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MJFC Interview With Dr. Willa Stillwater
(7-10-2011) MJFC's Joie Collins recently had a chat with Dr. Willa Stillwater, author of the new book "M Poetica: Michael Jackson's Art of Connection and Defiance." The book examines Michael Jackson's short films, taking an in depth look at some of the King of Pop's greatest videos. Dr. Stillwater spoke about her affection for Michael Jackson, her book and the controversy surrounding it.
C: Can you tell us a little about your background? You have a Ph.D. in English Literature, is that right?
WS: That’s right, so I’m pretty comfortable with academic writing. And I’ve done some technical writing and some journalism, and a little fiction, just for fun, and I taught writing and literature classes for years. So I’m pretty comfortable as a writer, but this book was a whole new thing for me. It’s kind of an odd duck in some ways because it takes a close look at Michael Jackson’s visual art — his videos mainly — but it also pulls in some cultural history and personal history and even a little crime writing, and all of that was a real stretch for me. In fact, this book stretched me further than I really wanted to go sometimes.
JC: Would you describe yourself as a Michael Jackson fan?
WS: Yes, definitely. I just turned 50, and I’ve enjoyed his music since "Rockin' Robin" was on the radio 40 years ago. So in that sense I’m a fan, but it also feels much more personal than that. You know, I grew up during the civil rights protests of the sixties, and they integrated the local schools when I was in third grade, and that was exciting in some ways. We were the generation that was going to change everything, and that was very exciting. But it was also really confusing in some ways. People were getting hurt and killed and attacked by police dogs, and you’d actually see it on the news sometimes, and that part was really scary. So it was a pretty confusing time to be a kid, and I don’t know if this makes any sense but, I feel like Michael Jackson helped me through all that. I would talk to him in my imagination about things that were troubling me; something that I’d heard at school or I’d seen on the news, and he helped me figure it out and work through it, just by being who he was — this friendly, sensitive kid I felt I could talk to. That probably sounds kind of silly coming from an adult, but it was really important to me as a kid, and I still feel this deep sense of gratitude toward him. So, I’m a fan, but it’s also deeper and more personal than just appreciating his music.
JC: What made you want to write this book? What do you hope it will accomplish?
WS: I didn’t want to write this book. I didn’t want to at all. It was too personal. I’m much more comfortable writing about 18th Century novels and things like that where I can kind of stand back and look at things from a safe distance. But a friend made me write it. It’s kind of a long story, but the upshot was that she decided I should write this book and was very persistent about it. She’s a second grade teacher so [she] has a lot of experience getting balky people to do things they don’t necessarily want to do. So she kept pushing and finally I got started, and then once I really got going with it I pretty much became obsessed with it and couldn’t stop. The closer I looked at his [Michael Jackson's] work, the more I saw. His work is so rich, with so much there to discover and explore and it just fascinated me.
Gradually, as I got deeper and deeper into it and completely immersed myself in his work for a while, I realized that he was creating an entirely new type of art and a new definition of art, one that really expands the boundaries of what we typically think of as art. I think that’s one reason he was so horribly misunderstood — no one knew how to interpret what he was doing because it was so radically new and different. One thing that really helped me is that I have a background in literary theory, and that gave me an extra set of tools to help crack some things open and see his work in a different way. And when you approach his work that way, it’s just amazing. He really was off-the-charts brilliant, and had such a huge cultural impact. And I strongly believe he was the most important artist of our time; not just musically, but also in terms of visual art, "high art," Warhol-type work, whatever you want to call it.
JC: You used a lot of literary theory in your book when looking at Michael's work and a few publishers took issue with that. Can you explain how the controversy surrounding your book began?
WS: Well, as I said, my background is English liturature and literary theory, so I just naturally drew on that background when looking at Michael Jackson’s work, and I felt it was necessary to bring in some elements of literary theory when writing the book to help explain in detail what he was doing and why. And apparently a couple of publishers were concerned about that because literary theory is a fairly specialized field. You know, there’s a lot I don’t understand about organic chemistry or astrophysics or classical music, simply because those aren’t my fields. And it’s true that some of the ideas in the book are fairly complicated and even a little unsettling if you haven’t looked at things that way before.
But I absolutely disagree with those publishers. I wrote this book with a general audience in mind because I felt these ideas would be interesting and accessible to a general audience. I also think that using literary theory as a tool for looking at Michael Jackson’s work, especially his videos and visual art, allows you to see them in a whole new way, and see things you didn’t see before, and to me that’s so valuable. It’s led me, personally, to a much deeper understanding and appreciation of his work, and I wanted to share that with others.
To be honest, I really have become kind of obsessed with all this. It’s so important to me to get these ideas out there and help change the conversation about Michael Jackson, in part because he was so misunderstood. So when four publishers said they were interested and wanted to look at the book, I was thrilled. And then all four turned it down because they said they didn’t think it would sell. It was so disappointing. And their reasons just kind of irritated me, frankly, especially this one comment that really got under my skin. And I repeated that comment in a moment of frustration, and I shouldn’t have, and I regret it. It’s become a distraction from the real topic, which is Michael Jackson’s art and what he was doing through his art, and how important and amazing it is.
JC: You talk a lot about cultural narratives in your book. Can you explain what cultural narratives are and how they shape the world we live in?
WS: A cultural narrative is simply a story we as a people use to help explain or understand our world, and it tends to be a story that is repeated over and over again. For example, there are over 700 versions of the Cinderella story from around the world, but together they all form one big cultural narrative, though different cultures tend to have somewhat different variations of the main story. The interesting question is why is that story so important that we keep repeating it over and over again, for generations? What is it saying that’s so important to us?
Another defining aspect of cultural narratives is that they have fairly wide acceptance. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they're true. It may be, but it might not be. The Biblical creation story is a cultural narrative, and so is the theory of the evolution of species. They are competing cultural narratives, and they can’t both be true unless we’re talking metaphorically, and even then they're in conflict because they support different world views. And even if a cultural narrative isn’t true, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have real effects. Racism is a cultural narrative — it’s nothing more than a story we as a culture tell ourselves — but just because it’s "only" a story, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have real consequences. The consequences of telling that same story over and over again are very real, obviously.
One cultural narrative I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is the story of a popular performer’s life and career — you know, the story of A Star is Born. We have this story of a talented young artist who is discovered, rises quickly, has an exhilarating moment at the pinnacle of stardom, and then comes crashing down. And we tell that same story over and over again, from Edgar Allan Poe to Brittany Spears. We just keep telling that same story again and again. And that story is tragic enough, but the really tragic thing is that if a star doesn’t succumb to drug addiction or something like that and come crashing down on their own, then we turn against them and shoot them down. I really don’t know where that cannibalistic urge comes from to destroy some of our most talented and most popular artists, but we need to rewrite that story somehow because it’s brutal.
You know, in some ways Charlie Chaplin created the American film industry, and he was incredibly talented and absolutely beloved by millions. And then in 1942, I think it was, he was accused of fathering a child. There was this very messy, very public trial, and a paternity test was done that showed conclusively that he was not the father — and it absolutely didn’t matter, either in court or in terms of public opinion. He was found guilty and ordered to pay child support, and he was treated like a "moral leper," as one critic put it, pretty much for the next 30 to 40 years of his life. Michael Jackson said in an interview one time that sometimes he felt like he was Charlie Chaplin, and I can see why. The parallels between them are uncanny in a lot of ways! And I wonder how much of that is coincidence, and how much is us, as a culture, forcing both their lives to fit the same pre-existing cultural narrative. I look at them, and in some says it feels like the arc of Michael Jackson’s life story was already written before he was even born, and we just sort of shoe-horned him into it.
JC: That's a really interesting observation. I read your book and was fascinated by what you had to say about the plastic surgery scandal and how that particular cultural narrative is sort of ingrained into our collective consciousness. And when you explain it, it sounds so simple and so obvious but yet, the world as a whole somehow seems to have missed it. Why do you believe we so easily overlooked what was right in front of us the whole time?
WS: It’s because our cultural narratives shape our beliefs, and our beliefs shape our perceptions. Michael Jackson called this "conditioning." We have been culturally conditioned to expect a superstar to crack and fall to pieces after a while, and Michael Jackson was well aware of that. So he gave us exactly what we expected. As he said in 'Is It Scary,' "I'm gonna be exactly what you wanna see." Granted, the plastic surgery idea was a bit of a twist on the theme — as far as I know, no superstar had fallen apart in quite that way before — but it was a brilliant way of reflecting our expectations back at us because the effects of plastic surgery are so visual; more so than, say, drug addiction. It really highlighted just how much our own expectations shape our perceptions. And he really was absolutely brilliant. Frankly, if someone told me he built a nuclear submarine in his basement, I'd probably believe it. He could pretty much do anything he set his mind to, apparently.
JC: It's not often we see a positive book that looks at Michael's artistry such as yours does. The only other book I can think of to compare "M Poetica" to would be Joe Vogel's upcoming book, "Man in the Music" and the fans are very excited for that release. But where Vogel focuses mainly on the music, your book focuses mostly on the short films and Michael's visual art. Your observations of his short films are really interesting and fun! What made you want to dig deeper into his visual art as opposed to the music?
WS: Well, frankly, if I tried to write about Michael Jackson’s music, it would be a pretty short book. I might be able to squeak out a paragraph, but I’m pretty clueless about the technical aspects of music. That’s one reason I’m looking forward to Joe Vogel’s new book so much. I loved his book about 'Earth Song.' You know, I wanted to do something kind of special June 25th, so I spent the evening reading his book and listening to 'Earth Song,' and for me, it was just the perfect way to commemorate that day. And one reason I liked it so much is that I don’t have a strong background in music. I don’t know a B-flat minor chord from Adam’s housecat. And Vogel doesn’t just identify those kinds of details but talks about why they’re important — how Michael Jackson used them to convey meaning or evoke a certain mood or intensify the experience of listening to his music, and I love that! That’s an aspect of Michael Jackson’s work I can’t figure out on my own because I don’t have that kind of background, so Vogel’s book kind of opens a door for me and lets me see into a world I don’t normally have access to.
I also really like the fact that Vogel isn’t afraid to cross that artificial boundary between popular art and high art. He’s comfortable talking about Byron and Milton and Picasso and Tchaikovsky, as well as Toto and Bob Dylan and Pink Floyd, and I think that’s crucially important when talking about Michael Jackson’s work. Almost everything that's been written about Michael Jackson so far looks at him just as a popular entertainer, and it’s true, he was an incredible entertainer. But if that’s all you're seeing, than you’re just getting kind of a cartoon outline of him and his work and what it means, and missing all these other layers of meaning. Michael Jackson wasn’t afraid to cross that boundary between high and low art, and Vogel isn’t either, and I think that’s one reason his reading of 'Earth Song' feels so much richer.
JC: So you chose to examine Jackson's visual art over the music because you feel more comfortable in that field. Do you have a background in art history or in the study of film?
WS: No, I don't, and it would be interesting to hear what someone who has studied art history or film has to say because I have a feeling there is a lot there that I'm not seeing! I approached his visual art more in terms of narrative, and that seemed to be a good fit in a lot of ways because Michael Jackson's videos, especially, are very narrative driven. As he said in at least one interview, he liked for his videos to tell a story with a beginning, a middle, and an ending. So I approached the narrative structure he sets up in his videos and the ideas he expresses through those narratives just as I would approach the narrative structure of literature.
I was also very interested in how he uses his videos to shift or rewrite existing cultural narratives. For example, 'Beat It' and 'Bad' rewrite 'West Side Story,' which rewrites 'Romeo and Juliet,' which rewrites earlier works, and each retelling shifts that narrative in significant ways to tell us something important and different about factional or gang violence. 'Smooth Criminal' rewrites 'Girl Hunt Ballet,' which rewrites "I, the Jury." All three tell the story of a woman murdered by a man who supposedly loves her, but "I, the Jury" is brutal and basically says she deserved to die. 'Girl Hunt Ballet' parodies the violence of "I, the Jury," but re-enacts it anyway. And then 'Smooth Criminal' completely reverses and undermines that narrative, both through visual cues and through the lyrics, asking again and again, "Annie, are you Ok? Will you tell us that you're Ok?" So while "I, the Jury" urged us to hate this woman and even support her murder, and 'Girl Hunt Ballet' expressed indifference, 'Smooth Criminal' encourages us to care about her!
JC: In your book, you do spend quite a bit of time discussing the events of 1993. Can you tell us why you feel that episode in Michael's life is important when examining his later work?
WS: I had no intention of going into all that when I started. I just wanted to write about his videos, because they were so interesting to me, and the ideas he was expressing through them were so important. I never dreamed I’d be going into the allegations and all that. Plus, my son was 12, just the age that little boy was in 1993, so that was another reason to keep it all at a distance. But one of the things I told myself when I started this project was that I was going to try to be a passenger as much as possible, and let Michael Jackson be the driver and kind of show me what he wanted to show me.
It seemed to me that so many of the articles I’d read were more about the reviewer’s ideas than Michael Jackson’s ideas, and I can understand where that comes from. I see art interpretation as a conversation between the artist and the audience, and it’s pretty easy when you’re sitting alone at a computer to let yourself dominate the conversation. But it seemed to me that Michael Jackson was getting buried under this flood of opinions, and his views and ideas were being lost in the process.
So I really wanted to take a backseat as much as possible and let him take the lead, if I could. And his later work kept leading me back to 1993. If you step back and look at his work overall, there’s his work before 1993, and there’s his work after 1993, and between them there’s the Grand Canyon. And as much as I tried to ignore it, it’s kind of hard to ignore the Grand Canyon.
So I think you simply can’t understand his later work if you don’t know what happened. But once you have that background, his later work becomes so much more meaningful. For example, the last words Evan Chandler ever said to Michael Jackson were "You’re going down." He pointed his finger at him and said,"You’re going down," and those words echo throughout 'Blood on the Dance Floor,' both the album and the video. That’s one reason that video is so chilling to me. Here’s Michael Jackson, this brilliant artist who saw dance as a spiritual force; a revitalizing force running throughout history, and now there’s blood on the dance floor and dance itself has been corrupted. Imagine what that must have felt like to him. And then there are the repeated words in the background, "I’m going down, baby," echoing what Evan Chandler said to him. The whole thing is so horrifying. It just chills me to the marrow to think about what he was going through then, and having to bear up under all those false accusations.
So I began tentatively looking at what happened in 1993, just to learn enough to help me understand his work, but at some point I became caught up in the case itself, and found myself really struggling with it. For one thing, my grandpa was a sheriff, so was my uncle, and I’m very proud of my family and know how difficult that kind of work is. People tell conflicting stories all the time, and it’s really hard sorting that out sometimes. So I kept looking at this case and kept trying to make allowances for the investigators’ actions, but at some point I just had to say, I’m sorry, but you guys completely mismanaged this case. In fact, I’m stunned at how badly they mismanaged it.
JC: So you believe Michael was innocent?
WS: Absolutely. My grandpa said to me once, "People don’t do things out of character." And I really believe that. I believe there is such a thing as character, and that people tend to act in accordance with their character. And I know in my bones that Michael Jackson would never abuse a child because it’s not his character. When I look at his work, over and over again I see this incredible habit of empathy. His first impulse in almost any situation is to immediately look at it from the other person’s point of view. And if you have that habit of empathy, you can’t abuse someone. How could he abuse a little boy when part of his mind is inside that little boy’s mind, witnessing the situation from his point of view? That wouldn’t be pleasurable for him, it would be excruciating. It would be excruciating for anyone with a habit of empathy. He simply couldn’t do it. It would crack his mind in two.
Another thing my grandpa told me is that you have to be smart to be in law enforcement. He said you can’t just strut around with a gun and talk tough. You have to understand human nature and you have to be smart, because some people will try to play you. They’ll try to use the police as a tool to get back at their ex-wife or their neighbor or whomever. And I’m sorry, but the police in this case were not smart and they let themselves get played. The father’s story is full of contradictions and outright lies, but the police ignored all that and swallowed his story whole, and they gave that father and his lawyer everything they needed to succeed. Michael Jackson would never have settled this case if the police hadn’t gotten involved and handled this case the way they did. In fact, if those police had intentionally set out to help an extortionist succeed, they could not have done a more thorough job of it. It’s just appalling. And the only explanation I can come up with for why the police acted the way they did is that they never once considered the possibility that Michael Jackson was innocent.
Anyway, I’m sorry to go on and on about that. As my grandpa would have said, I went after that question like I was killing snakes — just kept whacking and whacking at it, trying to kill this issue and make it go away! It's just so obvious to me that he didn't abuse that little boy, and the evidence clearly shows that.
JC: That's ok. I know we'd all like for that issue to just go away! I came away from your book feeling as though I had learned a few things about art and about Michael Jackson that I had never considered before. "M Poetica" left me thinking about some of the new ideas you introduce about Michael for several days after I read it. Your book and others like it, such as Mr. Vogel's "Man in the Music," are helping to change the conversation about Michael Jackson away from the tabloid and scandal and toward more of a focus on Jackson's art and his genius. Can you tell us why it is so important to you to be able to do that? Why is it important for you to get these ideas out there?
WS: Well, it’s important because a horrible injustice occurred — the kind of injustice you can’t help but feel a sense of moral outrage about. And I feel the need to speak out about that if I can. But also, it’s important to reconsider Michael Jackson’s work and start to understand what he was doing because it has such profound implications, both artistically and culturally. He really was creating an entirely new way of thinking about art and how it relates to social change, and that impacts not only how we see and interpret him, but the avenues open to artists who come after him.
JC: I know many fans, myself included, would love to have a copy of your book for our MJ Libraries. Will you continue to try to get your book published in the standard book format instead of just the electronic format that it's being offered in at the moment?
WS: Definitely. I would love for it to be published. Though I have to say, one nice thing about self publishing is that it gave me complete control over the text. I have a hard time saying no to people sometimes, and when I would think about this book being published, I kept imagining some enthusiastic young editor with lots of ideas wanting to make a lot of changes to the book to make it better in their opinion, and me just having to say 'no, no, no' and crush their little editorial spirit. I really fretted about how to handle it because I do have very strong opinions about this book and what I want it to say and how I want it to say it, and I didn’t want to make a lot of changes. So, the entire time those publishers were looking at it, I would go for long walks and just practice saying 'no, no, no, that’s an interesting idea but no.' And self publishing let me bypass all that. No one has juiced the book up to make it sell better, or watered down the ideas to make them more palatable. For better or worse, this book says exactly what I want it to say.
MJFC would like to thank Dr. Stillwater for taking the time to speak to us and we wish her all the best in getting her wonderful book published. It is interesting and thought-provoking books like hers that will hopefully help to bring about the long overdue respect that Michael Jackson's artistry so richly deserves!
"M Poetica: Michael Jackson's Art of Connection and Defiance" is available for purchase in our MJFC Shop, now powered by Amazon.com It can be downloaded to any e-reading device or computer.
