m.j.

This week, the (ten-year-old) children in the English class I´m teaching were asked to put themselves into groups and make posters about their favorite band or musician. The posters were to include an introduction about the musical group, a physical description of its members, a section about the hobbies of the band/artist, an explanation of why the children liked their music, and a drawing of the musician(s). Bands chosen included The Killers, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana, Madonna and Michael Jackson.

The group who chose to write about Michael Jackson had no written information about him - everything they put on their poster came from what they remembered from magazine articles and tributes on television after his death. The following is the content of their poster:

Michael was born in San Diego, California on 1952. He was one of the members of ¨Jackson 5.¨ He has 5 brothers and sisters. He was sexually abused by his father. Later, he started abusing other children because of his tragic life. He became very famous working as a soloist.

He was very thin (51 kg.) and short. He was black, but then he turned into white. Michael Jackson was very crazy, he slept with a monkey and children. He danced very well. He invented moonwalk.

Michael used to play with children in his Neverland, take care of his kids, behave like a little child, operate himself and have Morphine.

We love Michael Jackson because he was very generous, good singer, good dancer, crazy. We think, also that Michael´s children weren´t his because they should be black, but they are blond and white.

It´s a little unnerving to experience the reach and influence of American pop culture.