The Many Faces of MJ
I have been a fan of Michael Jackson and his music for as long as I can remember. Unfortunately, besides his many talents and scandals, there's a specific reason he was so memorable, his skin. When I was really little I used to think that maybe he had vitiligo and that was the reason his skin was changing from its natural hue to a tint that was not original to his body. I couldn't understand how someone's skin could change in that way, it was like the older and more famous he got, the lighter his skin turned; simultaneously, his nose was so thin and changed. So, we made it a joke.
A person struggling with their own identity in such a public way was impossible to ignore. Good Talk reminded me of this. It brought back memories of living room choreographies and family members as an audience. As an adult, I can understand MJ's afflictions differently; I can see his obvious need for mental health care and trauma counseling and an amalgamation of treatments that no one outside of himself and his doctors knew he needed. Therefore I decided to use dark humor to show a transformation, just as in his famous music video where humans turn into shock-inducing beings, that we don't care to understand.
