Michael Jackson Tribute: “You Rock My World” by Ben Westhoff
July 1st, 2009
Ben Westhoff is a regular contributor to Creative Loafing and the Village Voice. His blog, The Healthiest Man in Park Slope, has been widely lauded as the Internet’s finest portal regarding all things John Corbett.
Aside from “Thriller,” most Michael Jackson videos are terrible. “Billie Jean” is a clumsy, pretentious mess, “Dirty Diana” borrows its big-hair/concert spectacle atmosphere from the cock rock culture of its time and “Smooth Criminal” plays like it’s being fast-forwarded. “Black or White” has a guitar-playing Macaulay Culkin turning his speakers up to 11 and blowing his dad (George Wendt) out of the house, but it also has Jackson dancing with mask-clad African indigenous types, surely to the chagrin of Greg Tate. Most everything in the “You Rock My World” video rings false as well. It’s hard enough to believe that Michael Jackson and Chris Tucker hang out, for starters, and it only gets more absurd when they refuse to pay for their $4 rice bowls, Tucker makes a point of referring to MJ as a “black” person, they gawk at women and MJ plays the tough guy. It seems to have employed a focus group in its attempts to portray Michael as anything but a effete, billionaire, skin-bleaching wuss.
