Philip Marchand has a fascinating article here (National Post – The Afterword blog) where he argues that Michael Jackson “had a grudge against adulthood” and actually lived out the “American man-child” stereotype found in many classic American novels (from Catcher in the Rye to Moby Dick).
An excerpt:
When Michael Jackson told Oprah Winfrey that he liked to tuck children into bed and that it was all innocent and sweet, viewers no doubt snickered in disbelief. Yet Jackson could have cited, as precedent, Ishmael’s relationship with the cannibal harpooner Queequeg. In Melville’s novel, the two share a bed, and Ishmael proclaims, “In our hearts’ honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg — a cosy, loving pair.†Even with Queequeg’s “now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs over mine, and then drawing them back,†Ishmael would be horrified to think others might label this as homosexuality. It was all sweet and innocent.
