XIX DANGEROUS: Michael Jackson, Threatened Behind The Mask?

In 2001, Michael Jackson sang in his song THREATENED about feeling threatened. Maybe that was the reason why Jackson not only played the role of MICHAEL JACKSON, his persona, on his 1991 DANGEROUS album cover according to ancient Greek theater rules. Jackson played the role extremely successfully. It pelted reviews, both good and bad, but numerous. The play made headlines and was always sold out.

Michael Jackson „Behind the Mask“ and „Masquerade the heart“

„Behind the Mask“ is Jacksons song from 1979/1980 and to „masquerade the heart“ he sang about in IS IT SCARY from 1997. ¹, ²
In the early days of theater, masks were worn by actors. The mask was thus the role of the actor in the theater and his persona.
A mask is also worn by the Greatest Entertainer of All Time on his 1991 album cover, the name of the play, in which he performs the leading role, is written above the entrance to this theater:

MICHAEL JACKSON

The play MICHAEL JACKSON has been running for decades and at some point during the performance, the image of MICHAEL JACKSON became the mask of Jackson. With the „bizarre“ stories. With the marketing. With the magic.

„I’ve told you I’m always on stage.“

Michael Jackson, 2002 to Martin Bashir.

Michael Jackson warned a disgruntled journalist in 2002 who, like his predecessors, felt cheated out of an unmasked interview. ³ Jackson as „The man behind the mask“ was already a phrase for so long that even the mask of Jackson was considered his identifying trademark.
The mask of Michael Jackson only showed his photogenic eyes and protected him perfectly from the merciless zoom of paparazzi cameras from the mid-1980s onward. As a result, the mask significantly increased the value of a maskless photo of entertainer Jackson. That´s clever. The Jackson mask caused a furore, emphasized his mysterious aura and raised curiosity. If he wore a mask, he played the role of MICHAEL JACKSON according to ancient Greek theater rules. The persona MICHAEL JACKSON. The role was extremely successful. It received numerous reviews, good and bad, but countless. The play made headlines and was always sold out.

The Michael Jackson image – threatened?

With every album, the entertainer Michael Jackson reinvented himself, created new dances, new music, created a new image and a new Michael Jackson era.

1979: „I should be a totally different person“

Reinventing MICHAEL JACKSON was part of Jackson’s strategy. He had it written on papers that became part of his HIStory as a „manifesto“:

„MJ will be my new name no more Michael Jackson I want a whole new character, a whole new look, I should be a tottally different person. […] I should be a new, incredible actor singer dancer, that will shock the world. I will do no interviews I will be magic. […]“

Michael Jackson, around 1979 ⁴

„[…] I’m a new person now. Beautiful. Knowing the secrets and determined with fire to move mountains in all I do. Moulding my own world. I’m beautiful. The old me is behind and I will march ahead new. […]“

Michael Jackson, in the middle of the 80s.⁵

2001: „The End of a Particularly Terrifying Nightmare“. The „Twilight Zone“ in Threatened by Michael Jackson

But at some point in the late 1980s, the public took itself the right of rejecting the African-American artist Michael Jacksons multi-faceted image building.
In 2001 Jackson released his last studio album INVINCIBLE. He called his last song on his last album THREATENED. In THREATENED he sings about how the public considers him a threat. But he also sings about the fact that he feels threatened. THREATENED carries autobiographical elements in the Jackson Art. Is THREATENED maybe even a song that explains in its aRt the story of Michael Jackson?

„It isn’t. It’s the beginning.“

Rod Serling in THREATENED by Michael Jackson

There seems to be more behind Jackson’s last song THREATENED from his last album INVINCIBLE than just a hint at THRILLER, which finally propelled his career into orbit. In THREATENED, Jackson replaces the part Vincent Price had in THRILLER and quotes Rod Serling from the series „Twilight Zone“.
Rod Serling was an American screenwriter, TV producer and philosopher. In 1959, he invented the TV series „Twilight Zone“. In the episodes of „Twilight Zone“, Serling told his audience mysterious stories that philosophically, ironically and critically illuminated human interaction. Serling incorporated fear, hope, prejudice and psychology into his stories and encouraged TV viewers to think about human existence.  Serling guided his audience into another dimension, into a world between light and shadow, between fear and knowledge. In stories that end unexpectedly. Serling himself took on the role of the narrator, opened the episodes and concluded them with wise words that encourage the viewer to ponder about human culture.
In 2001, Michael Jackson created a posthumous „rap“ with fragments of Rod Serling’s quotations in THREATENED. He had set pieces from Serling’s stories from different episodes put together to create a completely new narrative for THREATENED. With THREATENED, Jackson also follows the narrative structure of the „Twilight Zone“ and let Serling narrate the beginning, the middle and the end.  For the end of that song, Jackson chose Rod Serling’s words.

„What you have just witnessed could be the end of a particularly terrifying nightmare. It isn’t. It’s the beginning.“

Rod Serling in THREATEND by Michael Jackson 2001 ⁶

How much from the Twilight Zone Episode „In his Image“ is in the song THREATENED by Michael Jackson?

The 1963 „Twilight Zone“ episode, from which Jackson quotes in 2001, is titled „In his Image“. „In his Image“ is about the creation of an image that has gotten out of control. Not only the title is taken from the Bible:

„Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image […] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him […]“

1.Mose 1:27 ⁷

In a metaphor, Serling here tells in this episode about a successful, manly, brilliant scientist (Walter Ryder), who creates an artificial human being entirely from his imagination. Walter had created his image. In this image (named Alan Talbot) Walter only includes the positive traits of his creator, while he leaves the negative ones out.
At some point, however, the artificially created image becomes independent and Walter, the creator, has to experience that his creation, his mirror image named Alan, gets out of controle just as Adam once did. In the end Walter tries to explain himself to us and his image:

 „The fact is, you were born a long time ago, inside my head. All kids have dreams, don’t they? Well, you were mine. The others thought about joining the army or flying to mars. They finally grew up and they forgot their dreams. I didn’t. I thought about one thing and longed for one thing always. Just one: A perfect artificial man. Not a robot, a duplicate of a human being. Well, it was harmless. Not even very imaginative for a child. But then I became an adult. Only somewhere along the line, I forgot to grow up – like most geniuses. I kept my dream. I created you Alan.[…] what I really wanted was to build another Walter Ryder- only without the drawbacks. Sort of a reverse Jekyll and Hyde. Everything I wished I was, my creation would be. Where I was shy, he would be aggressive. Where I was cold and withdrawn, he would be warm and outgoing. Loneliness would be unknown to him. Disease and pain and death- all unknown. He would be unselfish. He would be ambitious but not fanatical. And, oh, Alan, he would be perfect! That was my dream: A perfect version of myself.“

„In his Image“ 1963 ⁸

Wouldn’t Michael Jackson’s quote be as fitting as the dialogue between the „creator“ and his „image“ metaphorically a dialogue between the genius Michael Joe Jackson and his image of the „King of Pop“? The genius Michael Joe Jackson was born in entertainment. Was the creation of a public persona of himself, the creation of the King of Pop, part of his early dream? Here is an excerpt from Jackson’s notes, in which he expressed his own ideas in the mid-1980s: ⁹

„I have learned that it is what you put in your mind mentally what you think and do, that makes your person. And you can put any mental object in this mind and it will bring it to reality. So this means we can program ourselves to be the people we want to be, Whatever the subject matter is, live in it By a mental physical program or system of learning and doing. Studying all the greats in that field and becoming greater. My program will consist of …“

Michael Jackson in his manifest written down at the end of the 80s ¹⁰

„Onstage I’m playing a role“ Michael Jackson 1982

On stage, the King of Pop revealed the aggression that Michael Joe’s politeness forbade:

„Onstage I’m playing a role: I know what’s expected of me and what I have to do. It’s all very well planned. Life isn’t well planned: It’s unpredictable. It scares me! It’s so much harder than being on stage.„

Michael Jackson, 1982 ¹¹

With the commercial success of the King of Pop, Michael Joe had the possibilities for his wide ranging humanitarian efforts at the highest level. But what price did Michael Joe have to pay for the global popularity of the King of Pop?
In 1963, Rod Serling concluded his story „In his Image“ with the following words: ¹²

„In a way it can be said that Walter Ryder succeeded in his life’s ambition, even though the man he created was, after all, himself.“

Rod Serling, 1963 „In his image“, Twilight Zone

While Jackson ends THREATENED with Serlings in the following way: 

„What you have just witnessed could be the end of a particularly terrifying nightmare. It isn’t. It’s the beginning.“

Rod Serling 1963 in „In his Image“ and in 2001 in Michael Jackson´s THREATENED. ¹³

For the new millennium, the King of Pop had announced that he would, so to speak, quit his job and turn to a new career in filmmaking. Was THREATENED part of this announcement on the Michael Jackson aRt? In the following video I compared Jackson’s THREATENED and Serling’s „In his Image“. You can click here to watch the video on YouTube.

„Am I the Beast You Visualized?“ Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson was not only with the DANGEROUS album in 1991 in the center of the public world and was masquerading himself. That was DANGEROUS. That was THREATENED. And the media was going crazy. At some point, Michael Jackson answered to the public and with his mask he reflected our own ugly prejudices.

Michael Jackson reacts to media reports. For example, when the world is outraged about the number of plastic surgery procedures he has undergone. Rumored that there were more than 50 of them. And then there was also the story about his nose …

Michael Jackson and the story in THREATENED

With the following video, I try to make it clear how the fear of the public was/ is a constant companion in the public life of Michael Jackson and how he reacted in his aRt. The video also deals with my interpretation of his song THREATENED.
At times, especially after 1993, Jackson had to struggle with mass hysteria and the fear of the unknown about his public persona. Jackson made a clear statement about this with his short film MICHAEL JACKSONS GHOSTS: Villagers, i.e. the public, from a place „in normal valley“, are afraid of the maestro (Michael Jackson) because he does not fit into their definition of „normal“. Because of this fear they want to chase him out of town. The characters of the „Twilight Zone“ episode „The Fear“, the episode Jackson quotes in his last song THREATENED, react in the same way. In „The Fear“ the inhabitants don’t know what their fear is based on. Possibly just too much imagination.
The only problem is here: What exactly is fear?

„The major ingredient of any recipe for fear is the unknown.“

Rod Serling, 1964, Twilight Zone Episode „The Fear“

Michael Jackson quotes an excerpt of this sentence from the „Twilight Episode“ in THREATENED.
Michael Jackson was a master in many fields, but how is it possible that the world’s greatest entertainer can be a synonym for the unknown at the same time?

„The Press has made me out to be this monster“ Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson reflects with his mask our ignorant prejudices. From tabloid reports about him we learn nothing about the man, only about us. We learn what ugly methods are used to find our prejudices confirmed in headlines about Jackson. Racism, discrimination and jealousy play a large role in this and this realization is a painful experience.

„Do you think, given all the negative press that you have had, the people will judge you solely on your music?“
„I don’t think so because the press has made me out to be this monster, this crazy person who’s bizarre and weird. I’m nothing like that.“

Michael Jackson, 1999. ¹⁴

The scream by Michael Jackson 1991 and 1995

But Jackson’s mask serves not always as a mirror of public opinion. Jackson’s mask is also Jackson’s protective shield. His mask protects him from the damage when he strikes back in 1995. In the „court of public opinion“ where the pre-conviction of Michael Jackson had taken place. A screenwriter had accused him of „child abuse“ in a very media-effective style, whose accusations never held up in a proper courtroom.
In 1995 Jackson released the short film SCREAM. In this film, the African-American can be seen in a „court“ of a pure white environment.

1995 in Michael Jackson’s SCREAM a „tennis“ court transforms to a „court of public opinion“

It seems in SCREAM a „tennis court“ is being transformed into a courtroom. Jackson’s „court“ scene symbolizes his never-ending struggle in the „court of public opinion“, where in 1993 the „people vs. Michael Jackson“ had announced a life sentence without knowledge of the evidence. ¹⁵

But Michael Jackson’s scream in SCREAM could already be heard on DANGEROUS in 1991:

„The fun is over! Back to the circus you freak!“

Michael Jackson zu Michael Jackson, 1996. ¹⁶

„Masquerade the heart„

Michael Jackson, 1996 in IS THIS SCARY ¹⁷

Entertainer Michael Jackson had practiced to masquerade his emotions in the gigantic circus of his life. The Michael Jackson mask was part of the show that entertained us. He knows that, he had created it. But do we know that too?

„I’m the one watching YOU. Be in two places at the same time“ Michael Jackson in THREATENED 2001

„I’m the one watching YOU …. Be in two places at the same time„

Michael Jackson 2001 in THREATENED. ¹⁸

And from this changing perspective, Michael Jackson’s mask on DANGEROUS remains only an illusion. And Michael Jackson’s mask turns into a peep hole.
And not only the eyes of Bubbles follow us – the public – in the DANGEROUS painting. Michael Jackson’s eyes do the same.

„I’m enjoying this!„

Michael Jackson as spectator in the cinema in THRILLER in the midst of his own audience. Which is horrified by him and his performance. ¹⁹

In the MICHAEL-JACKSON-Spectacle, Jackson switches traditional roles. Under his direction, it is the actor who observes the performance of his audience.

„Action, Reaction, Cause and Effect. From them to me, from me to them“ Michael Jackson 2006

„Action, Reaction, Cause and Effect. From them to me, from me to them.“

Michael Jackson in his instructions to a cameraman in 2006. ²⁰

Michael Jackson’s actions were calculated. We are left with the reaction. Jackson liked to show it in his films. The reactions he preferred were the hysterical and female ones. The impact of his transformation into a monster on his film partner in THRILLER 1983 and on his audience (i.e. us) in his cinema was only the beginning. Images of hysterical reactions to his actions on and off stage, personally selected by him, are part of the follow-up.
The calculated expectations of Jackson’s audience were then once again presented by him. And he then presented them to us in films. The best examples are THRILLER, BRACE YOURSELF, REACTION TO BLACK OR WHITE or the edited film scenes of his concert in Bucharest in 1992. The fainting of the female audience members takes up a really substantial part of the concert on DVD. ²¹
Jackson’s publication of his 1992 DANGEROUS concert in Bucharest consists of what seem to be 30% hysterical audience reactions. The images he provides us with are representative. Many times Jackson’s publications contain his philosophy: „Action. reaction. cause. effect. From them to me, from me to them.“ Documentaries, concert footage, the mere arrival of Jackson somewhere in this world. The publication of his short films on „DANGEROUS – THE SHORTFILMS“ from 1993 bear his signature and show on what he put his focus on. Especially his film „Reaction to BLACK OR WHITE“ makes Jackson’s motivation clear. It is not without a certain irony when he puts at the beginning of the film: „The reaction was unanticipated.“

„I’m enjoying this!“

Michael Jackson in THRILLER 1983.

„I can’t perform if I don’t have that kind of ping pong with the crowd. You know the kind of cause and effect action, reaction. Because I play off of them. They’re really feeding me and I’m just acting from their energy.“

Michael Jackson, 1992. ²²

Even in Jackson’s short-films there is always an audience that reacts to him. Whether the thugs in BAD watch him performing in the underground garage. Whether in SMOOTH CRIMINAL the guests of „CLUB 30“ give the keyword „Watch him!“. Whether in 1996 in MICHAEL JACKSONS GHOSTS the villagers are running away in horror at his actions. In 2001, in YOU ROCK MY WORLD, he was asked for the last time: „Show me what you got!“
In 1983, Jackson showed us in THRILLER how he enjoyed the reaction of his audience, i.e. our reaction to his performance in the movie theater. This was the first time Jackson, who had been under the spotlight for his entire life, changed sides. It was a simply complicated psychology in the Michael Jackson aRt.

In 1991, Jackson transformed into a black panther and presented masturbation and violence and destruction in front of running cameras. The public cried out. In 1993, Jackson presented exactly this outcry of the public in another film that he called: „Reactions to BLACK OR WHITE.“ ²³
But the audience’s reactions are somehow only a follow-up from the reactions in THRILLER in 1983. After all, was the reaction really as unexpected as he claimed?

„Action, Reaction, Cause and Effect. From them to me, from me to them.“

Michael Jackson in his instructions to a cameraman in 2006. ²⁴

Also in 1991, Michael Jackson observes us from the DANGEROUS cover and made it a part of the painting. And again us watchers become cast members of the MICHAEL-JACKSON-Circus.

Perhaps the MICHAEL-JACKSON-play is a trap in which many have fallen into. Before the start of a concert in 1997, a visitor in Jackson’s dressing room reported this:

„He put his arm around my shoulder, turned me in another direction and pointed to a TV screen that showed all the fans inside the stadium.
MJ: „You know, you people always think you’re watching me, but the truth is I’m watching you,“ and he started laughing out loud.“

²⁵

Michael Jackson was watching. And he explained this behavior musically in 2001 in THREATENED with Rod Serling’s „Twilight Zone“: ²⁶

„He knows every thought, he can feel every emotion […] Watching you when you sleep, when you’re in bed I’m underneath […] You’re trapped in halls, and my face is the walls […]I heard just what you said […]You should be watching me, you should feel threatened […] Your worst nightmare, it’s me, I’m everywhere […] I’m telling you, when you lie under a tomb I’m the one watching you […] This particular monster can read minds, be in two places at the same time […].“

Rod Serling in Michael Jackson’s THREATENED 2001.

With observations in the Jackson way of aRt, Michael Jackson finished his last song on his last album in 2001:

„I’m the one watching you.“

Michael Jackson in THREATENED ²⁷

Related articles:

1. BEHIND THE MASK, Michael Jackson, Chris Mosdell, Ryuichi Sakamoto, produced by Michael Jackson, John McClain. 1979/1985/2010, Chris Cadman – Michael Jackson – The Maestro. The Definitive A-Z, Volume I: A-J/Volume II: K-Z; 2013/2015 „Chris Mosdell and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto wrote and composed the song that was based on the poem “The Mask” by Irish poet W.B. Yeats and the imagery of a Japanese traditional Noh mask: “I was talking about a very impersonal, socially controlled society, a future technological era, and the mask represented that immobile, unemotional state,” Kindle-Positions 3162-3171
2. Jackson, Michael, Album: BLOOD ON THE DANCEFLOOR-HIStory in the Mix. Song: IS IT SCARY, 13.05.1997, Sony Music
3. Jackson, Michael in Living with Michael Jackson, Interviewer: Martin Bashir. 02.2003, Granada. Television, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjoIDfsckYY
4. CBS News, 08.09.2013: „MJ’s „manifesto,“ penned in 1979, „MJ will be my new name no more Michael Jackson I want a whole new character, a whole new look, I should be a tottally different person. People should never think of me as the kid who sang ABC, I Want You Back. I should be a new, incredible actor singer dancer, that will shock the world. I will do no interviews I will be magic. I will be a perfectionist a researcher a trainer a masterer I will be Better than every great actor roped in one. I „must“ have the most incredable training system. to dig and dig and dig until I find I will study and look back on the whole world of Entertainment and perfect it. take it steps further from where the greats left off.“, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mjs-manifesto-penned-in-1979/
5. Juliens Auktionshaus, Lot 419 of 435: MICHAEL JACKSON HANDWRITTEN POETRY, Juliens Auktionshaus 2010, handwritten note by Michael Jackson: „I’m beautiful. I’m beautiful. I’m beautiful. I’m beautiful. I’m gorgeous. God is for me, who can be against me? I’m beautiful. I’m a new person now. Beautiful. Knowing the secrets and determined with fire to move mountains in all I do. Moulding my own world. I’m beautiful. The old me is behind and I will march ahead new. I have learned that it is what you put in your mind mentally what you think and do, that makes your person. And you can put any mental object in this mind and it will bring it to reality. So this means we can program ourselves to be the people we want to be, Whatever the subject matter is, live in it By a mental physical program or system of learning and doing. Studying all the greats in that field and becoming greater. My program will consist of,= “ https://www.julienslive.com/view-auctions/catalog/id/8/lot/2088/
6. Serling, Rod, The Twilight Zone – Episode „In his Image“, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734578/ with Serlings quote: „What you have just witnessed could be the end of a particularly terrifying nightmare. It isn’t. It’s the beginning.“ With this quote Jackson completes the song THREATENED, while in the movie the episode begins with this introduction. Ironically, an elderly, obsessed lady in the dark underworld of a subway station „preaches“ about the impending end of the world, reminiscent of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The man to whom she dedicates her hysterical sermon can no longer bear it and throws her in front of an oncoming, screaming train. He himself escapes from the shady underground, takes a staircase leading to the light. EXIT is the last sign Serling presents to the audience. Jackson himself belonged to the Jehovah’s Witnesses until 1988 and left them after being put under heavy pressure for his performance because his appearance did not conform with their statutes. Jackson resigned from the Religious Community.
7. BibelText https://bibeltext.com/genesis/1-27.htm
8. Serling, Rod, „The Twilight Zone“, Episode „In his Image“, 03.01.1963, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734578/ „The fact is, you were born a long time ago, inside my head. All kids have dreams, don’t they? Well, you were mine. The others thought about joining the army or flying to mars. They finally grew up and they forgot their dreams. I didn’t. I thought about one thing and longed for one thing always. Just one: A perfect artificial man. Not a robot, a duplicate of a human being. Well, it was harmless. Not even very imaginative for a child. But then I became an adult. Only somewhere along the line, I forgot to grow up – like most geniuses. I kept my dream. I created you […]The money was the least of it. The failures, though, they were bad. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve failed and had to start over again […] luck had a great deal to do with your creation. Skill alone wasn’t enough […] what I really wanted was to build another Walter Ryder- only without the drawbacks. Sort of a reverse Jekyll and Hyde. Everything I wished I was, my creation would be. Where I was shy, he would be aggressive. Where I was cold and withdrawn, he would be warm and outgoing. Loneliness would be unknown to him. Disease and pain and death- all unknown. He would be unselfish. He would be ambitious but not fanatical. And, oh, Alan, he would be perfect! That was my dream: A perfect version of myself.“ CBS.
9. Juliens Auktionshaus, 2010, „Lot 419 of 435: MICHAEL JACKSON HANDWRITTEN POETRY from the end of the 1980s: „… I have learned that it is what you put in your mind mentally what you think and do, that makes your person. And you can put any mental object in this mind and it will bring it to reality. So this means we can program ourselves to be the people we want to be, Whatever the subject matter is, live in it By a mental physical program or system of learning and doing. Studying all the greats in that field and becoming greater. My program will consist of,“ https://www.julienslive.com/view-auctions/catalog/id/8/lot/2088/
10. Juliens Auktionshaus, 2010, „Lot 419 of 435: MICHAEL JACKSON HANDWRITTEN POETRY, https://www.julienslive.com/view-auctions/catalog/id/8/lot/2088/
11. Michael Jackson, 1982 in the interview with Carl Nelson for „Rock and Soul: Here Comes 1, Readers of Rock and Soul vote Michael Jackson The most popular Artist of 1982“ „Onstage I’m playing a role: I know what’s expected of me and what I have to do. It’s all very well planned. Life isn’t well planned: It’s unpredictable. It scares me! It’s so much harder than being on stage.“ source: http://www.michaeljacksonmasterworks.com/magazines-1990-94/
12. Serling, Rod,“ The Twilight Zone“, Episode „In his Image“, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734578/ CBS
13. Jackson, Michael, THREATENED, 10.30.2001, INVINCIBLE album song text/Rod Serling’s rap is a collection of various introductory or closing words from Serling’s episodes in the TWILIGHT ZONE series. The last sentence from Rod Serling in Jackson’s THREATENED is: „What you have just witnessed could be the end of a particularly terrifying nightmare. It isn’t. It’s the beginning.“ This is also the last sentence of the episode „In his Image“, SONY Music
14. Jackson, Michael, Interview in „The Once and Future King, Lisa Bernhard vom 04.12.1999, TV Guide 27.11.1999, Interview with Lisa Bernhard
15. Mesereau, Thomas, Transcript of “Frozen in Time: A Riveting Behind-the-Scenes View of the Michael Jackson Cases”, Part 5, David Edwards/Transcript, Website Vindicate Michae, https://vindicatemj.wordpress.com/frozen-in-time-seminar-2/5-thomas-mesereau-2/
16. Jackson, Michael in MICHAEL JACKSON’S GHOSTS, film; direction: Stan Winston. 1996, Kingdom Entertainment CD, Note: With these words the politically ambitious mayor wants to chase Maestro Jackson out of town. The film is Jackson’s autobiographical allusion to the witch hunt against him three years earlier. About an accusation that never made it to court.
17. Jackson, Michael, Album: Blood On The Dancefloor – HIStory in the Mix. Song: IS IT SCARY, 13.05.1997, Sony Music
18. Jackson, Michael, THREATENED, 10.30.2001, INVINCIBLE Album „He knows every thought, he can feel every emotion […] Watching you when you sleep, when you’re in bed I’m underneath […] You’re trapped in halls, and my face is the walls […]I heard just what you said […]You should be watching me, you should feel threatened […] Your worst nightmare, it’s me, I’m everywhere […] I’m telling you, when you lie under a tomb I’m the one watching you […] This particular monster can read minds, be in two places at the same time […]“, SONY Music
19. Jackson, Michael in MICHAEL JACKSONS THRILLER, 1983, Video Greatest Hits – HIStory, Sony Music Video Enterprises, 1995
20. Jackson, Michael, MTV Japan. Behind the scenes of the MTV Video Music Award,  2006, „Please document everything. Action, Reaction, Cause and Effect. From them to me, from me to them!“,  https://youtu.be/Hdoo6Ebh0sM?t=193
21. MICHAEL JACKSON – Live in Bucharest. DANGEROUS World Tour 1992, released on DVD 2004., Sony Music
22. Interview with magazine EBONY/JET: Michael Jackson Crowned in Africa, Pop Music King Tells Real Story Of Controversial Trip from Johnson, Robert E. on page 34, 05.1992, https://books.google.de/books?id=tMwDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA15&dq=ebony+mai+1992&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiI6KbZm-veAhWELewKHTLDCssQ6AEIVDAH#v=onepage&q&f=false
23. Dangerous: The Short Films – Reaction to BLACK OR WHITE from1993/republished 2001, DVD, Epic Music Video.
24. Jackson, Michael, MTV Japan. Hinter den Kulissen des MTV Video Music Award.,  2006,  https://youtu.be/Hdoo6Ebh0sM?t=193
25. IT’S ALL ABOUT L.O.V.E – Michael Jackson stories you wer never meant to read by Brigitte Bloemen, Marina Dobler, Miriam Lohr, Sonja Winterholler 2010“, Books on Demand GmbH
26. THREATENED, 10.30.2001, Michael Jackson, INVINCIBLE Album „He knows every thought, he can feel every emotion […] Watching you when you sleep, when you’re in bed I’m underneath […] You’re trapped in halls, and my face is the walls […]I heard just what you said […]You should be watching me, you should feel threatened […] Your worst nightmare, it’s me, I’m everywhere […] I’m telling you, when you lie under a tomb I’m the one watching you […] This particular monster can read minds, be in two places at the same time […]“, SONY Music
27. Jackson, Michael in THREATENED, Album INVINCIBLE, 2001.10.30., SONY Music