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Why was Michael Jackson stigmatised so harshly?
#1
Question 
Why was Michael Jackson stigmatised so harshly?
So let's look at the stigmas that society attached to MJ. For brevity I won't bother discussing the child sexual assault allegations in the OP, but feel free to discuss them in the thread.

I'll start with what he wasn't stigmatised for. MJ was balding and had cosmetic work done to darken his scalp at the hairline as well as wore a wig woven into his hair (as revealed in his autopsy report).

So why was he stigmatised at all? There are two primary factors at play here. Americans have a culture of obsessing over the health of people in the public eye, and secondly there are huge stigmas attached to disease as it is anyway.

1. Rhinoplasty. So this is probably the most surprising thing that he was stigmatised for. He had his first nose job after breaking it. Rumours say he wasn't happy with his nose anyway, but let's stick to the fact here. Following an initial rhinoplasty it is not unusual to require follow-up corrective surgery, apparently it's now less common than it was, but whatever that was the surgeon's fault if you're going to play the blame-game. It's also the surgeon's fault that it ended up looking the way it did. It's pretty unlikely MJ wanted it to look the way it ultimately did.

2. Vitiligo. Right a skin condition that the public did not know much about. People would speculate right up to the day he died that he never had Vitiligo and simply bleached his skin, even though there were photos of him with clear blotches on his skin from the 80's and 90's. Here's a black girl with Vitiligo:

https://youtu.be/za6nv-CK4xQ

Now this is less surprising because of the culture in the USA mentioned in the opening paragraphs. You have a little known chronic skin disease, and a fascination with speculating about celebrity's health - a clear recipe for stigma. The autopsy reported noted that his skin still had blotches on it - had he treated it aggressively with skin bleach, as many believed, it would only have taken him about one year to remove all remaining dark patches. He never did this (he may have used the products but not to completely whiten his skin), evidenced by the fact he continued wearing long sleeves and long pants in his performances in the 90's, and the fact that dark blotches were present at the time of his death.

3. Weight. MJ was underweight at some point, but when he died he was within the healthy weight range.

4. 100 Facial Surgeries? Highly unlikely. He had some unusual surgeries, that's for sure, but 100? Come on his facial structure remained the same. MJ received multiple stigmas for his face.

Black people age slower in their faces than whites as it is, so he should only have looked about 40ish when he died if he didn't do anything at all. People stigmatised him for his "feminine look", something we now call "meterosexual".

We'll break down what we know about: MJ said that he had a rhinoplasty with follow-up work done. He also said he had the cleft chin put in. We also know that his face looked gaunt when he became underweight, and it never really filled back out when he put some weight back on. He also had cosmetic tattoos that no one seemed to know about on his lips, his eyelids, his eyebrows, and as already mentioned at his thinning hairline. Also, blacks have a different facial structure to whites so of course it looks odd if they lose their skin pigment as this photo-shopped image of MJ shows:

[Image: 5kTdNiW.jpg] [Image: wgkgjYQ.jpg]

It's certainly possible that he's had some more work done beyond what we know about, but even if all he had was the nose job and the cleft chin you can see it looks normal when he was black, but he looks, well, odd when his skin is whitened. He wasn't hideously disfigured though as this 2005 trial photo shows:

[Image: 018dycz.jpg]

I think it's a shame that people are stigmatised for things that are outside of their control. MJ got the raw end of the stick when it came to his nose - something that attracted huge stigma his way instead of the way of plastic surgeons responsible for the outcome. Not to mention his appearance overall, unfortunately due to his Vitiligo his facial structure was always going to look strange with pale skin. Perhaps he exacerbated the problems in some ways, but as I've shown above he would have been stigmatised for his face had he had no work done on it at all. And bad surgery on his nose is not his fault, nor is his medical condition.
For Religion & Health see:[/b][/size] Williams & Sternthal. (2007). Spirituality, religion and health: Evidence and research directions. Med. J. Aust., 186(10), S47-S50. -LINK

The WIN/Gallup End of Year Survey 2013 found the US was perceived to be the greatest threat to world peace by a huge margin, with 24% of respondents fearful of the US followed by: 8% for Pakistan, and 6% for China. This was followed by 5% each for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea. -LINK


"That's disgusting. There were clean athletes out there that have had their whole careers ruined by people like Lance Armstrong who just bended thoughts to fit their circumstances. He didn't look up cheating because he wanted to stop, he wanted to justify what he was doing and to keep that continuing on." - Nicole Cooke
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#2
RE: Why was Michael Jackson stigmatised so harshly?
Man, you care about weird things.
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great

PM me your email address to join the Slack chat! I'll give you a taco(or five) if you join! --->There's an app and everything!<---
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#3
RE: Why was Michael Jackson stigmatised so harshly?
Stigma is weird? SC you surprise me, there are many people on this forum that I'm sure face stigma against them almost daily.
For Religion & Health see:[/b][/size] Williams & Sternthal. (2007). Spirituality, religion and health: Evidence and research directions. Med. J. Aust., 186(10), S47-S50. -LINK

The WIN/Gallup End of Year Survey 2013 found the US was perceived to be the greatest threat to world peace by a huge margin, with 24% of respondents fearful of the US followed by: 8% for Pakistan, and 6% for China. This was followed by 5% each for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea. -LINK


"That's disgusting. There were clean athletes out there that have had their whole careers ruined by people like Lance Armstrong who just bended thoughts to fit their circumstances. He didn't look up cheating because he wanted to stop, he wanted to justify what he was doing and to keep that continuing on." - Nicole Cooke
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#4
RE: Why was Michael Jackson stigmatised so harshly?
I feel really bad for Michael. He had a hard and sad life. I don't know if he really was guilty of child sex abuse or not, but I'd like to think not.
"Of course, everyone will claim they respect someone who tries to speak the truth, but in reality, this is a rare quality. Most respect those who speak truths they agree with, and their respect for the speaking only extends as far as their realm of personal agreement. It is less common, almost to the point of becoming a saintly virtue, that someone truly respects and loves the truth seeker, even when their conclusions differ wildly." 

-walsh
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#5
RE: Why was Michael Jackson stigmatised so harshly?
I never knew he was stigmatizing harshly before a bunch of kids started saying he was a child molestor.

I don't really think about him much. He that one song that was ok. You took a lot of time to type all this out. I'm curious as to why it's so important to you. Are you a huge fan?
(August 21, 2017 at 11:31 pm)KevinM1 Wrote: "I'm not a troll"
Religious Views: He gay

0/10

Hammy Wrote:and we also have a sheep on our bed underneath as well
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#6
RE: Why was Michael Jackson stigmatised so harshly?
(November 2, 2016 at 1:46 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I feel really bad for Michael. He had a hard and sad life. I don't know if he really was guilty of child sex abuse or not, but I'd like to think not.

I'll quote what Macaulay Culkin said in 2004:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeQFGT5Jbgo

"Look what happened the first time. If someone had dome something like that to my kid I wouldn't just settle for some money, I'd make sure the guy was in gaol. But they got the money and they ran."
For Religion & Health see:[/b][/size] Williams & Sternthal. (2007). Spirituality, religion and health: Evidence and research directions. Med. J. Aust., 186(10), S47-S50. -LINK

The WIN/Gallup End of Year Survey 2013 found the US was perceived to be the greatest threat to world peace by a huge margin, with 24% of respondents fearful of the US followed by: 8% for Pakistan, and 6% for China. This was followed by 5% each for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea. -LINK


"That's disgusting. There were clean athletes out there that have had their whole careers ruined by people like Lance Armstrong who just bended thoughts to fit their circumstances. He didn't look up cheating because he wanted to stop, he wanted to justify what he was doing and to keep that continuing on." - Nicole Cooke
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#7
RE: Why was Michael Jackson stigmatised so harshly?
(November 2, 2016 at 2:02 am)Aractus Wrote:
(November 2, 2016 at 1:46 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I feel really bad for Michael. He had a hard and sad life. I don't know if he really was guilty of child sex abuse or not, but I'd like to think not.

I'll quote what Macaulay Culkin said in 2004:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeQFGT5Jbgo

"Look what happened the first time. If someone had dome something like that to my kid I wouldn't just settle for some money, I'd make sure the guy was in gaol. But they got the money and they ran."

Yeah, when the trial was going on I was one of the only people who believed he was innocent. Very very sad what happened to him.
"Of course, everyone will claim they respect someone who tries to speak the truth, but in reality, this is a rare quality. Most respect those who speak truths they agree with, and their respect for the speaking only extends as far as their realm of personal agreement. It is less common, almost to the point of becoming a saintly virtue, that someone truly respects and loves the truth seeker, even when their conclusions differ wildly." 

-walsh
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#8
RE: Why was Michael Jackson stigmatised so harshly?
Was he really being stigmatized for anything other than the child molestation allegations?
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition

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#9
RE: Why was Michael Jackson stigmatised so harshly?
I have no clue whether he was guilty or not but I don't think you can blame a child victim for their parents cashing in on their tragedy.
(August 21, 2017 at 11:31 pm)KevinM1 Wrote: "I'm not a troll"
Religious Views: He gay

0/10

Hammy Wrote:and we also have a sheep on our bed underneath as well
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#10
RE: Why was Michael Jackson stigmatised so harshly?
I remember him being a music icon when I was younger and I remember having arguments with my cousins about mj being better than take that, who were a British boy band.

Later I don't know about being sitmatized but he was an easy target for ridicule.

He has a son called blanket who he waved over a balcony, he was flamboyant with his money, admitted sleeping in a bed with children and climbing trees, he looked strange and acted quite strange in interviews.


Are you ready for the fire? We are firemen. WE ARE FIREMEN! The heat doesn’t bother us. We live in the heat. We train in the heat. It tells us that we’re ready, we’re at home, we’re where we’re supposed to be. Flames don’t intimidate us. What do we do? We control the flame. We control them. We move the flames where we want to. And then we extinguish them.

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