus began eyes, I could see, were bright green. I
the complicated relationship Jackson took out my phone in an attempt to
would have with the medical commu snap a picture of him, which I would
nity until well after his death. send to a friend with the caption: "Can
I request a TSA strip search, or is that
against protocol?" Suddenly, the man
behind me tapped my shoulder and
During the filming
mercial of aof
in January Pepsi com
1984, asked what I was doing. "Um, taking a
Jacksons hair caught fire, causing sec picture of the hot guy," I told him as he
ond- and third-degree burns. In 1993, removed a badge from his jacket pock
Jackson would admit this was when he et. He was a United States Air Marshal.
started taking painkillers, an addiction In an interview room off the B
for which his friends Elizabeth Taylor Terminal, I learned Homeland Security
and Elton John finally convinced is highly suspicious of people taking
Jackson to enter rehab, though his covert pictures of federal officers. The
sober days following treatment would marshals went through my luggage and
be few and far between, according to asked a series of questions. Where are
sources from Janet Jackson to Michael you going? Missouri. My dad has can
Bashir. Prescription drug overdose— cer. How long will you be there? Three
Propofol and Benzodiazepine particu days if his surgery goes well. You're
larly eventually led to cardiac arrest flying in from Washington? Yes. I'm a
and Jackson s death in the summer of PhD student there. In what? English.
2009. Yet the medical gaze that so con Why were you taking a picture of a
sumed public discussions of Jackson federal officer in a busy airport?
were those of his plastic surgeries: rhi Because he was hot.
noplasty, chin cleft, cheekbone recon
struction, lip alteration (to give but a
few of the speculations). What conexploratory surgery. We upload these to I've met him once. And what is he
sumed us most fervently, however, was Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr or The Benjamin
doing? Playing Halo and drinking con German explains,
literary "The
critic Walter
scene of a
Jackson's ever-changing nose, recon crime, too, is deserted, it is photo
traband whiskey outside Fallujah. He
Instagram or Pinterest. We write clever
structed initially to resemble that ofcaptions punctuated by hashtags, reports, "This is fucking awesome,
graphed for the purpose of establishing
Bobby Driscoll, the child actor who"New shirt for new job! #Successories" dudes!" evidence." If you Google "how often
served as the voice for Walt Disney'sor "Not to be one of " those* people but are we photographed," as I have just
1953 Peter Pan. Though a metaphoricLOOK at this macaroni & cheese! done, the first search result is from a
trifecta between Foucault, my father,#FoodPorn." We live in a world of forum at What to Expect ®, an online
and Jackson seems implausible, admitexclamation points, when our daily Obese and twelve
therapist yearsfear
my biggest old,wasI told
my a
community on pregnancy and parent
tedly impossible, it bothers me now,lives are usually a series of commas, father watching me eat. I was not really ing. The question prompting the forum
when I see how my father hates not ellipses, periods, and semi-colons.afraid A of this, though it annoyed me comes from a woman named Sharon,
when we were at McDonald's and Dad
only the gaze of his doctors but also thewise writing professor I had for the who asks, "How often should we have
pitying looks of his wife and children,course "Modern Grammars" told would us, watch me squirt a big glob of professional baby photos taken?" I have
that we all treated Jackson so obsessive "If you're lucky, you get one, maybe
ketchup on a napkin, stir in salt, and known parents who do this monthly,
ly—obsessing, as his doctors, welltwo exclamation points a year." dip greasy French fries from tabletop to though in many multi-child households
meaning or not, must have obsessed, I am guilty of this, too. I havemouth. Obviously, this was a deflec I've noticed the frequency of pictures
over the star's ever-changing look, anannounced publications and promo tion: I was afraid of being abandoned decreases with subsequent children. My
obsession we justified in the name oftions on Facebook, ranted about long but didn't want to talk about it. Years sister Jennifer, for instance, had photos
concern for our icon. Perhaps it was lines at Starbucks on Twitter, Tumbledlater, I would relate this story to a dif taken incessantly of her first child, my

Fall 2015 23

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niece Natalie. Natalie's sister Nicole,
born seventeen months later, was pho
tographed decidedly less. Their third,
my nephew Nicholas, has few baby
photos. My sister expresses regret over
this, as I have heard other parents do.
Perhaps they know Benjamin is right,
that our lives are all crime scenes in a
sense, and happy baby photos relieve
parents from blame. "See," they can tell
their adult children, "you were happy
once and here is proof."

Michael Jackson
much, fascinates
I believe, because heus so
simultaneously fulfills our biggest fan
tasies and our biggest fears. A poor kid
from Gary, Indiana, Jackson worked
hard—harder than most of us ever
work—from the age of four to escape
poverty. He was the American Dream
anew: rich and known by everybody,
but yet nobody. Not surprisingly,
though shamefully, Jackson frightens us
because he both transcends and over
flows our knowable markers of race,
gender, and sexuality. In her book
Dangerous, Susan Fast explains, "The
over-arching thematic in Jackson's art
and life is what has often been viewed
as his 'transgression' of normative
boundaries." For over four decades we
surveyed him—Is Jackson black or
white? Does he want to be a woman?
He's gay, right?—but even following
his death in the summer of 2009, we've
found few answers.
My siblings are much older, born in
the late Sixties and early Seventies;
they grew up alongside Jackson, and
because I worshipped them as a young
child, some of my earliest memories are
of dancing to "Thriller" or "Smooth
Criminal" with my sister Jennifer and
her friends. I vaguely remember the
early-Nineties child molestation scan
dal, though solely through the lens of
my parents' comments as we sat watch
ing nightly news from our living room
in the Ozarks. My first knowing sur
veillance of Jackson came on
September 8, 1994. Michael Jackson
opened the tenth anniversary of the
MTV Video Music Awards by bringing
his new bride, Lisa Marie Presley, the
daughter of Elvis, onstage. "Welcome
to the MTV Video Music Awards,"
Jackson greeted audiences with a sly
smile, Lisa Marie at his side, unsure of
what to do with her hands. "I'm very
happy to be here," he continued. "And
just think, everybody thought this
wouldn't last." Jackson smiled, pulled
the Rayban Aviators off his face, and
kissed Lisa Marie.
What I remember then, a memory
confirmed now by watching clips of
the kiss online, was how forced it all
seemed. How Jackson appeared to be
trying to prove something. How
Presley took part, but quickly pulled
tens of millions of Americans and for cials need only find a person's "rele
away from the kiss and subtly pushedone night with a colleague, David, and
her husband away. stupidly he texts me to say, "Kissing eigners alike. The probe went as far as vance" to terror, easy in post-9/11
you is like calamine lotion to my seven the cellphone of Germany's Prime America, and that relevance is "a broad
year-itch." His partner of seven years, Minister Angela Merkel, despite the standard that permits discovery of large
Steven, finds the text on David's phone, fact that her government is one of the volumes of data in circumstances where
I am not aIn scopophobe.
watched. I like to beleft on their kitchen counter as David
bars men with husbands United States' biggest allies. People doing so is necessary to identify much
pull me into the bathroom and stick takes their dogs out to piss. were rightfully pissed, and in response smaller amounts of information within
the Obama White House released a that data that directly bears on the
their tongues into my mouth because
we both know we are being watched, white paper defending as both matter
constitu being investigated." If, as pun
tional and reasonable this continuation dits and scholars have argued, it was
or that we might get caught, and that
there is something at stake here. But I
In June of
tration 2013,
was the
forced Obama adminis
to admit to a of Bush-era politicking that stole civil the significant millennial vote that ush
like how they begin to watch my body broad-reaching surveillance program liberties
in in a vague, ongoing, all-encom ered Obama into office under vague
on the dance floor, hungry, how I can which it tapped the phone lines passing
and War on Terror. The white promises of hope and change, it is clear
catch their gaze and return it. I do this
scoured the communications records of paper claims Justice Department offi now that little has changed from

24 The Threepenny Review

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administrations prior. What is less
clear, though plausible, is that millenni
al welcome surveillance into their lives.
U Ç cream," Jackson's 1995 duet
O with his sister Janet, and the lead
single from his ninth album HIStory, is
an anthem against surveillance in many
ways. Here are two stars we've watched
neurotically since early childhood, the
most successful members of a, let s be
honest, fucked-up family. Michael,
fresh off a settlement for child abuse
allegations in 1993, aimed the song at
American media: "Stop pressurin' me.
Just stop pressurin' me. Stop fuckin
with me," the chorus rings. But the
blame is complicated. Certainly the
media obsessed over Michael, has
always obsessed over him and contin
ues to even in death, but they wouldn t
if we ourselves didn't demand the
obsession. Further, Jackson himself is
not blameless; he lived a lifestyle that
required such infamy. He even fed sen
sational stories to the tabloids himself
before the molestation charges com
pletely changed the public tenor. By all
accounts, Jackson's desire for attention
and adoration was insatiable, which
leaves us in both awe and fear, for him
and for ourselves.
TheSomething,
TSA urgesSay
us Something.
all: If You The
See
phrase, trademarked by the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security, can
be heard over the loudspeakers of our
airports and on posters adorning tran
sit systems across the country. I ride the
Washington Metro and see them every
day. One especially telling poster
explains that now I can text in the sus
picious behavior I see. It is a strange
thing, this desire to be safe, to act
accordingly, and yet to be seen. It is a
struggle for power against both our
selves and those we elect to watch us. It
is not unlike what Foucault saw in the
past and predicted for the future in
Discipline & Punish.
The effect of the prison system,
which mirrors the general shift of a
culture that assumes we are always
watched and watching, is that we are
now self-governing. Foucault describes
the public prisoner: "He who is sub
jected to a field of visibility, and who
knows it, assumes responsibility for the
constraints of power; he makes them
play spontaneously upon himself; he
inscribes in himself the power relation
in which he simultaneously plays both
roles; he becomes the principle of his
own subjection." In the digital age, our
self-governing becomes public specta
cle as we willfully give over our private
lives not only to an online community
of friends, but also to the police, the
1RS, the military, the banks... Our
own willingness to give up our lives as
art objects becomes a right to demand
such transparency from others, from
our friends and coworkers, from our
politicians and celebrities.
Following the Research
Jackson, Pew death of Michael
found two
thirds of Americans thought media cov
erage of the star was excessive, and yet
eighty percent of Americans polled also
said they followed the coverage enthusi
astically.D
Fall 2015
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