Michael Jackson's Makeup

 Hey Y'all!

I'm in the middle of working on Part 2 of Chapter 8 and hopefully it will be up soon. But in the meantime, I wanted to touch on something. 

When I started writing VS, I had a very specific look for Michael in mind. Yes his character is based on Michael at 45years of age and looks as such. I play with his appearance between the last few years of his life, the suits the flatironed hair--it is HIS hair growing out his scalp because I don't feel like trying to create away why he wears hairpieces even though Michael did in real life due to an accident where he was burned on his head. 

For all intents and purposes, he straightens his hair himself, with a hot comb as I don't think flat irons were a thing in 1924. And when wet--such as after he swims--it's curly like Bad/Dangerous era. (I'm basing this on how he had curly hair in This Is It and we probably would have gotten a curls resurgence had June 25 not occurred) I do want to play through different styles on Michael. 

Right now, as I've changed the story header, his hair has changed. 

This is an AI image of course of Michael and Odette, and you can tell by Michael's hair the source photo was one from Stranger in Moscow. I did prompt it for straight hair but it didn't listen. I liked how it turned out though. So Michael will have SIM/.WHY hair for a while. 

But a point of contention for me has been Michael's makeup. 

Back in 1924, men didn't really wear makeup in day to day life unless they were on the stage or on the screen. Michael in VS is not a screen star but does come from the stage as he'd been a child star in vaudeville before making his many millions in ways still unknown to Odette and the reader. 

I am trying to incorporate aspects of the real Michael Jackson into this fictitious version of him. 

One is the Vitiligo, that most intelligent people realize is the reason his complexion changed so drastically. And yes I have know people personally with the disorder and they lightened up from very dark to very fair. This was hinted at, when Odette found a photo of Michael as a child and he was a dark-skinned boy, not the fair-skinned man she knew. The topic will be broached at some point. 

And of course, everyone knows Michael wore makeup the greater part of his adult life. Mainly to even his skin tone (hence why you never saw him spotted all over, like say, Winnie Harlow) 

I take an artistic approach to his skin "depigmentation" by calling them freckles. 

Anyway, his makeup. I had a very specific look for Michael's makeup in my mind. It was actually I think based on the History era, I just remembered thinking "I liked his makeup heavy" Even as a child I liked it. But when I started looking at photos for reference, I could NOT find the specific look I was going for, And I sourced pictures from the last 20 years of Michael's life to have a wide berth to pick from. 

I started to think I had imagined it or was just remembering how he looked wrongly, then I saw this random tiktok 

https://www.tiktok.com/@alemjjackson/video/7509757918334569750?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7409424508173600302

It was a clip from Michael and Friends 1999. And why I couldn't seem to find any "candid" or photoshoot pictures of him like that--it was STAGE makeup. 

In a weird way, it made sense to me to keep him this way. Like yeah, there's pics where his make up is lighter or more natural but I like it a bit more obvious this way. In a way, he's never off the stage. He's always kind of performing, always on display, especially when he dares to venture out into Juniper Peak. People are always staring, might as well give them something to stare at. Plus I thought he was just beautiful looking like that. I thought he was beautiful in 1999 when I was 13 and I feel the same way at almost 40. 

And his makeup will shift where noted in the story, of course, but the default is the above. Plus it's already hinted at that he's handy with makeup--he does Odette's for her and teaches her to use it, and its said he did his sisters' makeup for the stage also. 

I don't know why I suddenly felt the need to describe it but here we are. 

And of course, I wear a lot of makeup anyway. LOL!