Even before allegations surfaced claiming the star had
sexually abused children — as they did later that year — it seemed there were a
lot of stories circulating about the King of Pop. And, live on national
television before an audience of 90 million people, Jackson wanted to set the
record straight.
Did he sleep in an oxygen chamber?
No, Jackson said.
Had he purchased the Elephant Man’s bones? No, Jackson said. (“Where am I going
to put some bones?”) And did he want a white kid to play him in a Pepsi
commercial?
Jackson sighed. Then he got mad. Or, perhaps, as mad as Jackson
got.
“That is so stupid,” he told Oprah. “That’s the most
ridiculous, horrifying story I’ve ever heard. It’s crazy.”
The question, it seemed, struck at the core of Jackson’s
amorphous identity. Though stricken with vitiligo, a skin condition that
lightened his complexion in patches, the singer who idolized James Brown was
still black and proud.
“Why?” he said of the rumour. “Number one, it’s my face as a
child in the commercial. Me when I was little. Why would I want a white child
to play me? I’m a black American. I’m proud to be a black American. I am proud
of my race. I am proud of who I am. I have a lot of pride in who I am and
dignity. That’s like you wanting an Oriental person to play you as a child.
Does that make sense? ... So please people stop believing these horrifying
stories.” He added: “When people make up stories that I don’t want to be who I
am, it hurts me.”
Now, a version of what so horrified Jackson — who, if anyone
needs to be reminded, died in 2009 — has come to pass. The very white actor
Joseph Fiennes, perhaps best known for playing the Bard in Shakespeare in Love,
has been cast as Jackson in a film for British television.
People were angry.
Just two weeks ago, Oscar nominations were announced — and,
out of 20 acting nominees, not a single person of colour was to be found. This
revived the previous year’s “#OscarsSoWhite” controversy about whether minorities
remain underrepresented in the film industry.
Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith, among others, are sitting
out the awards. Oscar host Chris Rock is now in the middle of the racial storm
surrounding the glitzy event. The Academy, its president said, is trying to
diversify its membership.
And what seemed like a whimsical project produced on a
foreign isle — Elizabeth, Michael and Marlon, which details the purported
flight of Liz Taylor, Marlon Brando and Jackson from New York City in the wake
of the September 11 attacks — hit social media with a digital thud.
“Joseph Fiennes is not surprised he was cast to play Michael
Jackson,” one Twitter user wrote. “ I threw up in my mouth! #diversity.”
“I mean, at this rate, why not cast Judi Dench as Michael
Jackson?” Ed Wong of the Atlantic tweeted.
“Producers say it’s creative diversity,” actor Miguel Nunez
wrote. “Then let me play Donald Trump.”
As the world defended the legacy of the man who may be the
most beloved performer in history, Fiennes took refuge at Entertainment
Tonight. And he wanted to talk about Jackson’s diagnosis.
“[Jackson] definitely had an issue — a pigmentation issue —
and that’s something I do believe,” he said. “He was probably closer to my
colour than his original colour.”
The movie, Fineness said, was not a broadside against people
of colour trying to break into Hollywood. He said the film is “not in any way
malicious. It’s actually endearing.”
Sky Arts, who produced the film, also defended the casting
decision. “Sky Arts gives producers the creative freedom to cast roles as they
wish, within the diversity framework which we have set,” the network said in a
statement, as the Associated Press reported. The company added that it “puts
the integrity of the creative vision at the heart of all its original
commissions.”
“It’s [about] people who are so iconic, but also can be
detached,” Fiennes said. “You know, you can get detached from society. So it’s
examining that kind of wonderful and mad detachment.”
Alas, some seemed more inclined to believe that the actor
and Sky Arts were the detached ones.
But wait — Elizabeth, Michael and Marlon had its defenders.
There is a long history of actors of one race playing characters of another and
getting away with it — even after the end of Al Jolson-style blackface. There’s
Al Pacino in Scarface. There’s Robert Downey in Tropic Thunder (although,
actually, he was in blackface for that one). There’s Hamilton.
Aren’t artists free to make art?
“Well, I mean, if we are allowed to turn ghost busters into
women, which were men first, race shouldn’t be a problem,” one Twitter user
wrote.
“Looks pretty white to me,” the same Twitter user wrote over
a photograph of Jackson.
Alas, an intractable problem that’s bed evilled theatre for
centuries has not been solved yet.
“In Selma, for example, it makes no sense for a non-black
actor to play Martin Luther King Jr. or for a non-white actor to play Lyndon
Johnson.” David Marcus wrote at the Federalist last year in The Case for Colorblind
Casting. “Those racial identities are central to the story, and there is
nothing wrong with that. When a film or play is specifically exploring issues
of race, it is perfectly acceptable to cast on that basis, just as it is when
advertisers are targeting a demographic. This is natural and to be expected.
But the fact is such stories are very much the exception, not the rule.”
Elsewhere, others took, more or less, the opposite position.
“Colorblind casting might land a few promising actors prestigious
roles, but it isn’t a sustainable strategy,” Angelica Jade Bastien wrote at the
Atlantic last year in The Case Against Colorblind Casting. “It neither
addresses the systemic problems that exists behind the camera nor does it
compel Hollywood to tell more racially aware stories.”
