As a special Friday treat, we bring you this guest post from nogoodforme pal DJ Freak Illness aka Katie Perry (not to be confused with Katy Perry, who we’re not friends with at all and will never ask to guest-blog for us). Enjoy!
I am a sucker for many things, but my hands-down Numero Uno sucker-maker is dancing. In that category, my top sub-sucker-makers are: dancing at weddings, choreographed dancing in general, and anything that involves both dancing and Michael Jackson. Put ‘em together and what have you got? Choreographed dancing to Michael Jackson at weddings!
And I ain’t the only one! Browse the YouTube and you will find many many wedding tributes to the King of Pop. There are others, sure (the way lamer Nobody-Puts-Baby-In-a-Corner first dance, the Country-Music-Morphs-into-”Low”-by-Flo-Rida first dance, some “Baby Got Back” first dances, which I admit I find somewhat charming), but MJ leads the pack by a healthy margin. I have some theories about it: a bride and groom are vulnerable on their wedding day, partly because they are in the midst of a very public display of their wide-open little hearts (ideally anyway), and MJ was a balls-to-the-wall, wide-open little hearted performer. Onstage, he was raw in a way that, say, Madonna isn’t. Who better to imitate on the day you bring everyone you know to the same place to show them how disgustingly in love you are?
I had some other theories too, but I forgot them. ANYWAY. Last year, I got really obsessed with Thriller wedding videos, which almost always cheer me up when I’m feeling blue. Now that I’ve been feeling blue about MJ’s passing, I’ve revisited a few of them. Here, for your enjoyment, a sampling of clips from the Three Major Types of Michael Jackson Wedding Dances:
THRILLER IN THE FELLOWSHIP HALL – GROOMSMEN STEAL THE SHOW
This is one of my favorites, I think mostly because of the way they zomb into the frame at the beginning and then how the main guy is always just this side of Really Into It but he’s still pretty good. I also like to pretend he’s Win Butler.
MJ AS WINDOW INTO THE BEDROOM, OR: “WATCH OUT! WE’RE UNPREDICTABLE!”
This is one from the “surprise first dance” genre, in which the newlyweds start out shuffling in earnest to something acoustic and love-y, and then BAM! The rug is pulled from under our feet! Like the story of the Titanic, it’s way predictable, but the ending still gets me.
I like this one because when they’re dancing to Jack Johnson the wife seems a little twitchy and uptight, but then when “The Way You Make Me Feel” hits, and especially around 1:47 and 2:27, I feel like they really want the audience to think a lot about them having SEX! Which is fine, I guess. Also, the high-five at the end kills me, I admit it.
THRILLER WITH LAUGH TRACK: EVERYBODY LIMBO
Then we have the bride + groom + wedding party-style Thriller, which has a more celebratory feel since the whole gang is in on it. This one I enjoy mainly for the occasional zoom on the bride grabbing her crotch and the fact that the audience is howling with laughter the whole time.
Sigh. Farewell MJ. May your moves be mangled by generations to come.
[...] of this year’s Austin Chronicle short story contest. And while you’re at it, read “The DJ Freak Illness Guide to Home Movies: Michael Jackson Memorial Edition,” from this amazing website called [...]