The most potent and intriguing symbol of celebrity during the present decade is that of a piece of decorative wearing apparel: Michael Jackson's single white glove. Since Jackson himself no longer wears the item (and, as far as one can tell, has made something of a vow to that effect), we can deal with it as a piece of cultural archeology safely ensconsed within past history.
When Jackson became extremely popular during late 1983 with his record-breaking record album Thriller, the glove that he wore during various public engagements and during a televised performance became an instant and spontaneous symbol of his popularity. All sorts of jokes and remarks (some nice, some nasty) arose around the question of The Glove, mostly revolving around the question of why? Why this particular symbol of one's public potency? Why should such a symbol arise in the first place?
Jackson, for his part, seemed to regard the glove as a symbol of his onstage life: the "magic" that he so frequently spoke about, the "escapism," as he put it, that he felt was his mission to "give to" an audience. The glove seemed to go hand in hand (excuse the pun) with the magical white light always seen streaming through the films of director Steven Spielberg, Michael's good friend. It seemed a mystical connection to a kind of next world filled with Michael's own brand of gentle beguilement, free from the struggle-filled soil and stain of this one. In such a world lions lay next to lambs while Bambi and E.T. romp happily and endlessly through the enchanted forest.
Spielberg and Jackson both obviously feel that people have some powerful desire to temporarily enter such a place, at least for a little while before returning to this world and continuing the daily struggle.
"I wish we could all spend some time in his world," Spielberg says of his friend, but for Spielberg and most members of his audience, it would only be a tourist venture. Michael Jackson lives in that world all the time and the glove is a connection between that world and his audience on the outside. It beckons them to cross over, at least for a time. Jackson was once asked why he was wearing the piece of stage clothing offstage (actually in a hospital burn unit) and in a most innappropriate circumstance and he replied, "this way I am never offstage."
Michael Jackson's glove, then, is a synbol of the profound estrangement of the contemporary pop star from his audience and as a failed and convoluted attempt to bridge the gap.
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