Taking Thriller Further: Michael Jackson’s Career as Mask & Screen
New research by Andrew Broertjes, published in Popular Music and Society, draws on Kobena Mercer’s article “Monster Metaphor: Notes on Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’”, in which he describes Michael Jackson’s face as a mask on which society marks its own preoccupations. Broertjes takes this theory further, applying it to Jackson’s career as a whole. Focusing on two high-profile, controversial African American leaders; civil rights campaigner Reverend Al Sharpton and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, Andrew Broertjes argues that sections of the black community used Jackson as a screen