Althouse: "The silver glove couldn't be traced to some unseemly beginning — like the droopy jeans that rappers picked up from prisoners..."

June 27, 2009

"The silver glove couldn't be traced to some unseemly beginning — like the droopy jeans that rappers picked up from prisoners..."

"... who'd been forced to give up their belts. It wasn't uncomfortably androgynous in the manner of guyliner. The single glove was odd and startling -- and somehow so right. It had Mick Jagger panache and James Brown flamboyance, but paired with the fedora and the cropped pants -- and that glorious moonwalk -- it also echoed the dapper style of such men as Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, men whose graceful movements Jackson admired. If Jackson was forming a bridge between rock-and-roll and rhythm and blues in his music, he was evoking every era between MGM's Tinseltown and MTV's Hollywood in his costumes."

Robin Givhan analyzes the fashion.

9 comments:

Lem Vibe Bandit said...: That column reads like Camille Paglia.; 6/27/09, 9:58 AM
chickelit said...: It reads like pagan idolatry.; 6/27/09, 10:18 AM
Wince said...: What I first noticed about the glove was how large it seemed over his hand due to it's thickness (maybe inspired by the "beaded socks" Cher said Jackson loved?).

In its size, on the darkened stage, the glove became its own separate entity, devining the inspiration of Hollywood greats of the past, once again incarnated together in the soul of new King of Pop...

Then again, it also made me think he might just love Hamburger Helper, albeit a flamboyant, out-of-the-closet, Liberace-type Hamburger Helper.; 6/27/09, 10:25 AM
traditionalguy said...: Michael sounds like he was a real Pied Piper using music videos to lure all the children into his never never land. His day is now over. Barak the Magic Politician is playing his pipes for children today.; 6/27/09, 10:31 AM
AllenS said...: The glove covered up the black hand that refused to turn white.; 6/27/09, 10:50 AM
AllenS said...: The surgical mask that was often worn, covered up the nose that... well, you knows the rest.; 6/27/09, 10:52 AM
Anonymous said...: He did remind me of Astaire and Kelly, especially Kelly in American in Paris.

I wonder why this generation is so destroyed with drugs and not the previous one...; 6/27/09, 11:29 AM
The Dude said...: The silver glove could be traced to the request by Maher to be masturbated gently by a celebrity.

I think that was the genesis, anyway.; 6/27/09, 3:51 PM
A.W. said...: Jackson told us what the glove was about: covering that skin disease. I'll accept that.

his fashion in general, though, was a classic example of what i call elvis syndrome. you give a guy millions of dollars and soon he finds himself surrouned by people who will never tell him he looks like a dork. so soon elvis is in a cape and michael jackson looks like whatever the hell he was.

The downward spiral of Jackson was the story of a man's self destruction and the enablers who surrounded him.; 6/28/09, 2:23 PM