Michael Jackson

One of the most widely reported pop star lives is that of Michael Jackson. Amongst all the media rumours surrounding his life and death, one of the main topics was the difference from the start of his career, to the end of it. When Michael’s career started, he was part of the Jackson 5, which was exactly what it states, Michael, and 4 of his brothers.

In the first of three videos I am looking at, Michael appears as a very innocent young teenager. The song 'Ben' is about a pet rat, and how they are both searching for a friend. This shows again such a level of innocence which connotes that his career at this young stage was not at all influenced by the media, but yet more working from the 'cute' point of view. In the video, we can see simple things such as the bright green, yellow and red colours on stage also help annotate the child-like theme that the Jackson's were so clearly trying to promote with Michael. It is also shown that Michael is not yet his own act, he is simply performing as 'part' of the Jackson 5, therefore his songs are probably also influenced by the others with him being at such a young age. The last thing to show how young he is in this video is his voice, it’s clear it still hasn't quite broken, but the talent is obviously already there, as it is so controlled. The only point in the video that shows what time period he is in is the clothes he is wearing. He is wearing an orange jacket with a huge collar, and flares, something that would only be truly accepted in the pop scene at this time period, showing that he has slightly adapted to what the supposed 'look' for a pop star would be.

The second video I looked at is one of the most speculated videos in the history of music. At this point in time, the big concern about Michael Jackson was that his skin colour had now changed completely from black to white, by default making his next hit 'Black or White' a very controversial song. In the video, we see Michael Jackson dancing with many different races of people, trying to extenuate the point of no racism. The difference between this video, and the ‘Ben’ video is remarkable. Whereas before he was simply a little boy, singing a song in normal (time appropriate songs), he was now a full grown man, with his shirt half open. To still use the child theme in his videos to try and help install a sense of innocence back to his music video, making Macaulay Culkin.

In the last Michael Jackson video I will be looking at - You rock my world. Jackson seems to relate this video back to his original style videos once he had become a 'man musician' in his own right. It is clear that in this video, he tries to avoid the focus being on his face, which by now was completely modified by surgery, and was something the media would no doubt be quick to criticise rather than actually focus on the song and the video. 

Though this video was one of the last videos Jackson created, he still tried to create the 'sexy' atmosphere that he had done throughout his career. His signature dance moves are still heavily a part of this video, trying to show that despite all his changes, he still represents the same artist he had been for the past 20 years.

The situations he gets into within this video start to show a sense of foreboding early on in the music video. His shirt colour is red which may connote the idea of 'danger'. Red and black are mysterious, harsh mood colours that are more likely to represent something less happy, so whilst on the hunt for the mysterious girl, the other males that look shifty help represent the mood that is set early by Michael Jackson's clothes.