Abstract: In the seventeen years since his death, Michael Jackson has received some long-overdue attention from scholarly authors. In this month’s MJ Studies Today column, Kerry Hennigan looks at three examples of scholarly essays on Jackson – by Jacqueline Warwick, Susan Fast and Fabio Pastore, whose peer-reviewed work has appeared in various academic journals and is currently accessible online.
Column by Kerry Hennigan, editor of the free monthly newsletter A Candle for Michael, administrator of the fan group “Michael Jackson’s Short Film Ghosts” on Facebook, and an MJ blogger on WordPress. Kerry holds Certificates in the Archaeology of the Ancient World and the Archaeology of Ancient Britain from Cambridge University’s Professional and Continuing Education unit and is passionate about Viking longships and the development of maritime trade routes from the Bronze Age to the Early Medieval period.
REFERENCE AS:
Hennigan, Kerry. “MJ Studies Today CXXVIII: Academic narratives on Michael Jackson – a Selection. Part 1: From child star to “Dangerous” adult.” The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies Vol 13, No. 1 (2026). https://michaeljacksonstudies.org/mj-studies-today-cxxviii/
The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies asks that you acknowledge The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies as the source of our Content; if you use material from The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies online, we request that you link directly to the stable URL provided. If you use our content offline, please credit the source as follows: “Courtesy of The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies.” All content is copyright-protected. Any unauthorised reproduction, redistribution, or use for artificial intelligence, machine learning, or automated data collection is strictly prohibited.
Academic narratives on Michael Jackson – a Selection. Part 1: From child star to “Dangerous” adult. By Kerry Hennigan
Photo collage © Kerry Hennigan
It has often been stated, including here in the Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies, that academic material on Michael Jackson was negligible at the time of his death. That this has changed is due to the work of a few individuals who have taken the trouble to conscientiously examine the artist’s life and career and the art he created.
Understanding the artist as a human being allows for greater understanding of their work. This is particularly true of Jackson in his later years, as his songwriting increasingly reflected what he endured as a celebrity who suffered from increasingly intrusive media invading his privacy. Critical analysis of the art requires scholarship that is not distracted or diverted by sensationalised, tabloid-style headlines based on inaccuracies or pure invention.
There are now peer-reviewed academic journal articles on Jackson which are worth reading and which can be accessed online free of charge. Three of these are highlighted below, being examples that analyse various aspects of Jackson’s art and career and manage, for the most part, to get it right.
Jacqueline Warwick’s article, “You Can’t Win, Child, but You Can’t Get Out of the Game”: Michael Jackson’s Transition from Child Star to Superstar,” argues that “his work as a child prodigy is crucial to understanding his adult career.” [1] Warwick believes that Jackson was presented to the public in a manner that “connected him to cliched images of child stars of 1930s Hollywood and also drew on stereotypes of black masculinity deriving from blackface minstrelsy.”
Jim Crow and “black minstrelsy” often get mentioned in discourses on Black artists like Jackson, but without the explanation that is essential to generate understanding for readers who did not grow up in the culture. Warwick provides a potted history of the origins of Jim Crow and the negative stereotypes that Jackson and other talented Black artists had inherited from Hollywood’s “golden age” and which they had to negotiate or overcome.
Warwick also considers Jackson in context of stereotypes of black masculinity. “His transition through puberty created anxiety, as the attributes considered appealing to a little boy would strike audiences differently coming from an adult.” [2]
According to Susan Fast, “the irreconcilability of Jackson’s differences (gendered, racialized, generational), both musical and biographical, made him in effect unknowable, producing profound anxiety in many. This accounts for the particularly venomous media coverage of his life.” In her article “Difference that Exceeded Understanding: Remembering Michael Jackson (1958-2009)”, Fast suggests that his difference as a performer “is what made people around the globe flock to him from the time he was a little boy, what eventually gave him the biggest selling record of all time…and what made us call him a genius.” [3]
She highlights the undeniable qualities of his voice, noting how it changed to accommodate different musical genres. “The different vocal qualities he could summon were irreconcilable; he could sound dirtier than James Brown on one track and smooth as silk, like Smokey Robinson, or Barbara Streisand, on the next.” [4]
Fast comments on his abilities as a dancer and live performer, as evident in his performances, citing as examples the “Live In Bucharest” concert from Jackson’s Dangerous world tour, and his 1993 Super Bowl half time show. “I listened. I watched. This is how I wanted to remember Michael Jackson’s difference, as a virtuoso musician and dancer.” [5] However, Fast admits that it isn’t possible to remember Jackson’s difference as an artist “without also remembering all the pain and controversy that surrounded him and how so much of this must also be understood as the result of his difference…” [6]
Fabio Pastore sees Jackson as “the interpreter par excellence of the anxieties of our time, between vulnerability and vitality.” [7] In his essay “Michael Jackson and women: a musical approach between vulnerability and vitality,” Pastore focuses on “a thematic field that often recurs in [Jackson’s] catalogue…the ambivalence of the female figure, seductive and fascinating on one hand, source of anguish and paranoia on the other.” [8] The songs Pastore uses in this analysis are: “This Place Hotel (a.k.a. Heartbreak hotel)“, “Billie Jean“, “Dirty Diana“, “Dangerous“ and “Blood on the Dance Floor.“
Using these songs, Pastore analyses methods and dynamics “exploring the phonological, syntactic and pragmatic dimensions, the characteristic non-verbal vocalisations” i.e. the screams and hiccups, “and [Jackson’s] distinctive way of singing.” [9] The songs chosen are significant for taking the reader from the heady days of the Thriller album of the early 1980s (“Billie Jean”) to the latter half of the 1990s (“Blood on the Dance Floor”) thus encompassing the bulk of Jackson’s recorded material released during his lifetime.
The work of this small sample of academic authors, whether the reader agrees or disagrees with their theoretical approaches or conclusions, is a reminder of the value of having multiple, informed voices contributing to Michael Jackson studies. Their work demonstrates that Jackson’s life and career can be examined through a range of perspectives, from race, gender and celebrity culture to the musical and linguistic qualities of his songs. Such approaches offer a more nuanced understanding of an artist whose work has too often been discussed through sensationalised media narratives rather than serious analysis.
Jackson’s art was eclectic and ambitious, encompassing recorded music, film and live performance, and its use of these media does not make it any less worthy of academic study. His “difference,” both as an artist and as an individual, provides considerable scope for further examination. As scholarship on Jackson continues to develop, there is an opportunity to move beyond the headlines and to engage more seriously with the complexity, originality and enduring significance of his work.
Kerry Hennigan
14 August 2026
Sources:
[1] Warwick, J. (2012). “You Can’t Win, Child, but You Can’t Get Out of the Game”: Michael Jackson’s Transition from Child Star to Superstar. Popular Music and Society, 35(2), 241–259. Accessed 12 Aug 2026 at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03007766.2011.618052
[2] Ibid.
[3] Fast, S. (2010). Difference that Exceeded Understanding: Remembering Michael Jackson (1958–2009). Popular Music and Society, 33(2), 259–266. Accessed 13 Aug 2026 at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03007761003640574
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Pastore, Fabio. (2022) “Michael Jackson and women: a musical approach between vulnerability and vitality.” Nakan. A Journal of Cultural Studies #2 April 2022. Issue edited by Isabelle Petitjean. Accessed 13 Aug 2026 at https://nakanjournal.com/michael-jackson-and-women-a-musical-approach-between-vulnerability-and-vitality/#_ftn28
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
Illustration: “academia academia academia” compiled by Kerry Hennigan. No infringement of photographic copyright is intended in this not for profit, educational exercise.