God Bless the Freaks
... and smite the shock-journalists
Our TV gets one channel with the cable antenna hooked up. Luckily, that channel is ABC, so I got to tune in to the later half of Martin Bashir's documentary about Michael Jackson when I remembered it was being broadcast.

Shock journalism. That's the only way to describe Bashir's broadcast. Admittedly, Michael Jackson is one strange fruit and, by that respect, quite "shocking"... but Martin Bashir is the one who should be ashamed.

I sat down to this broadcast waiting to laugh at Michael for being so strange and for living up to the press sensation that this documentary has already caused in the UK and around the world. I came out of an hour and a half of 20/20 and "Primetime Thursday" rooting for poor, victimized Michael and feeling absolutely nauseated, again, to be associated with the lable of journalist.

What the hell is wrong with people? Is there no such thing as kindness or objectivity any more? It's no surprise that Michael wasn't completely open and honest with Bashir. Michael knows that his lifestyle isn't going to be accepted by the homogeneous public but Bashir's questions were so OBVIOUSLY transparent and biased by his own, more conservative views, that even *I* wouldn't have trusted him... and I have nothing particularly "shameful" to hide!

Yes, Michael Jackson is really weird. There's no way he hasn't had plastic surgery unless he's some sort of space alien (which I'm convinced he is). He obviously has deep-seated issues arising from his early fame and traumatic upbringing. He has Peter Pan complex and has had the money to make it a reality. He's probably just terrified of growing old and pretending to be a child and living like a child and with children is the only way he knows how to cope.

Assume for a moment that there's nothing to say he's hurt anyone. He's been singled out for his bizarre eccentricity and made into a voodoo doll for social dissection by the media circus. It disgusts me what the media is doing to him and people like him. They're picking them apart for being different. Yes, so different that it makes us uncomfortable, and more than a little DAFT... but nonetheless, simply abnormal.

Frankly, I commend Michael's childish sentiments. That doesn't mean *I* think a forty year old man should be sleeping in the same room or the same bed with someone else's (or their own) children... but if the children are being in no way harmed and have an honest friendship with another human they can identify with (as strange as that may be), I don't really see anything WRONG with it. In fact, Michael seems to think of sex as more of a punishment than anything else. So why don't we just leave sex out of the equation and believe what he says: that he just REALLY likes kids and DOESN'T molest them. So what? It's embarrasing that we live in a society that teaches children to be ashamed of and fear everything about their childhood that they have to love. It's embarrasing that adults can't show affection for children. It's embarrasing that as a consequence, generations are so distanced from each other and can in no way relate. Don't you think that maybe, if parents felt and acted the same way this "strange" man does with their children, the world would be a happier place. Don't we need more friends and rolemodels for children? Isn't that what we're asking for? We're asking for all this in an environment where teachers are no longer allowed to touch or reassure their students and parents are so far from understanding the minds of their children that they can't do anything but be ashamed. Maybe if parents pretended to take the time to BE children for a moment each day, their kids wouldn't take guns to school and blow the brains out of their classmates. Maybe we should all stop trying to be so FUCKING ADULT and realize that just because we're twenty or forty doesn't mean we can't be all those other ages we have inside, too.

Obviously Michael's called his fortress "Neverland" for a reason. Obviously he recognizes he has a fixation with being around children and acting like a child. Strange, yes. Interesting, yes. Deadly? No. I thought I might scream when Bashir, struggling up a tree behind Michael (who has just proclaimed his undying love for climing trees), asked if Michael thinks it's inappropriate to behave this way. If anyone ever stops me mid-treeclimb when I'm in my forties and asks me aren't I being a little juvenile, I think I'll just kick my sneakers down on their head, howl like a baboon, and laugh. Questions like that only prove the world is a sad place for anyone with an unusual dream.

I suppose I find this ageism particularly aggrivating because I'm friends with a number of men who've dealt with accusations along a similar front, both in age and gender issues. Saying someone should be more "adult" or more "masculine" isn't a way to get them to be a more functional person, it's a way to get them to conform to your standard of what "right," "good," and "normal" are.

For a time, there was a picture of Justin and his dad on display in the window of a photographer's shop in Helena, Montana. The photographer had chosen a particular image to display wherein a young Justin (7 or 8) was sitting with Tim and both of them (it was a torso shot) had the appearance of being nude. If anything, it was tasteful body photography (and I'm sure they were clothed elsewhere, as if it really matters). Needless to say, it was requested that the photograph be removed from display because it was offensive to someone who couldn't keep their mind out of the gutter.

What does this say about the people who censure perfectly innocent behavior because it makes them think dark, nasty, sexual thoughts? Probably that THEY'RE the perverts and the ones who end up hurting each other in their frustration and fear. Um... I mean, just LOOK at the ENTIRE Catholic Church! I'm so sick of everyone being so fucking narrowminded. I'm tired of bigotry and victimization and closetation of all of our fears and desires. All of you are freaks, and there's nothing WRONG with that... you're just afraid to admit it!!!!

And rightly so, I agree, after watching this broadcast. I'm simply disgusted by this journalist's trashy, biased portrayal of a very happily, innocently, freakish man. A journalist could make Michael look any way you wanted... albeit, he wouldn't be any less WEIRD for it... but Bashir's documentary had a very obviously ominous angle to it. Bashir is not someone who went into this contract "open-minded and objective" as he'd claim to be. He is someone who went in with opinions he only attempted to further seed in the rest of his viewers with very pointed, leading questions. I wanted to smack Bashir. So MJ is a freak! So what?? Ask him something interesting about himself, act like you've been listening to what he's been saying!! Don't just beat the dead horse of media sensationalism one more time and focus on the same fifty million questions that have already been asked and that Michael knows he'll be crushed for answering IN ANY WAY.

And talk about pounding it into our heads, what was the deal with Bashir asking Michael the same question four or five times. "Are you SURE you haven't had plastic surgery?" "You REALLY don't think it's inappropriate for a grown man to have sleepovers with children?" Bashir, you KNOW he answered the question the first time! You just want to pound it into our heads that YOU think he's LYING and that YOU think he's WEIRD. There's a different between expressing an opinion and forcing it down our throats. How about stepping beyond what YOU think for a minute and asking him what HE thinks?

In part, I'm really pissed off because this reminded me a lot of a BBC broadcast I recently watched while doing research for my "furries" piece in the next issue of the OV. The female reporter finds herself in a potentially awkward situation with some really exuberant "furs" and before you know it, the piece has turned from an informative broadcast about an alternative lifestyle to someone's idea of an opinion piece, complete with voiceovers and ominous music.

I don't blame anyone for feeling awkward and uncomfortable stepping out of their social boundaries-- after all, they are deeply ingrained-- but everyone should at least recognize that these are their OWN boundaries and that they perhaps DO NOT EXIST for other, equally functional, non-dangerous, happy, caring human beings. I don't think people should have to be comfortable with things that make them feel weird... simply mature enough to remain tolerant of behavior that isn't harming anyone.

At least the reporter in the furry piece is nice about her discomfort and acknowledges to her subjects that she doesn't really understand... but Bashir was just an inconsiderate ASS and took no shame in expressing how his own "acceptable" views overshadowed Michael's. It makes me so mad watching these "journalistic" chronicles and listening to the reporters slip in phrases like "I began to feel highly uncomfortable when...", "by far the most disturbing part of our interview..." and "this whole thing had taken an ominous turn..." For god's sake, let your viewers figure that out for themselves!! Let them draw their own opinions! Let your subject speak about what they like and dislike about their lifestyle and other people's opinions rather than guiding your audience's emotions with your baited questions. Isn't that the point????

Sick, stupid, journalists. Shame on you Bashir, you're a god-awful disgrace to the conscientious, objective reporter. You're not worth the trust that man put in you. Your reporting skills are foul-mouthed, pointedly misleading, and victimizing. Your "documentary" was a mockery of investigative reporting that wanted only to be sensationalist and cruel. You're a sheep, Bashir. And you just made a hell of a lot of money. When you go back home to count it and wonder why your life feels so empty and you feel so dirty and betrayed, I hope you ask yourself when the last time you climbed a tree was or when you last identified with a child. Maybe you'll find out there isn't so much harm in it after all.

That being said, (yes, I feel better) I personally have no desire to surround myself with flocks of eight-year-olds, or sleep anywhere near them. But if someone else wants to have a pig pile and all consenting parties are happy-- meaning no one's being paid off, molested, or having anything but a rather socially unacceptable slumber party-- I say have a ball! This world needs more freaks. And gosh, I think I just ought to become more freaky.

To all of you I know out there who aren't afraid of your taboos, or who are learning more and more to accept them, hats off. I'm seriously proud of you. May you forever embrace what makes you happy: whether it be fetish, fixation or simply freakish fun. I hope you join me in this big, fat, FUCK YOU to Martin Bashir and the other narrow-minded, pompous, money-grubbing shock-journalists out there. Someday they'll choke on their conformity and die alone and unfulfilled. Hell, I might die alone and unfulfilled... but at least I'll have had fun along the way.

[NOTE: I would just like to amend this, before I get my ass kicked, to say that everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. If you think Jackson is a child-rapist pornographer, cool... I simply don't believe that the media should be broadcasting their opinions into everyone's sheeplike brains like that.]

[FURTHER ADDENDUM: I wasn't really angry when I wrote this, despite how it sounds... I was just worked up. I like to hear myself talk. And I'd like to add that I don't particularly admire or respect MJ, just the fact that he's sticking to his guns. I really don't think he's fit to parent, just to run around like a goofball and play with kids if he wants. I'm actually rather afraid for his children... they don't need an attention-starved, emotionally imature father. Yes, children need a friend in a parent but also a rolemodel. I do think Michael's parenting skills are lacking even though I honestly believe he loves his children. There has to be a happy medium somewhere.]