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Enemy from the West: Jacksonmania in the USSR
This article from the Dangerous Zone fanzine (Issue 10) takes us back to the anti-Western propaganda of the Soviet Union which also covered Michael Jackson, despite his positive image. The article is outstanding because it demonstrates how rapidly Michael’s art spread and influenced the youth, exactly what the Soviet Russia government feared the most. The period described in the article covers the beginning of the 80-ies, times when despite the “iron curtain”, Jackson-mania had already reached the USSR. There’s an interesting blog, Michael Jackson in the USSR, which shows lots of examples of how Michael’s style was copied by the Soviet performers, while the Soviet press treated him with contempt, calling him “a pop marionette” and an instrument used to distract the Western youngsters from important global problems.
Eras have changed, the country exists no more, ideologies collapsed, the Soviet propaganda sounds amusing today, but Jackson’s art keeps influencing young people who have embraced it for two generations.
“WHY HAVE YOU COME, ENEMY FROM THE WEST?..”
Have you ever considered why Michael Jackson became known in Russia only after the reformation period (perestroika)? It’s clear that the Communism-building country was extremely picky while selecting performers for the Soviet listeners; ask your parents, and they will give you names which have been long forgotten: Robertino Loretti, Karel Gott, Biser Kirov, a sonorous scattering of Italian names dating back to the San Remo festival, and several truly important figures, such as Joe Dassin, Mireille Mathieu, Demis Russos and ABBA. Demands towards foreign performers included, first of all, loyalty to the Soviet order, as well as an extremely decent behavior and appearance.
But in the beginning of the eighties practically the whole world, including half-wild New Zealand tribes, was crazy about flawlessly well-mannered, good-looking youngsters who were in no way connected to any politics, known as The Jacksons, and only the Soviet Union never heard anything of them thanks to the Iron Curtain. We would like to understand the logic of it, so we carried out a sort of an investigation and made a discovery which we would like to share with the readers. This is what we have found.
One day, one of the authors of this article (Svetlana Samoilova) got hold of a book published in 1985, about the “undermining activities against the socialistic countries”. Here’s a quote, “Hostile propaganda directed by the Western radio stations against us, against the Soviet country, sees its chance in the admiration expressed by our young men and women regarding contemporary dance rhythms and pop music.” God save us! Instead of learning the works of Marx and Lenin by heart, the irresponsible youngsters tend to go to some stupid dance clubs where they are subjected to foul effect of the “rotting West”.
What can be done about this? (One of the two main questions in the Soviet dialectics, “Who’s to blame?” and “What can be done?” asked by Herzen and Chernyshevsky respectively, who famously woke up many people with these questions, which led to a number of various misfortunes, including the above-mentioned Iron Curtain with its perfect soundproof texture.
This is what happens if you don’t let people sleep as much as they want to!)
But, of course, unsheathe your swords and ride hard, save the young generation “sacrificed to a multibillion business”, i.e. the showbiz. This rescue mission, which successfully failed later (hurrah to that!), lay in painstaking trashing of the Western performers who, judging by that nice book, were drunkards and drug addicts, all of them.
One could agree that it wasn’t right to join their club following your idol and start doing whatever they did, but a true talent cannot be drowned in a bottle or blown with the wind, and this was proved by Eric Clapton, Freddie Mercury and many others. Nevertheless, Michael has never been caught doing anything of the kind. (“I take some small pride in thinking that I’ve come out pretty well, all things considered. I myself have never tried drugs — no marijuana, no cocaine, nothing. I mean, I haven’t even tried these things…I believe performers should try to be strong as an example to their audiences.” Michael Jackson, “Moonwalk”)
As Barry Kleinman, Dangerous Tour publisher in Great Britain, said, “He is a gentleman. There are many performers in showbiz who cannot be called gentlemen.” Still, even this gentleman did not manage to please the Soviet Union countries. So how did this noble creature get into the crowd of barely standing depraved individuals?
You may not believe it, but he became part of this wonderful company because of his “political indifference” and “horrors”. It should be noted that there was only one American performer popular in the Soviet Union – singer and actor Dean Reed who admired the ideas of socialism and tried to promote them in the USA, but he also demonstrated lack of responsibility from time to time by performing some Beatles songs. As for horrors, of course, Gogol could write in his “Viy” whatever he wanted, but then the Soviet film directors would have to make a movie based on it without fear for the young minds…
So here’s how it goes: “The story of the new American pop music superstar Michael Jackson: they say that his image was calculated with the help of a computer. The computer had a program which considered all the qualities and features necessary to conquer the musical market of the eighties. The machine created an output model, according to which the wheeler-dealers of show-business (socialistic slang: a wheeler-dealer is someone who governs and owns something) chose a singer who had been previously unknown (!!!) to anyone. Today, a cute-looking young man with a high “feminine” voice, a lovely smile (thanks for the compliment, guys) and a slender body wiggling non-stop during his performances, never leaves the TV screens, newspapers and magazine covers.
His concert tours are supported by such noisy advertising campaigns and craze, as if an extra-terrestrial arrived to Earth (oh yeah, those were the good old days! Why won’t we restore the old traditions?). Youngsters participate in numerous TV contests for “the best Michael impersonator”. The lucky ones who give their best in recreating grimaces and jumps of their idol will get a free trip to Hollywood.
Plastic surgery clinics welcome those who desire to look just like their idol, they promise to make you a nose and eyes “absolutely like Michael’s”. The Jacksonmania virus maintains a steady pace, infecting thousands of girls and young men, helps earning big money for those who launched it and fulfills the supertask: using the same template, start a mass production of lookalike jacksons senselessly kicking their legs and praising capitalism (where, when?!).”
Yes, the National Enquirer will never get close to that. This is your answer: just like any artificially created organism living in complete isolation, the Soviet reality was extremely afraid of viruses. The Jacksonmania virus, indeed, was powerful and clear, like the Beatlemania before it, which also faced active struggle against it.
The fact that Michael never demonstrated lascivious behavior was even worse, because his decency could provide a reason to doubt the complete indecency of other capitalists. Any ideology, be it politics or religion, bears no competition. The ideas propagated by Michael, due to their grandeur, sincerity and truth, simple as breathing, could “steal our great achievements, our great works from us”.
However, at the time that book was published, We Are The World had not been written and sung yet, Man In The Mirror and Heal The World did not exist, and They Don’t Care About Us (down with political indifference!) was still far away, but these songs could hardly change anything even if they existed back then.
You could ask why we took the time to tell you all this. Thank God, the Iron Curtain has already been corroded and fallen apart, and we can hear every sound, every melody and every name from anywhere. Well, we just wanted to talk about what was going on when some of us hadn’t even been born yet. It seems to us that this should never be forgotten. And we also love Stranger In Moscow – it evoked many different thoughts…
www.michaeljackson.ru/eng/michael-jackson-in-ussr/#more-411
Edited by ArcoIris - 5/4/2018, 00:13
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