Reading Response #2

I am posting way early because I am sad and didn’t go anywhere for Spring Break (but if I finish all work in the first half, I can relax and fool around the second half!)

So, I was very excited to see the article about Michael Jackson and Thriller, because I was obsessed with that album, song, video, all through my childhood (my sisters and I made up dozens of dance routines and little plays to “Thriller” alone). The first thing that struck me about the article was just how prophetic it was. Mercer writes, sometime in the late 80s, about how his sexual ambiguity, his efforts to look more white, his mental instability, and his child-like demeanor that “has culminated in the construction of a Peter Pan figure.” All of these initial suspicions have since developed in ways Mercer probably could not have imagined – Neverland ranch, the multiple molestation charges, and the crazy amounts of disfiguring plastic surgery.

The article also inspired me to watch the “Thriller” video in its entirety for the first time in probably ten years. After reconnecting with its awesomeness, I saw the gender codifying Mercer describes. What I found interesting when watching was all the ways in which the proprieties and expectations of romantic courting and gender roles were represented. The opening film within the film, which Mercer talks about, that places them within the 1950s morality, demanding that the girl be coy and the boy be the respectful initiator. This is demonstrated in the way she asks “so, what are we gonna do now” instead of just saying what’s on her mind, and when he very politely asks her “to be his girl.” Then comes the line “I’m not like other guys,” Mercer discusses at length, signifying to the girl and the audience, that he is not overly masculine, sexualized, aggressive, or disrespectful. But then as it turns out he is the werewolf, which is all of those things as it makes her into the victim.

What is even more interesting is when it steps into the contemporary time, which is assumed to be more realistic and liberated, but the roles stay the same. She is scared and leaves the theater, signaling her weakness and passivity, and he comes out to walk her home and protect her from whatever could come out. But as the rest of the video proves and the lyrics of the song, he is still in the possession of the monstrous, aggressive sexuality. When he is in the polite (sexual urges repressed) mode he embodies the regular Michael, but when he is in sexual pursuit (in actions or the song lyrics which I never before realized were sexual) he becomes the monster (werewolf or zombie) attacking the girl (victim). This is even in the very last scene when he nicely offers to take her home and since this connotates the possibility of some action, he looks back with the monster eyes. To me this doesn’t show that male sexuality is monstrous, but that the forced occupation of gender roles, respectful initiator and coy, and sexual roles, aggressive pursuer and chased victim, can have some scary consequences.