Cultural Anxiety Surrounding a Plastic Prodigy: A Performance Analysis of Michael Jackson as an Embodiment of Post-Identity Politics Chapter uri icon

Abstract

  • This essay examines Michael Jackson's transformation from an African American male child star to an androgynous, ageless, and raceless being that unsettled the audience that remained enamored with him. Through applying performance theory and disability theory, Jackson emerges as the crystallization of post-identity politics in which the markers we come to know ourselves and others are erased.

Publication Date

  • 2012-10-01