Drugs, Craziness & Celebrities (click for Black or White video ending)

What can I add to a subject that is as cliched and as old as time? Little kid makes it big, goes crazy, gets hooked on drugs, dies young.

I normally would not sympathize with a tragic, caricatured figure like Michael. After all, he was well compensated for his talent. Maybe I do because he's only 7 years older than me and brought such joy to me and my friends during our pre-teen, teen, and early adult years. I also remember how polite, shy and respectful he was to his elders. He was well brought up and it wasn't unusual in those days for parents to spank their kids. He was obviously the pride and joy of his parents and siblings, and they had nurtured his talent. Since the age of 11, he was accustomed to adoring crowds, pleasant tv interviews and popular broadcast performances. He was hardworking and disciplined. He charmed everyone. The craziness did not begin to really manifest itself until he had already given so much to the world.

I wonder if he were born a few years later, he wouldn't have been so aware of the racism that permeated the industry. A bright, sensitive boy was most certainly aware of the physical divide and the different standards for black performers. The black performers were the best because they had to be. There was no room for error. He was old enough to remember the assassination of Martin Luther King yet never displayed the racial anger that later hip hop artists would (with the exception of his superb ending to the happy-go-lucky Black or White video). He was like a later version of Sammy Davis Jr. who melded into a white world of well-paid talent. Michael's talented father suffered for it even more by giving up his dreams of show business for a crane operator job in Indiana. He realized early that to make money, the white audience had to buy it. This desire to succeed in a white world transmitted to his ambitious and gifted children. Child abuse would be a given in a small house with many mouths to feed and a man worried how he will provide for his family. We will never have a complete picture of what it was like to grow up in that small house in Indiana. It's no stretch to imagine that it was not easy.

Do I think Michael was a child molester because of his own child abuse or his potential bisexuality? The investigators that have experience with these type of cases say he exhibited all of the signs. As a highly sensitive child who absorbed the adult pain around him, he would have been keenly aware of the expectations set upon him. His beloved mother was a Jehovah witness who would have viewed homosexuality as a mortal sin. His father was the stereotypical male of the time period that would not allow emotional expressions of weakness. Every child compensates differently for shortcomings in their childhood. Every child grows up to different family expectations based on birth order or abilities. The only way Michael could receive love and recognition from his immediate family was to remain the perpetual child and to work like an adult. If he knew he was a homosexual, he was shrewd enough not to express it. He already understood the power of image making and hiding behind its facade at an early age. It's obvious that he left the realms of sanity a few years back and that drugs broke some thin barrier of norm. He was no longer the alert, perceptive Michael I remembered. He was lost in a self-made cloud of mist.

His physical appearance didn't help his cause. For a master media magician so brillant about his career image, it's difficult to fathom why his face would become an open scar for the world to see. He was a deteriorating Dorian Grey before our eyes, a warped picture of eternal youth revealing a mental illness from deep within.

Something keeps pulling me back to those early childhood performances when his utter joy was irrepressible. He didn't choose this profession, it chose him, and even if his father hadn't whipped him to perfection, he was self-driven enough to do it on his own. There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I don't hear his immediate family commenting on this, and they seemed to lack the introspection or the necessary skills to handle a child star who could not face adulthood. He was also the breadwinner of a large family. People forget that he was still supporting his family until his death. That would have to create some sort of family dyfunction.

Nevertheless, the ultimate responsibility was Michael's as a full grown man to not feed his insanity and internal demons. His father after all, made it all possible.

I wish that he hadn't been so isolated from a normal life as a child. He did have 8 other siblings that suffered the same fate. None turned out like him even though they had their own turmoils and less successful adult careers. He seemed happiest when surrounded by his siblings. It was obvious that he would become the solo artist. Were there sibling rivalries? It seemed like they tried to shelter him. He was so vulnerable and egoless that it's hard to know what to blame. He was a joy to watch.