Copyright 2005 Newsday, Inc.

http://www.newsday.com

Newsday (New York)

May 15, 2005 Sunday

NASSAU AND SUFFOLK EDITION

SECTION: OPINION; Pg. A54

LENGTH: 1047 words

HEADLINE: The silence of the young;

The child accuser in the Michael Jackson sex abuse case is practically invisible. But the issue of childhood innocence is plain to see.

BYLINE: BY KAREN STERNHEIMER. Karen Sternheimer teaches in the sociology department at the University of Southern California and is the author of "It's Not the Media: The Truth About Pop Culture's Influence on Children."

BODY:

Have you noticed that there's something missing in the coverage of the Michael Jackson child molestation trial, the latest so-called trial of the century? We have heard all about Michael Jackson's celebrity friends, his eccentricities and whether they have caused his fortunes to dwindle, but by and large public discussion of the case has overlooked a key player: the child himself.

Yes, the accuser has testified in the Santa Maria, Calif., courthouse, but in the court of public opinion he is all but absent.

That's not entirely an accident. Because he is a minor and this is a sexual molestation case, responsible journalists are bound to keep his identity private. But this case is about far more than whether this boy was given alcohol and molested by Jackson. Because of its high profile, and Michael Jackson's own childlike persona, the trial really is serving as a kind of referendum on the idea of childhood itself.

Who in this case qualifies as "innocent?" Who has been taken advantage of by whom?

Most child molestation cases don't have this burden. We tend to view those who abuse children as the lowest of the low and undeserving of a second chance. Sympathy for the perpetrator doesn't enter into the equation. We seldom question the motives of the children involved or their parents (in cases where the parents themselves are not the abusers).

But Michael Jackson is different. He comes to court with throngs of supporters screaming his name, shouting that he is innocent. Friends and family are quick to contend that, while Jackson does enjoy the company of children in his home and in his bed, in this trial he is himself an innocent victim of the greedy parent of a child he just wanted to help.

We are faced with a child on both sides of this case. Which one is most in need of saving? The boy who slept in Jackson's bed, or Jackson himself, presented as a man-child, a boy deprived of a conventional childhood who holds on to remnants of childhood by living at an amusement park and surrounding himself with young playmates?

While not everyone feels sympathy for Jackson, his story does resonate with many people. We have grown accustomed to the celebrity-as-victim motif, so often trotted out when stars run into trouble with the law, as defense attorneys claim that prosecutors are targeting celebrity clients for their own shot at fame.

At the same time, as a child who has had cancer, the boy in this case should be a very sympathetic figure. What is more tragic than a child fighting for his life, especially if he is then molested? But the media coverage, certainly to the delight of the defense, has not focused nearly as much attention on the boy's medical condition as they have on his mother, cast as devious and money-hungry.

The defense attorneys and the reporters have taken the child out of the child molestation trial. But not the notion of childhood. While the boy remains virtually unknown, Jackson has been a public figure for four decades. We are well aware of his story, at least the public version: a child performer with a strict disciplinarian father who achieved great wealth and fame but had to sacrifice his childhood in the process.

The assumption is that Jackson missed a "normal" childhood. But before we give him too much sympathy, we might recall that, while today we hope that kids are free of what is generally considered the adult burden of work, this wasn't always true. And Michael Jackson has experienced the earlier version of childhood and profited from it throughout his career.

Until the early 20th century, working children were the rule, not the exception, in the United States. Census data from 1910 indicate that nearly 2 million children worked for wages, with most children working on family farms. At that time, work was considered beneficial for a child's physical and moral development. Childhood came to be viewed as a time of leisure and learning only when families no longer depended on children to supplement their incomes.

Sociologist Viviana Zelizer has found that once children began to exit the labor force and were redefined as vulnerable, public interest in child performers began to rise. The perception that children were innocent became a commodity in show business in the early decades of the 20th century. Child stars like Mary Pickford, Jackie Coogan and Shirley Temple became big stars by marketing their childish pluck.

And innocence was a big part of the charm of child star Michael Jackson, singing grown-up love songs as a boy. Jackson 5 tracks like "I Want You Back" and "I'll Be There" became hits in part because of Jackson's uncanny ability to sing and dance with seeming adultlike emotion.

So well has the image of innocence been exploited that now interviewers ask Jackson's ex-wives whether his marriages were really consummated. The thought of him as an adult man can seem inconceivable.

Add to this Jackson's doe-eyed mug shot from his arrest for child molestation, which reveals someone who is desperately trying to stop the aging process, clearly uncomfortable with his physical appearance. But is he merely different, misunderstood and easily taken advantage of, or a manipulative and menacing predator?

Either way, the reality show of Michael Jackson's life serves as an opportunity for the rest of us to feel reassured. We might not be fabulously rich and famous, but, compared with Jackson, at least we're normal, right?

More importantly, this trial's focus on Jackson's oddness allows us to continue to believe that the key danger children face comes from strange outsiders. It is easy for most of us to ask, "What parent would allow their child into the bed of an adult man?" Surely we would know better, we think. But when children are physically or sexually abused, the perpetrators are much more likely to be parents and family members or close friends than outsiders.

Whether or not the charges in this case seem justified is for the jury to decide. But the worst thing about forgetting about the child who is at the center of it is this: We run the risk of sending the message to young people who are abused - and we know there are many - that there is no point in coming forward, that nobody will really pay attention to you. It doesn't take the power of a celebrity to silence a victim.

GRAPHIC: Newsday photo illustration / Jack Sherman - Michael Jackson and his entourage walking away with the cutout of a small boy behind them. Photo - Karen Sternheimer

LOAD-DATE: May 15, 2005