Critique Leave Me Alone Michael Jackson

Review of “Leave me alone”, Michael Jackson

Even though he died ten years ago, the singer Michael Jackson has been recently facing a controversy. That’s why we decided to take a look back at the most iconic moment of his musical career. Finally we re-watched the music video of the song « Leave me alone ». Immediately we understood the hidden message of the video and the lyrics, and knew that today more than ever we had to share the review of this « masterpiece ».

The video is literally mesmerizing, since the first seconds we see many colors, elements, everything is in motion. That’s when we realized that nothing was here randomly because as viewers we still can understand the signification of every element even if we’re overwhelmed by the lot of information in a short time.

Reading the lyrics, Michael appears talking about his former relationship with a girl “there was time I used to say girl I need you”, ”you really hurt”. In fact the girl symbolizes the press. Indeed, like a romantic relationship the singer’s relationship with the press has been through a lot of phases. Once he was idolized by the journalists (his face is on the dollar bill in the video) but now they go beyond the limits of respect so as to hit the headlines using his name. Leading them to invent the craziest stories about him, at the beginning of the videos we can read on the tabloids “Michael frozen for 50 years; Space age diet; Bubble the chimp” etc. This is why Michael does everything he can to escape them. The dollar bill also represents the money that gutter press earn by publishing gossips about him. However despite riding a rocket the journalists who are represented by dogs in costume succeed in following him everywhere he goes. A scene that really brought our attention was the one in which a dog (a journalist) was tying Michael, meaning that the singer is no longer free, that the journalist won’t stop going farther and farther. Also, Michael is comparing himself as a circus freak, he shows an advertising to see Elephant Man, two Siamese goats and tiger and a monkey chained. He stops the scene with a little humor touch showing him dancing with the fake Elephant man’s skeleton. At the end of the song, Michael is nevertheless saying “I love you”, it represents the thanks of Michael for the press whose he owes his celebrity in part.  There still are many other elements or symbols that are worth talking about, Michael being an attraction at the end of the video, shrine to Liz Taylor, but we’ll let you the opportunity to find them by yourself.

To conclude we are completely confused by this music video and his purpose, which is to denounce gutter press and its non-ethical methods. We think that celebrities even though they chose to be public figures are still humans and not “zoo animals”. The fact that millions of people saw this video, in which Michael was literally repeating leaving me alone” again and again, and that nothing has really changed is outrageous! We admire Michael’s courage to take the risk to make this music video and to show that at the end he was able to free himself from the press power.

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