Armond White (born 1953) is a New York-based film and music critic known for his provocative and idiosyncratic film criticism, which some have characterized as contrarian. He is currently the editor of City Arts, for which he also writes articles and reviews. He was previously the lead film critic for the alternative weekly New York Press (1997–2011) and the arts editor and critic for The City Sun (1984–1996). Other publications that have carried his work include Film Comment, The Nation, The New York Times, Slate, Columbia Journalism Review, and First Things.

Early life[link]

White was born in Detroit, Michigan as the youngest of seven children. His family was the first African-American family to move to a primarily Jewish neighborhood, where he grew up. Raised Baptist, he later became Pentecostal, and identifies himself as "a believer".^[1]

His interest in journalism and film criticism began as a student at Detroit’s Central High School, when he first read film critic Pauline Kael's book, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang^[1] whom he cites for "her willingness to go against the hype", along with Andrew Sarris, for his "sophisticated love of cinema",^[2] as being a major inspiration on his choice of professional career.^[3][4] White is a recipient of a Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University’s School of the Arts.^[5]

Career[link]

White was the arts editor for The City Sun, where he wrote film, music and theater criticism, for the span of its publication from 1984 to 1996. He was hired by New York Press in 1997 and wrote for the paper until it ceased publication in 2011. He then was made editor of the Press's sister publication City Arts.

He is a member of New York Film Critics Circle,^[6] National Society of Film Critics^[6] and New York Film Critics Online.^[7] He was the three time chairman of the New York Film Critics Circle (1994, 2009 and 2010),^[8][9] and has also served as a member of the jury at the Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival and Mill Valley Film Festival and was a member of several National Endowment for the Arts panels.^[5] He has taught classes on film at Columbia University and Long Island University.^[3]

In 1992 White won the 25th Annual ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for music criticism for "The Gloved One Is Not a Chump", his essay on Michael Jackson's "Black or White" video.^[10][11]

White claims to watch "five to 10 movies a week"^[4][12] and "as many as 400 films a year".^[1]

Style and personal tastes[link]

White, who describes himself as a "pedigreed film scholar",^[13] claims that "[l]iking [a film] or disliking it is irrelevant" to his reviews, and insists that "[he] tell[s] it how it is and write[s] what a film deserves" rather than offering mere personal opinion.^[14] He has stated that he has a "politically minded perspective on film" and is known for his often controversial "socio-political interpretations of cinema".^[3] Writer Matthew Ross cited White's "unrelenting tone of moral seriousness, caustic dismissal of [...] filmic sacred cows and obsessive championing of [...] relatively 'unhip' films" as well as his "unlikely compare-and-contrast reviews"^[15] as distinctive characteristics of his work. White's reviews often draw extended comparisons between films of disparate genres and historical periods, an approach Mark Jacobson described as a "Darwinian praxis [in which] all films must plead their case against all other similar films, with White as judge and jury".^[1]

White, who has asserted in an interview that "most films are dismissable",^[16] has been described as the "most contrarian"^[17][18] of film critics for allegedly "position[ing] himself in diametric opposition to virtually every film critic on earth".^[19] White has dismissed these allegations, stating that he has never "said anything about a movie out of meanness or indifference"^[2][20] and that he always contrasts movies he evaluates negatively with ones he considers superior, as in his annual "Better-Than Lists".^[1][21] Rotten Tomatoes, a website that aggregates film reviews, indicates that he agrees with the consensus of other professional critics 52% of the time.^[22] He has been compared to such critics as Pauline Kael, Dorothy Parker, Kenneth Tynan and Nathan Cohen for his "intransigent refusal to think what people expect him to think".^[23]

White is known for his use of the term "hipster nihilism" as a description of what he sees as a prevalent, and destructive, attitude toward film and the world,^[24] as well as his notion of "kinetic art" which he identifies in many action films.^[1][25] He coined the label "the American Eccentrics"^[26][27] to describe a group of "millennial" filmmakers including Wes Anderson, Spike Jonze, David O. Russell, Alexander Payne, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Sofia Coppola whose works "offer an unabashed solipsism, whimsy, and undisguised film savvy".^[28]

White is known for his advocacy for the works of directors Steven Spielberg^[1] and Brian De Palma^[29] and for the music and films of Michael Jackson.^[30][31] In a 2002 Sight & Sound poll he ranked Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence as the greatest film of all time.^[32]

Relations with other critics and filmmakers[link]

White has bemoaned the state of contemporary film criticism,^[16][33] describing it as "intellectual anarchy"^[34] and saying that "the profession is in dismal shape, fucking dismal condition".^[35] In an online discussion with other film critics, White emphasized that "I don't read criticism for style (or jokes). I want information, erudition, judgment, and good taste. Too many snake-hipped word-slingers don't know what they're talking about".^[36] He has singled out Roger Ebert for particular condemnation,^{[13][37][38][39]} telling an interviewer that "I do think it is fair to say that Roger Ebert destroyed film criticism"^[37] and accusing him of "talking about movies as disconnected from social and moral issues, simply as entertainment".^[38] He has called Village Voice critic J. Hoberman "pathetic", "despotic", "traitorous", and "racist", describing him as "the scoundrel-czar of contemporary film criticism" whose malign "influence (as NYU instructor to the Times' Manohla Dargis and innumerable Internet clones) stretches from coast to coast, institution to institution"; he also categorically described Hoberman's associates in the film community as "brownshirts", "fascists", and "backward children".^[40] Other film writers he has singled out for criticism include A. O. Scott,^[38] David Thomson,^[41] David Denby,^[3] Gary Indiana,^[42] David Bordwell,^[43] Georgia Brown,^[39][44] Karina Longworth^[45] and Lisa Schwarzbaum,^[33] who along with J. Hoberman he has accused of racism.^[46] Of such accusations, White has written that

I have called critics out by name, but when I do so, I don't call them names. I'm after the vigorous defense of an idea. Sometimes that means going at certain ideological and professional suppositions that other critics take for granted. I guess that's when they feel personally attacked. They call it "bullying" or "slightly nuts" simply because their unexamined values or arrogant prejudices have been shown up.^[47]

White has been an outspoken opponent of online film criticism,^{[4][20][37][48][49][50]} which he associates with "amateurism, gossip [and] cliques" rather than the "education, expertise [and] experience" he attributes to professional film criticism.^[51] He has cited film review aggregators in general and Rotten Tomatoes in particular as examples of how "the Internet takes revenge on individual expression" by "dumping reviewers onto one website and assigning spurious percentage-enthusiasm points to the discrete reviews" and "offer[s] consensus as a substitute for assessment".^[49] He has also stated his opinion that "there should be no film critics younger than 30" since they would lack the necessary scholarship and life experience.^[37]

In interviews he has repeatedly demurred when asked to identify critics other than himself whose work he values.^[35][37][3] However, in other settings he has praised the writing of Molly Haskell^[52] and GayToday.com critic John Demetry.^[53] Among film critics of previous generations, in addition to Kael and Sarris, White has credited James Agee and former New York Times critic Bosley Crowther.^[38]

Because of his consistently negative reviews of Noah Baumbach's and Spike Lee's films – and his ad hominem attacks on their creators^[54][55][56] – he was barred by publicists from press screenings of their films Greenberg and Get on the Bus.^[57] In the case of Greenberg, the ban was rescinded in time for White to watch the film with other critics. Director Darren Aronofsky also publicly disparaged White's film criticism.^[58]

Evaluations by others[link]

Film critic and essayist Phillip Lopate wrote that White "has staked out a position as a renegade film critic, the Last Angry Man, unafraid to attack popular favorites or make enemies with colleagues".^[59] His criticism has been described as "unique"^[2] and also as "thoughtful" since it "allows readers the opportunity to interpret films as more than just entertainment".^[3] Also, he has been described as "not boring" and "capable of wicked insights",^[60] "often-contrarian (and always fun to read)",^[61] "extremely knowledgeable",^[18] "immensely readable, fearless, provocative"^[62] as well as "passionate, idiosyncratic and a natural polemicist".^[2] Film critic Jack Mathews had described White as a "classic, unapologetic elitist" whose "haughty, theoretical approach is the stuff of academia and film journals", but also as "a critic in a world of cinema that does not exist, except in the margins of independent and avant garde film".^[63] Critic Kyle Smith has argued that White "simply has a different aesthetic from that of the herd",^[64] while critic David Chen suggested that he "(perhaps too) vehemently believes in the integrity of his art and longs for the golden era when the mainstream still cared what film critics thought".^[37]

Detractors have criticized White for his "hyperbolic rhetoric".^[48] Critic Glenn Kenny has called White "a bully and a hypocrite"^[65] and written that "the sub-theme of every White review [...] is that every other critic is a moral degenerate and an aesthetic cretin".^[66] Essayist Dan Schneider dismissed White as a "critical clown" and "a contrarian with political and personal axes to grind",^[67] Commenting on White's negative review of Toy Story 3, freelance writer Paul Brunick suggested that

it's the swipes [White] takes at the audience that are most objectionably nasty: viewers who enjoyed TS3 are "brainwashed," "suckers," "saps," and (my personal favorite) "non-thinking children." Take that, kids!

Brunick concludes that

What makes Armond’s reviews perversely fascinating is that he is so obviously intelligent, yet this intelligence has been harnessed to the warped imperatives of an increasingly frustrated personality. Where your average critical hack job is just banal, White’s ability to disconnect the dots exerts a kind of bizarro brilliance. Try to take any of his recent reviews as seriously as he insists and you’ll find yourself, like Alice and the Red Queen, running in hermeneutic circles, getting nowhere fast. It makes for mediocre criticism but lurid psychodrama.^[68]

Because he often castigates critical and audience favorites, White has been labeled "contrarian for the sake of being contrary"^[19] and "America's most hated movie critic".^[69] Citing the straw man arguments in White's review of the 2006 film Dreamgirls, critic Jim Emerson wrote that

White doesn't necessarily practice film criticism, although what he writes is almost always based on his real or imagined characterization of what other critics have already written. The movie itself sometimes gets lost in White's internal monologue as he rages against some chimerical critical consensus.^[70]

In 2009, following an eruption of controversy on the Rotten Tomatoes website over White's negative pre-general release review of District 9 (which ruined its 100% rating up to that point), Roger Ebert defended him against the "fanboys" of the "Tomatoes lynch mob":

The fact that you don't know what someone is writing about is not a real good reason for disagreeing with him [...] [White is] an intelligent critic and a passionate writer, and he knows a very great deal about movies, dance, and many other things.

However, after being presented with a list of films that White had liked and disliked, Ebert withdrew his overall support of White's work, writing "It is baffling to me that a critic could praise Transformers 2 but not Synecdoche, NY. Or Death Race but not There Will Be Blood. I am forced to conclude that White is, as charged, a troll; a smart and knowing one, but a troll."^[71] White condemned Ebert's response, saying "the guy has won a Pulitzer Prize for criticism [...] Criticizing colleagues is not what we do".^[18] Ebert stated that he had shown "very poor judgment" in writing that entry.^[72]

Bibliography[link]

Books[link]

• The Resistance: Ten Years of Pop Culture That Shook the World (ISBN 978-0879515867)
• Rebel for the Hell of It: The Life of Tupac Shakur (ISBN 978-1560254614)
• Keep Moving: The Michael Jackson Chronicles

Essays (partial list)[link]

• "Embargo Blues: Reflections on the Film Critic Business"
• "Avant-Lard: Is anyone still waging the fight against junk populism and elitism?"
• "What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Movies"
• "Discourteous Discourse: The social networking approach to film criticism is not about democracy"
• "Smugness: Self Satisfaction, Hollywood Style"
• "In Bed with Hollywood"
• "Do Movie Critics Matter?"
• "My Greenberg Problem – and Yours"
• "Dear Wes Anderson: Why does it take you so long to make a movie?"
• "Wake Up and Smell the Oscars: They Stink!"
• "Our Soul Man"
• "Cinema Armondiso: A concise history of film"

References[link]

Sources[link]

• Roberts, Jerry. The Complete History of American Film Criticism. Santa Monica Press, 2010. ISBN 978-1-59580-049-7
• Lopate, Phillip (ed.). American Movie Critics: An Anthology From the Silents Until Now. Library of America, 2006. ISBN 1-931082-92-8
• Lee, Spike and Fuchs, Cynthia. Spike Lee: interviews. Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2002. ISBN 1-57806-470-8

External links[link]

• Official website
• Armond White at the Internet Movie Database
• Armond White at Rotten Tomatoes
• Armond White at New York Press
• Armond White's Top Ten Lists 1997–2006

Lisa Schwarzbaum is an American film critic. She joined Entertainment Weekly as film critic in the 1990s.^[1][2][3] She has been featured on CNN, co-host on Siskel & Ebert At the Movies as well as a cultural, theater and television reviewer.^[4][5]

Schwarzbaum played viola and started out writing about music, as said in the film, "For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Critism.

Schwarzbaum is featured in For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism describing the importance and impact of two women critics, Molly Haskell and Janet Maslin, and also recalling the effect on her as a child watching the Joseph Losey film, The Boy with Green Hair.^[6]

Her career began in Boston, where she wrote for The Boston Globe. She has also written for The New York Daily News^[7] The New York Times Magazine,^[8] Vogue and Redbook.

She is a member of the National Society of Film Critics.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Lisa Schwarzbaum at the Internet Movie Database

Michael Jackson
Jackson at the White House in 1984
Background information
Birth name	Michael Joseph Jackson[1]
Also known as	King of Pop, MJ
Born	(1958-08-29)August 29, 1958 Gary, Indiana, U.S.
Died	June 25, 2009(2009-06-25) (aged 50) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Genres	R&B, pop, rock, soul, dance, funk, disco, new jack swing
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician, composer, dancer, choreographer, record producer, actor, businessman, philanthropist
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	1964–2009
Labels	Motown, Epic, Legacy, MJJ Productions
Associated acts	The Jackson 5 Michael Jackson's Signature
Website	www.michaeljackson.com

Michael Joseph Jackson^[1] (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Often referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ,^[2] Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records. His contribution to music, dance, and fashion, along with a much-publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades. The seventh child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene along with his brothers as a member of The Jackson 5 in 1964, and began his solo career in 1971.

In the early 1980s, Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music. The music videos for his songs, including those of "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Thriller", were credited with transforming the medium into an art form and a promotional tool, and the popularity of these videos helped to bring the relatively new television channel MTV to fame. Videos such as "Black or White" and "Scream" made him a staple on MTV in the 1990s. Through stage performances and music videos, Jackson popularized a number of complicated dance techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk, to which he gave the name. His distinctive musical sound and vocal style influenced numerous hip hop, post-disco, contemporary R&B, pop and rock artists.

Jackson's 1982 album Thriller is the best-selling album of all time. His other records, including Off the Wall (1979), Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991), and HIStory (1995), also rank among the world's best-selling. Jackson is one of the few artists to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. He was also inducted into the Dance Hall of Fame as the first (and currently only) dancer from the world of pop and rock 'n' roll. Some of his other achievements include multiple Guinness World Records; 13 Grammy Awards (as well as the Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award); 26 American Music Awards (more than any other artist, including the "Artist of the Century"); 13 number-one singles in the United States in his solo career (more than any other male artist in the Hot 100 era); and the estimated sale of over 750 million records worldwide. Jackson won hundreds of awards, which made him the most-awarded recording artist in the history of popular music.^[3] He was also one of the world's most prominent humanitarians and philanthropists; personally, and through his Heal the World Foundation, he donated more than $300 million in charity, and held the Guinness World Record for having supported the most charities out of any pop star.^[4][5]

Aspects of Jackson's personal life, including his changing appearance, personal relationships, and behavior, generated controversy. In 1993, he was accused of child sexual abuse, but the case was settled out of court and no formal charges were brought. In 2005, he was tried and acquitted of further child sexual abuse allegations and several other charges after the jury found him not guilty on all counts. While preparing for his concert series titled This Is It, Jackson died of acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication on June 25, 2009, after suffering from cardiac arrest. The Los Angeles County Coroner ruled his death a homicide, and his personal physician was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Jackson's death triggered a global outpouring of grief, and as many as one billion people around the world reportedly watched his public memorial service on live television. In March 2010, Sony Music Entertainment signed a $250 million deal with Jackson's estate to retain distribution rights to his recordings until 2017, and to release seven posthumous albums over the decade following his death.^[6]

Life and career[link]

Early life and The Jackson 5 (1958–1975)[link]

Jackson's childhood home in Gary, Indiana, showing floral tributes after his death

Jackson (center) as a member of The Jackson 5 in 1972

Michael Jackson was born on August 29, 1958, the eighth of ten children in an African American working-class family who lived in a small 3-room house in Gary, Indiana,^[7] an industrial city near Chicago. His mother, Katherine Esther Scruse, was a devout Jehovah's Witness, and his father, Joseph Walter "Joe" Jackson, was a steel mill worker who performed with an R&B band called The Falcons. Jackson had three sisters: Rebbie, La Toya, and Janet, and five brothers: Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, and Randy.^[8] A sixth brother, Brandon, died shortly after birth.^[9]

Jackson had a troubled relationship with his father, Joe.^[10][11][12] Joseph acknowledged in 2003 that he regularly whipped Jackson as a boy.^[12] Jackson stated that he was physically and emotionally abused during incessant rehearsals, though he also credited his father's strict discipline with playing a large role in his success.^[10] Jackson first spoke openly about his childhood abuse in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, broadcast in February 1993. He admitted that he had often cried from loneliness and he would vomit on the sight of his father. Jackson's father was also said to have verbally abused Jackson, saying that he had a fat nose on numerous occasions.^[13] In fact, Michael Jackson's deep dissatisfaction with his appearance, his nightmares and chronic sleep problems, his tendency to remain hyper-compliant especially with his father, and to remain child-like throughout his adult life are in many ways consistent with the effects of this chronic maltreatment he endured as a young child.^[14]

In an interview with Martin Bashir, later included in the 2003 broadcast of Living with Michael Jackson, Jackson acknowledged that his father hurt him when he was a child, but was nonetheless a "genius", as he admitted his father's strict discipline played a huge role in his success. When Bashir dismissed the positive remark and continued asking about beatings, Jackson put his hand over his face and objected to the questions. He recalled that Joseph sat in a chair with a belt in his hand as he and his siblings rehearsed, and that "if you didn't do it the right way, he would tear you up, really get you".^[15][16]

In 1964, Michael and Marlon joined the Jackson Brothers—a band formed by brothers Jackie, Tito, and Jermaine—as backup musicians playing congas and tambourine. Jackson later began performing backup vocals and dancing. When he was eight, Jackson began sharing the lead vocals with his older brother Jermaine, and the group's name was changed to The Jackson 5.^[8] The band toured the Midwest extensively from 1966 to 1968, frequently performing at a string of black clubs known as the "chitlin' circuit", where they often opened stripteases and other adult acts. In 1966, they won a major local talent show with renditions of Motown hits and James Brown's "I Got You (I Feel Good)", led by Michael.^[17]

The Jackson 5 recorded several songs, including "Big Boy", for the local record label Steeltown in 1967, before signing with Motown Records in 1968.^[8] Rolling Stone magazine later described the young Michael as "a prodigy" with "overwhelming musical gifts," writing that he "quickly emerged as the main draw and lead singer."^[18] The group set a chart record when its first four singles ("I Want You Back", "ABC", "The Love You Save", and "I'll Be There") peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100.^[8] Between 1972 and 1975, Michael released four solo studio albums with Motown, among them Got to Be There and Ben, released as part of the Jackson 5 franchise, and producing successful singles such as "Got to Be There", "Ben", and a remake of Bobby Day's "Rockin' Robin".

The Jackson 5 "became a cutting-edge example of black crossover artists... five working-class black boys with afros and bell bottoms, and they really didn't have to trade any of that stuff in order to become mainstream stars."^[19]

The group's sales began declining in 1973, and the band members chafed under Motown's strict refusal to allow them creative control or input. Although they scored several top 40 hits, including the top 5 disco single "Dancing Machine" and the top 20 hit "I Am Love", the Jackson 5 left Motown in 1975.^[20]

[edit] Move to Epic and Off the Wall (1975–81)

In June 1975, the Jackson 5 signed with Epic Records, a subsidiary of CBS Records^[20] and renamed themselves the Jacksons. Younger brother Randy formally joined the band around this time, while Jermaine left to pursue a solo career.^[21] They continued to tour internationally, releasing six more albums between 1976 and 1984, during which Michael was the lead songwriter, writing hits such as "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)", "This Place Hotel", and "Can You Feel It".^[17] In 1978, he starred as the scarecrow in the musical, The Wiz, a box-office disaster. It was here that he teamed up with Quincy Jones, who was arranging the film's musical score. Jones agreed to produce Jackson's next solo album, Off the Wall.^[22] In 1979, Jackson broke his nose during a complex dance routine. His subsequent rhinoplasty was not a complete success; he complained of breathing difficulties that would affect his career. He was referred to Dr. Steven Hoefflin, who performed Jackson's second rhinoplasty and subsequent operations.^[23]

Jones and Jackson produced the Off the Wall album together. Songwriters for the album included Jackson, Rod Temperton, Stevie Wonder, and Paul McCartney. Released in 1979, it was the first solo album to generate four U.S. top 10 hits, including the chart-topping singles "Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough" and "Rock with You".^[24][25] It reached number three on the Billboard 200 and eventually sold over 20 million copies worldwide.^[26] In 1980, Jackson won three awards at the American Music Awards for his solo efforts: Favorite Soul/R&B Album, Favorite Soul/R&B Male Artist, and Favorite Soul/R&B Single for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough".^[27][28] That year, he also won Billboard Year-End for Top Black Artist and Top Black Album and a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance, also for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough".^[24] Jackson again won at the American Music Awards in 1981 for Favorite Soul/R&B Album and Favorite Soul/R&B Male Artist.^[29] Despite its commercial success, Jackson felt Off the Wall should have made a much bigger impact, and was determined to exceed expectations with his next release.^[30] In 1980, he secured the highest royalty rate in the music industry: 37 percent of wholesale album profit.^[31]

[edit] Thriller and Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever (1982–83)

In 1982, Jackson contributed the song "Someone In the Dark" to the storybook for the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial; the record won a Grammy for Best Recording for Children in 1984. In the same year he won another seven Grammys and eight American Music Awards (including the Award of Merit, the youngest artist to win it), making him the most awarded in one night for both award shows.^[32][33] These awards were thanks to the Thriller album, released in late 1982, which was 1983's best-selling album worldwide^[34][35] and became the best-selling album of all time in the United States,^[36] as well as the best-selling album of all time worldwide, selling an estimated 110 million copies so far.^[37] The album topped the Billboard 200 chart for 37 weeks and was in the top 10 of the 200 for 80 consecutive weeks. It was the first album to have seven Billboard Hot 100 top 10 singles, including "Billie Jean", "Beat It", and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'".^[38] Thriller was certified for 29 million shipments by the RIAA, giving it Double Diamond status in the United States. The album won also another Grammy for Best Engineered Recording – Non Classical in 1984, awarding Bruce Swedien for his work.^[39] Jackson's attorney John Branca noted that Jackson had the highest royalty rate in the music industry at that point: approximately $2 for every album sold. He was also making record-breaking profits from sales of his recordings. The videocassette of the documentary The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller sold over 350,000 copies in a few months. The era saw the arrival of novelties like dolls modeled after Michael Jackson, which appeared in stores in May 1984 at a price of $12.^[40] Biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli writes that, "Thriller stopped selling like a leisure item—like a magazine, a toy, tickets to a hit movie—and started selling like a household staple."^[41] In 1985, The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller won a Grammy for Best Music Video, Longform.^[32] In December 2009, the music video for "Thriller" was selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, "Thriller" is the first music video ever to be inducted.^[42][43][44]

Time described Jackson's influence at that point as "Star of records, radio, rock video. A one-man rescue team for the music business. A songwriter who sets the beat for a decade. A dancer with the fanciest feet on the street. A singer who cuts across all boundaries of taste and style and color too".^[40] The New York Times wrote that, "in the world of pop music, there is Michael Jackson and there is everybody else".^[45]

On March 25th 1983, Michael Jackson reunited with his brothers for a legendary live performance which was taped for a Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever television special. The show aired on May 16, 1983, to an audience of 47 million viewers, and featured the Jacksons and a number of other Motown stars. It is best remembered for Jackson's solo performance of "Billie Jean". Wearing a distinctive black sequin jacket and golf glove decorated with rhinestones, he debuted his signature dance move, the moonwalk, which former Soul Train dancer and Shalamar member Jeffrey Daniel had taught him three years before. The Jacksons' performance drew comparisons to Elvis Presley's and The Beatles' appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.^[46] Anna Kisselgoff of The New York Times later wrote, "The moonwalk that he made famous is an apt metaphor for his dance style. How does he do it? As a technician, he is a great illusionist, a genuine mime. His ability to keep one leg straight as he glides while the other bends and seems to walk requires perfect timing."^[47]

Pepsi, "We Are the World" and business career (1984–85)[link]

Jackson with a Knott's Berry Farm Snoopy mascot in April 1984

On January 27, 1984, Michael and other members of the Jacksons filmed a Pepsi Cola commercial, overseen by executive Phil Dusenberry,^[48] from ad agency BBDO and Pepsi's Worldwide Creative Director, Alan Pottasch at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. In front of a full house of fans during a simulated concert, pyrotechnics accidentally set Jackson's hair on fire. He suffered second-degree burns to his scalp. Jackson underwent treatment to hide the scars on his scalp, and he also had his third rhinoplasty shortly thereafter.^[23] Jackson never recovered from this injury. Pepsi settled out of court, and Jackson donated his $1.5 million settlement to the Brotman Medical Center in Culver City, California, which now has a "Michael Jackson Burn Center" in honor of his donation.^[49] Dusenberry later recounted the episode in his memoir, Then We Set His Hair on Fire: Insights and Accidents from a Hall of Fame Career in Advertising.

On May 14, 1984, Jackson was invited to the White House to receive an award from President Ronald Reagan for his support of charities that helped people overcome alcohol and drug abuse.^[50] Jackson won eight awards during the Grammys that year. Unlike later albums, Thriller did not have an official tour to promote it, but the 1984 Victory Tour, headlined by The Jacksons, showcased much of Jackson's new solo material to more than two million Americans. He donated all the funds (around $8 million) raised from the Victory Tour to charity.^[51] He also co-wrote the charity single "We Are the World" in 1985 with Lionel Richie, which was released worldwide to aid the poor in the U.S. and Africa. It became one of the best-selling singles of all time, with nearly 30 million copies sold and millions of dollars donated to famine relief. In 1986, "We Are the World" won four Grammys (one for Jackson for Song of the Year). American Music Award directors removed the charity song from the competition because they felt it would be inappropriate, but recognized it with two special honors (one for the creation of the song and one for the USA for Africa idea). They are the only AMAs that Jackson won as non-solo artist.^{[52][53][54][55]}

Jackson at the White House South Portico with President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan, 1984

In 1984, ATV Music Publishing, which had the copyrights to nearly 4000 songs, including the Northern Songs catalog that contained the majority of the Lennon–McCartney compositions recorded by The Beatles, was put up for sale by Robert Holmes à Court.^[56] Jackson had become interested in owning music catalogs after working with Paul McCartney in the early 1980s: Jackson had learned McCartney made approximately $40 million a year from other people's songs.^[57] In 1981,^[58] McCartney was offered the ATV music catalog for £20 million ($40 million).^[57][59] According to McCartney, he contacted Yoko Ono about making a joint purchase by splitting the cost equally at £10 million each, but Ono thought they could buy it for £5 million each.^[57][59] When they were unable to make the joint purchase, McCartney let the offer fall through, not wanting to be the sole owner of the Beatles' songs.^[58][59]