Welcome to a new semi-regular segment on The Punch, where we try to extract something meaningful from the week that was.
In yet another week dominated by the carbon tax and financial turmoil, the other big story was the guilty verdict on Michael Jackson’s personal doctor, Conrad Murray, who slowly poisoned Jacko with a toxic mix of anaesthetic and sedatives.
Jacko wanted a cure for insomnia so he could rest up for his imminent comeback tour. The thing is, why did he need drugs at all? According to the man himself, dancing could solve all problems. Let’s examine the video evidence…
Look at this still from the Beat It video. The two gang-leaders are tethered together and knife fighting. Blood is set to flow. Then along comes Jacko and encourages everyone to dance instead. Good times, boogie.
Those movie zombies were too scary for Jacko’s girlfriend in Thriller. When real zombies struck outside the cinema, MJ was in quite a sticky situation. But it was nothing a devilish crotch grab or two couldn’t fix.
In Bad, Jacko returned to his old neighbourhood to a cool welcome. But with a few snappy moves in the subway station, he showed his old mates that he was still super “bad”. As in, super awesome.
In Billie Jean, the problem of an alleged love child was easily dealt with by a quick moonwalk on an illuminated piece of sidewalk.
Smooth Criminal is the story of a woman who is the victim of a violent break and enter. Never fear. Jacko and his mates leaned over in perfect synchronicity, which we can only assume helped nab the dastardly perp.
Other artists obviously use snappy dance moves in their videos, but mostly it is about pure spectacle or sexual titillation. With Jacko, the dancing was so often about conflict resolution. About one-upmanship. About problem solving.
If only he had been able to dance that evil doctor out of his mansion.
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