Michael Jackson’s Very Public Dethroning | Michael & Janet Jackson
1993 marked a new era for the artist, when Janet Jackson released her fifth record simply titled ‘Janet’. A title symbolically releasing herself from the ‘Jackson’ name and suggesting that she was now such a huge star all one needed to do was to utter her first name to identify her.
Ushering in a more low-key super stardom befitting of the 1990s, Janet Jackson didn’t launch the album with a predictable flashy new video and choreographed dance routine. But with a more mellow track, ‘That’s the Way. Love Goes’, with an equally sensual, unassuming video to match. Then cementing her now fully developed stage presence and elaborate performance style in the video for the boldly provocative track, ‘If’.
As her first musical effort under her record-breaking contract with Virgin, the artist exuded a quiet confidence as she proclaimed her full-blown womanhood. Sizzling with sex and desire, the album marked a new direction for Janet, incorporating rubbery hip-hop, luscious ballads and house rhythms, rejoicing over her awakened spirituality, and strengthened identity as an African American woman. When previously she was crippled by insecurities over her weight and looks, Janet appeared liberated on the cover of ‘Rolling Stone’, as if taking on Whitney Houston and Madonna for the right to be crowned the glamour queen of pop music.
With such a buzz around Janet’s new look and sound, many began to question Michael Jackson’s ubiquitous reign as the King of Pop and asked whether it was time for another Jackson to make a claim for his throne. Especially when in 7 months she sold what it took her brother 2 years to sell in records with their latest outputs. “I think this is going to be the biggest record of her career,” said Kevin Johnson, R&B writer for Impact magazine. “I think the album’s going to outsell Michael’s ‘Dangerous,’ at least in the U.S.,” remarked Gordon Chambers, at Essence magazine. “To me, she’s the normal Jackson,” said Greg Sandow of Entertainment Weekly. “She got past the family curse. It’s a fabulous album. She’s right on musically and looks fabulous.”
Although comparisons had been, and continued to be, made between Janet and Michael, there were also crucial differences between the two that had been instrumental in Janet’s burgeoning star power at this point. Where Michael was a loner, Janet enjoyed being around people. Janet embraced her racial identity and the black experience, when Michael’s lightened appearance always put that into question. Janet spoke freely about relationships and her sexuality, when Michael remained fiercely private. She was less obsessed with maintaining a veil of mystery, mystery that allowed dangerously misguided rumours and assumptions to swirl around the orbit of Michael’s celebrity… where a crash of cataclysmic portions was inevitable.
On August 24th, 1993, police investigations into Michael Jackson involving claims of child abuse were made public. The legal back-and-forth taking place while Michael was in Bangkok on the Dangerous World tour. Michael’s fellow superstar sister immediately reached out. In a telephone conversation, Janet even offered to postpone her upcoming world tour and join him to support his fight against the allegations. “He’s really hurt. He’s so hurt by it… He loves children, and he would never do anything like that, ever… truly awful that someone would try to get $20 million out of you and this is their way of doing it, by saying that you did something to their child”, said Janet in a press interview.
Over the following months, the legal and criminal case against Michael ensued just as Janet began a gruelling world tour. Unlike Michael, who eventually cancelled the rest of his concerts due to his mounting legal and health issues, Janet Jackson spent the next 18 months performing to thousands night after night as tabloid headlines were filled with every twist and turn of her brother’s very painful, public dethroning. In order to stay focused, Janet declined to partake in interviews of any kind. It was noted that Janet’s performances while on tour were perfect in execution but lacked any personal ad-libs. Rolling Stone’s Greg Kot, upon reviewing her show noted, “If a performance can be faulted for being too well-rehearsed and too tautly paced, this was certainly an example. At times it seemed like the audience was eavesdropping on a shoot for a long-form video rather than being engaged by a performer.” Suggesting that Janet was determined to get through the tour to the best of her capabilities but wasn’t always fully present in her performance due to the personal stress she was under. As she later recounted the words of her father, “whatever that is going on in your personal life. You don’t let them see that. You have a job to do. People have paid their hard earned money to see you, to see you perform and you give them that”.
However, during one performance, Janet Jackson asked the audience to pray for her brother Michael as part of her routine, and cracks started to show as Janet cancelled several dates due to “illness”. Cancellations coincidently occurring on the same dates as sister LaToya Jackson’s press conference where she implied that she believed the accusations, as well as Michael’s return from his self-imposed European exile and the announcement of his civil suit settlement.
As the dust began to settle and Michael Jackson could start to piece together the fragments of his career, soon came ambitious plans for his musical comeback to pop prominence. Janet wanted to help Michael in any way she could and finally agreed to unite in a superstar collaboration. When Janet asked Michael what kind of duet he was thinking of, she recounted him saying “you know with all these things that have gone on in my life, I need to just release some anger”, and Janet would act as sisterly support in the endeavour. Both Janet and Michael worked with Janet’s producers, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, in studios situated in New York city as well as Minneapolis. When asked about the siblings’ process, Jimmy Jam said “their approach to working is so different. Janet works very simply and very quickly. Michael is a little more methodical. He’s a perfectionist and tends to cut a million songs, then pick the best of what he has.”
The sessions resulted in the creation of ‘Scream’, a boldly aggressive protest against the perpetuation of lies and the ruthless tabloid press. When it was decided that the track would become the lead single for his much-anticipated History album, and the centrepiece of Michael Jackson’s comeback, a music video befitting of the size and scale of the two superstars and its mission was put into development. While he was frantically trying to finish the album, Michael put Janet in charge of the music video, even though she was still on tour.
Since, Janet has expressed the huge amount of stress and effort it took to bring together the shoot in such a short period of time. To select a director and collaborate on the ambitious video concept. Directed by Mark Romanek, with thirteen epic sets by Foden and choreography by both Michael and Janet’s choreographers, the production became larger and more complicated as Michael became increasingly unsure of the video’s concept and overall direction. Riddled with doubt and with so much riding on this single and its video, Michael Jackson agreed to additional last-minute changes and expensive reshoots, taking the original shoot from three days to a week and increasing the budget, becoming the most expensive music video of all time.
The ‘Scream’ music video premiered on June 12th, 1995, and became one of Michael Jackson’s most critically acclaimed; James Hunter of Rolling Stone called it a contemporary video, “in which Michael and his sister Janet jump around like ’90s fashion kids trapped in a spaceship stolen from a Barbarella film set.” Jim Farber called it a “supercool black-and-white clip… The clip’s great allure is that neither of the siblings look quite real.” He was of the opinion that while Michael Jackson outshines his sister in the vocals, it is Janet Jackson who gives the better performance in the music video.
Standing together as a united front, the single became an instant international hit and gained 11 MTV Video Music Award Nominations, more than any other music video, and won ‘Best Dance Video’, ‘Best Choreography’, and ‘Best Art Direction.’ Reacting to this, Michael stated that he was “very honoured”, explaining that he had worked “very hard” and he was “very happy” with the reception up to that point. It was also given a Billboard Music Award for best Pop/Rock video, and a year later, won a Grammy for Best Music Video, Short Form.
Despite the single’s commercial and critical success, after, the immediate period triggered a deep depression for Janet which was later explored in her 1997 album, The Velvet Rope. Although the artist never shared publicly what may have contributed to the episode, during interviews she spoke openly about dealing with traumas that took place in her childhood and even got a tattoo that symbolised the need to deal with the past in order to move forward. What was also significant, is that during this period Michael and Janet had lost all contact with each other for almost two years, starting from December 1995. In an Oprah interview from the fall of 1997, Janet proclaimed that there wasn’t any kind of feud, but she wasn’t able to fully explain why the prolonged absence, despite Michael getting divorced, then remarried and having his first child during this period. Causing speculation that Janet was choosing to distance herself emotionally and publicly from the media circus that surrounded Michael’s increasingly erratic personal life and celebrity.
In all interviews during this period, Janet Jackson refused to answer questions directed at her about Michael, “I’ve decided with this project, I’m not gonna talk about my brother anymore,” she said. “That’s just something I’m doing for myself.” Suggesting that after such an intense period of scandalous attacks, media speculation and retaliations in defence of her brother, Janet decided to no longer remain so emotionally involved and entangled with the convoluted stardom her brother had previously courted and was now the prolonged victim of. “He’s brought some upon himself, too, in all honesty. I love my brother, and I think he’s wonderful. He’s been in this business since he was a kid, and it’s real difficult sometimes. Nobody stays on top.”