Michael Jackson - Black or White analysis

Created to assist with teaching the video for the GCSE Media Studies EDUQAS course

1. Black or White Michael Jackson LO: To begin to apply the Theoretical Framework to the video Black or White

2. WHAT DO YOU KNOW? American singer, dancer, song writer, record producer, actor and philanthropist. debuted in 1964 as one of the Jackson Five then began his solo career in 1971 By the early 80s he was a dominant figure in the music industry and his album ‘Thriller’ earned him the title of the ‘King of Pop’, as it is the best-selling album of all time. Jackson’s music videos were so unusual that they helped to transform the medium into both an art form and a promotional tool. The MTV cable channel was seen as a platform for Michael Jackson to showcase his video talents and by airing his videos regularly, MTV was also able to reach greater heights. The music video for ‘Black or White’ premiered on 14th November, 1991, in 27 countries simultaneously. It reached an audience of 500 million – the highest ever for a music video. The song reached number one in 20 countries around the world, and meant that Michael Jackson was the first artist to have number one hits in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s .

3. Michael Jackson's "Black Or White" was the first of nine short films from 1991's Dangerous. Directed by John Landis, "Black Or White" features groundbreaking special effects and electrifying dance sequences. The original full-length short film premiered simultaneously in 28 countries for a record-breaking global audience of 500 million! Written and Composed by Michael Jackson Rap Lyrics and Intro by Bill Bottrell Produced by Michael Jackson for MJJ Productions, Inc. and Bill Botrell Executive Producer: Michael Jackson From the album Dangerous, released November 26, 1991 Released as a single November 11, 1991 THE SHORT FILM Director: John Landis Primary Production Location: Los Angeles, California Michael Jackson's short film for "Black or White" was the first of nine short films produced for recordings from Dangerous, Michael's fourth album as an adult solo performer. As a single, "Black or White" was an international sensation, topping the charts in 20 countries in 1991 and 1992, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. "Black or White" was certified Gold and Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America on January 6, 1992. The song was also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance - Male in 1993. Both "Black or White" and its follow-up "Remember the Time" received BMI Urban Awards in 1993 for being two of the most performed songs of the year. The ambitious "Black or White" short film again found Michael pushing the boundaries of the "music video" as art form. An extended prologue stars Macaulay Culkin as a boy whose father (George Wendt) is angered by the playing of loud rock music after bedtime. After being admonished for "wasting your time with this garbage," Culkin vengefully plugs a guitar into an enormous speaker, blasting his father out of the house and across the globe, still sitting in his easy chair. The main body of the "Black or White" short film reflects the song's lyrical plea for racial and cultural unity. Michael is seen on the plains of Africa, the Vasquez Rocks in California, and outside traditional Russian architecture, singing and dancing with African tribesmen, Thai women, Native Americans, an Odissi dancer from India and a troupe of Hopak dancers. F

4. Share your work at the end of the lesson and Mrs. Raji will mark and give feedback Watch ‘Black or White’ pausing in key places, for examples in each different location, to make notes. Then answer these questions giving examples: Describe the mise -en-scene in detail. How do the visual codes communicate meanings about the different worlds of the video? What impact do the special effects have? Outline the structure of the video. Can you identify elements of narrative such as disruptions or oppositions?

5. What is Michael Jackson’s star persona and how is it established? How are representations of different ethnic groups constructed through visual and technical codes? Are stereotypes upheld or subverted? What messages are communicated? How do they reflect the social context of the early 1990s? How did you respond to the video? How might an audience in the 1990s have responded?

6. Intro context Michael Jackson’s 11-minute short film, Black or White, was the most watched music video premiere in television history Released on November 13 , 1991—a year many consider the cultural peak of music videos The video premiered simultaneously in 27 countries In the United States, it was shown simultaneously on Fox, MTV, VH1, and BET . Internationally, it likewise played in primetime on major networks, including the United Kingdom’s Top of the Pops on BBC1 , It had an estimated audience of 500 million people. It’s the largest audience ever to watch a music video, or anything on TV for that matter.  To say the video was a success is a massive understatement .  

7. Intro to Media Languages and Representations Black or White isn’t just a simple song proclaiming we’re all the same and we should unite When you deconstruct the lyrics and accompanying images, you will find that Michael Jackson is passing commentary on historical social and political issues to do with race. The video communicates messages very relevant to its production context of 1991 Michael Jackson lyrically communicates his own personal interactions with racism and what it means to be a black man in America. This is also communicated in the “Panther Coda” * a concluding event, remark, or section .

8. Analysis What type of music video is it? The video doesn’t have a narrative – and is more concept The audience is floating in the sky at night with a bird’s eye view of the world below, before the camera pans down, gradually zooming in on a typical middle class American suburb. It is a sort of Google Maps affect, moving from the expansive, big picture view down into the local. Taken from Joseph Vogel’s essay “I Ain’t Scared of No Sheets”: Re-Screening Black Masculinity in Michael Jackson’s Black or White

9. As the camera moves through the neighbourhood, we see empty, immaculate streets and homogeneous, cookie-cutter homes, before being introduced to an anonymous white family. a father ( played by George Wendt, best known from the television sitcom, Cheers ) sits in a recliner, watching a baseball game; a mother (played by Tess Harper ) reads a tabloid newspaper; while their child (played by Home Alone actor Macaulay Culkin ) rocks out to his music upstairs.

10. Eventually, the father’s TV watching is disrupted by the volume of his son’s music. He storms up the stairs in a rage. “I thought I told you to turn that noise down!” The boy, it should be noted, is surrounded in his room by black icons, including posters of Magic Johnson, MC Hammer , and Michael Jackson (which the father shatters) While the scene, then, is on the one hand a classic reiteration of generational rock and roll rebellion, it is also indicative of the cultural shift among young people in the so-called “crossover era” of the 1980s and 90s (of which Jackson was at the forefront). Jackson, Prince and others who managed to break through the glass ceiling were called “crossover” stars, because they managed to cross over to the mainstream (re: white) audience.

11. After being scolded and disciplined by his father, the white boy responds by coming downstairs with a guitar and large amps, and blasting him through the roof—La-Z-Boy recliner and all—all the way to Africa. It is intended to be humorous, of course, but it is also a revealing site of relocation, by symbolically returning to Africa , the cradle of civilization. Out of Africa, he suggests, not only came the entire human family in all of its diverse strands, but also the roots of rhythm , music, and dance. Now removed from his suburban insulation, the archetypal white father (and by extension, the white audience) undergoes a sort of cultural re-education. Effectively divested of his authority and centrality, he must become an observer and a listener.

12. Jackson proceeds to transport from culture to culture like a cosmopolitan shaman, fluidly adapting to the dance movements , and styles of different ethnic groups. He is the direct opposite of the traditional white American patriarch , offering an alternative vision of adaptability, global cooperation , and harmony without hierarchy.

13. there is a deliberately staged, two-dimensional quality to these dioramic scenes that deserves closer scrutiny.

14. Diorama - a model representing a scene with three-dimensional figures, either in miniature or as a large-scale museum exhibit. the video draws attention to the constructed nature of these scenes when the African Warriors literally leap with Jackson out of the borders of their “set” into an all grey sound stage; or when an elevated white stage appears in the middle of what looks like a traditional “cowboys and Indians” movie; or when Jackson’s dance with Russians is revealed to be the inside of a snow globe. Jackson is simultaneously celebrating cosmopolitanism , while exposing these constructed images as just surface stereotypes it is significant to note that in each set/dance, he identifies with the cultural or racial “other,” from Africans and Native Americans to Thai, Indians and Russians

15. it is significant to note that in each set /dance, he identifies with the cultural or racial “other, ” 9Russians (the latter group , incidentally , the “white” group most foreign and threatening to the United States in the aftermath of the Cold War).

16. Among the scenes that elicited the most scorn is the rap solo performed by a group of children (including Macaulay Culkin ) on a city stoop beginning at the 4:37 mark. “It’s a turf war on a global scale,” the children lip sync . “ I’d rather hear both sides of the tale/See it’s not about races/Just places , faces . . . ” Such sentiments and visuals were miles away from the tough imagery and lyrics of hip-hop groups like NWA and Public Enemy. It felt more like something that might appear on Sesame Street or The Cosby Show.

17. “ It don’t matter if you’re black or white,” The most quoted (and misunderstood) line from Black or White has often been interpreted in this post-racial vein. The chorus refrain, “It don’t matter if you’re black or white,” seemed to many listeners like a simplistic platitude advocating colour blindness. Loving v . Virginia was a Supreme Court case that struck down state laws banning interracial marriage in the United States Yet a closer look at the lyrics suggests otherwise. The full lyric reads: “If you’re thinking of bein ’ my baby/It don’t matter if you’re black or white.” Jackson, in other words , is not saying that race does not matter; he is saying that the choice of whom he loves is his and not dependent on race. Such a sentiment might seem harmless enough if not for the long, troubled history in America concerning interracial relationships—particularly between black men and white women . Emmett Till

18. “ It don’t matter if you’re black or white,” In 1989 (the same year Jackson began writing “Black or White”), the murder of another young black man, Yusef Hawkins, made national headlines when he was attacked by a large group of white teenagers who thought he was coming to visit a white girl in Bensonhurst , Brooklyn . ( Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever, released the same year as Black or White, also took up the theme of relationships between a black man and a white woman , exposing many of the stereotypes, complications, and taboos surrounding such pairings in a 1990s context. Lee dedicated the film to the memory of Yusef Hawkins). The verses further illuminate the meaning of the chorus. “I took my baby on a Saturday bang,” he sings in the opening line. Then, occupying a white man’s voice: “Boy, is that girl with you ?” To which Jackson responds: “Yes, we’re one and the same.” The use of the condescending, historically loaded term, “boy,” in this interrogation is no accident.

19. At the five-minute mark, in this triumphant spirit, Jackson stands atop a model of the Statue of Liberty, the iconic torch-bearing “ Mother of Exiles” and symbol of multicultural possibility. A black man, the visual suggests , realized the dream , made it to the top. as the camera zooms out we see: a utopian world without borders or hierarchies. Behind Jackson are architectural landmarks from around the world: Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Acropolis, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Taj Mahal , the Sphinx .

20. In the midst of this celebration, however, comes a striking interjection. Between the rap solo and the Statue of Liberty shot, two babies, black and white, are shown playing with a snow globe on top of the world. the image of a powerful black man who challenges nearly every way people have sought to define identity, bursting through a burning cross, defiantly shouting, I ain’t scared of your brother I ain’t scared of no sheets I ain’t scared of nobody Go when the goin ’ gets mean (“Black or White”) The sheets Jackson refers to, of course, are the sheets of the Ku Klux Klan.

21. “morphing sequence.” A much -buzzed-about part of the video in 1991, the morphing scene utilized Cutting edge CGI technology to present people of various races, ethnicities, and genders seamlessly mutating from one to another. At a moment when “multiculturalism” was perceived as the greatest threat to the (white male) Western canon, it displayed the beauty of difference , of diversity, of borderlessness , while simultaneously celebrating our common humanity. In the spectacular techno-metamorphosis, there is no privileged race or gender: all are literally a part of each other.

22. Social & Political Context Seven months before Black or White debuted , another video about race relations in America premiered on television. Its grainy footage depicted a young black man being relentlessly struck with batons by a gang of white police officers on a darkened street. The anonymous victim, the nation soon learned, was Rodney King. The video of the Rodney King beating had an enormous cultural impact . It was, in essence, the first home video to go viral. Not since the civil rights era was racial injustice so vividly exposed on the screen. The King narrative seemed to speak for itself: Rodney King was the victim of excessive and unnecessary police brutality. In the video footage, even as he lays motionless on the ground, the blows continue. He is shot twice with taser guns, kicked multiple times in the head, and struck relentlessly with batons (it was revealed during the trial that he was hit 56 times by police officers). By the time he arrived at the police department , he had endured multiple facial and skull fractures, a shattered eye socket , bruises , lacerations, a broken ankle, and brain damage . The police officers were acquitted and this lead to the LA Race Riots

23. Why the “Panther Coda”? Had Black or White ended with the morphing sequence as audiences expected it to, it likely would not have shaken the sensibilities of most viewers. it appeared to most to be a simple upbeat call for interracial harmony. In the tradition of black social protest, Part One seemed primarily intended to appeal to and educate white people, palatably positioning a more inclusive vision of the world, ending with the exuberant, triumphant spectacle of happy faces transforming from one race to another. For corporate executives hoping to market “Michael Jackson” the global brand, it was a relatively seamless sell. But Jackson had more to say.

24. Similar contemporary music videos This is America – Childish Gambino (2018) and Formation – Beyonce (2016)

25. “I want[ ed ] to do a dance number where I [could] let out my frustration about injustice and  prejudice and racism and bigotry,” When Sony executives saw the coda they were horrified. “When they showed me ‘Black or White’,” recalls marketing executive Larry Stessel , “I said, ‘Are you crazy? A black guy  beating the shit out of cars in the ghetto? You can’t send that to MTV” “Panther Coda”

26. “Panther Coda” Jackson had always performed in a way that was acceptable and palatable to white audiences – at the end of Black or White he breaks free

27. The Panther Coda begins just as the “official video” seems to be ending . The music concludes and the director, John Landis, yells out, “Cut! ” before moving out in front of the camera. The actress is a black woman ; all the people around her, including the director, are white men. “That was perfect! ” he praises her. The camera then pans back to reveal that everything we have just witnessed is artifice, an elaborate Hollywood production created in a soundstage . The crew busily chats while closing up shop. This cut, Jackson suggests , is the only version plausible in Hollywood under white direction.

28. The Black Panther Party, founded in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale , made the black panther an icon of resistance, revolution, and black  empowerment . Among its Ten Point Program was a demand for freedom , full employment, decent housing, fair trials, and an end to police brutality. The presence of the black panther at the start of the coda is “uncanny” both in the literal shock the viewer feels at seeing such a dangerous animal lurking on a Hollywood soundstage, as well as in its radical symbolic representation.

29. Jackson never made any explicit connections to the party and its ideology, commenting instead on the mystery and beauty of the animal. In explanatory defenses of the panther coda, he spoke of trying to interpret “the panther’s wild and animalistic behavior ” (quoted in Williams ). In this way , he helped further open and expand what the black panther signifies: it could suggest identification with black resistance to white supremacy, while at the same time representing the mysterious, mercurial , and chaotic impulses of the animal.

30. The juxtaposition of shots from the inside to the outside is supposed to symbolic represent segregated Los Angels. The white fantasy world, the version reproduced and “seen” in Hollywood films vs. South Central “the ghetto” It is here that the panther (Jackson) escapes, to lift the veil between these largely segregated realities. This geography, of course, is not just literal. It also represents the alienation and marginalization Jackson faced as a black artist in a predominantly white entertainment industry. Jackson allows the audience to see this reality by appropriating and inverting Gene Kelly’s iconic dance number from perhaps the most famous musical of the MGM era: Singin ’ in the Rain (1952).

31. “ The appeal of Kelly’s famous dance number can be seen as a retaking of territory that Kelly himself had appropriated from the Black street-corner tappers who preceded him historically” (Elizabeth Chin) What Jackson does, however, is not only reclaim, but redefine what tap has previously signified in film. Jackson’s version of street tap is a replacement of the cheerful, happy-go-lucky tap of Kelly and others . Where Kelly’s street is filled with people, Jackson’s is desolate. Where Kelly’s mood is exuberant, Jackson’s is angry and indignant. Where Kelly’s dancing is light, clean, and carefree, Jackson’s is sharp, violent, and sexually aggressive. In place of Kelly’s “jaunty puddle splashing” Jackson stomps and screams with a vengeance. These are two very different worldviews — and experiences —being represented

32. Walking into a lone spotlight he turns and stares directly into the camera . His gaze shatters the “fourth wall”; it is piercing, unsettling. The spotlight on Jackson in this frame reminds of a traditional stage performance , but Jackson’s stoic stare indicates that we are in for something else, that the long-established expectations for black entertainers is about to be (or is already in process of being) subverted. The remainder of Jackson’s performance contains no music or words .

33. Particularly troubling to many viewers was the aggressive sexuality in the coda . Throughout Jackson’s panther dance, he repeatedly grabs, rubs, and otherwise draws attention to his phallus . The question few critics (or audience members) asked is, why? The simple explanation was that It was a “stunt” like the sexual provocations of Madonna, aimed at generating publicity. Yet given the context of the video—and the deeper history of black male representation—it is worth considering alternatives . White fears about that sexuality, particularly in relation to white women, were addressed through both literal and symbolic emasculation. The phallus then becomes a symbol of (contested ) power. He is making a statement about who he is in the face of endless scrutiny and interrogation regarding his blackness , his masculinity, and his sexuality. He is also protesting the cruel history of mutilation by flaunting the symbol of his creative power and identity as a black man. The brute caricature

34. For the first time in his career, Jackson also engages in acts of violence and destruction on screen, bashing in a car with his elbow and a crowbar , before proceeding to attack the windows of a nearby building. In a clear allusion to Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, released just two years earlier, he throws a trashcan into a storefront. Throughout the personalized riot, he says nothing, communicating only through non- verbal vocalizations , screams, and howls. The ambiguity of these acts (and lack of explicit graffiti in the original version) again caused some critics and viewers to be perplexed. However, just six months before the Los Angeles Rebellion , it is difficult in retrospect not to read it in this context. His pain and anger seems both personal and representative. His destruction of white property can be interpreted on one level as a symbolic identification with the rage and powerlessness felt by many of his black brothers and sisters in Los Angeles.

35. In one of the final moments of the video, Jackson spins like a tornado and falls to the ground in a puddle of water; he rips open his shirt and wails in anguish. Sparks of fire spray off a fallen hotel facade behind him. He tilts his head and arms back, still howling, as if experiencing an exorcism. It is a startlingly raw moment in which the pop icon reveals, against the weight of a thousand media narratives, that he is human: the performer has stopped performing (at least for entertainment), the dancer has been brought to his knees, the effervescent voice transformed into a guttural scream. He is expressing the unspeakable. After this climactic outburst, Jackson transforms back into a black panther , which turns and looks into the camera, before sauntering down the empty street. The meaning of what has just happened is again left suspended for the audience to contemplate. Jackson, however, anticipates the white reaction to this coda by having Homer Simpson, another archetypal “ white father,” reprimand his son Bart, before turning off the TV. For a brief few minutes, it suggests, Jackson was able to express something honest. But just as we witnessed at the beginning of the video, the white father misunderstands and censors black creative expression. The final frame is static grey.

36. Following the television premiere of Black or White, angry white viewers , in essence, demanded what Homer Simpson did at the end of the video . Besieged with complaints, Fox and MTV compelled Jackson to excise the final four minutes before it was re-aired. All subsequent airings of the full short film (which were rare) included superimposed graffiti to make the violent destruction of property more intelligible. To this day, the final four minutes of Black or White are missing on Michael Jackson’s official YouTube channel.