After recovering from your initial shock, it's tempting to view the mug shot simply as another of Michael Jackson's disastrous public relations miscalculations. Confronting charges of child molestation, on top of long-standing suspicions of general creepiness, one of the last things the King of Pop does before slipping his wrists into steel bracelets for his close-up is reach for his lipstick and eyeliner.
Maybe he wanted to put a good face on the situation.
(Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department Via AFP)
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In the portrait by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department, he is the Sad Clown, the hallucinatory hologram that seems to borrow in equal measure from Diana Ross, Liza Minnelli, Joan Crawford, the Joker and a long-ago little boy genius formerly known as one of the Jackson 5.
His shiny, wiry hair is allowed partially to obscure his right eye, as though the sheriff figures that's his natural look for identification purposes. His famously crafted nose looks like the geometrical train-shed proboscis Picasso gave his mistress in the early cubist portrait experiments. The whites of his staring eyes are visible almost all the way around his irises. When you try this at home, you can't keep it up for long.
The eyebrows are elevated and arched, the jaw is set, the lips form a crimson horizon. Are the eyebrows permanently uplifted, a feat of surgery, tattoo or makeup? We don't know. But the raised brows, staring eyes and clenched lips together convey the impression that Michael Jackson knows what you are thinking, and he strongly disagrees.
But to call the mug shot a miscalculation is perhaps to give Jacko too much credit. It suggests he had power to manipulate the medium, in the same way that, as an artist, he controls his self-presentation in song, dance and video.
But the King of Pop does not have that power. The medium in question, of course, is that potent form of visual expression, the celebrity mug shot. The celebrity mug shot is a great equalizer. When pop stars, athletes, socialites and icons allegedly behave badly, they are rewarded with inclusion in this humbling gallery. For perhaps the first time since they became famous, they don't have creative control. They can't whine about the lighting. They can't agonize over the angle. They don't get final cut.
These utilitarian precinct house images, stripped of artistry and contrivance, reveal celebrities at their most real.
Remember Paul Reubens -- aka Pee-wee Herman -- after his 1991 arrest for indecent exposure in a Florida adult movie theater? In the mug portrait, he bears no resemblance to the goofily subversive man-child comic with the crew cut. He has a goatee, long greasy hair, a slight frown. It looks as though Pee-wee is in a disguise, only he isn't.
We knew Nick Nolte could be a wild man from some of his movies, but we didn't get the full picture until his Kodak moment after a 2002 California highway stop, when he was charged with driving under the influence. There's a crazy glint in his eyes. His hair looks as though a top Hollywood stylist spent hours on the set of an asylum escape drama to achieve this tangled, gravity-defying effect.
Manuel Noriega appears shrunken and diminished, wearing a T-shirt and holding a plaque with his prisoner number after his 1990 arrest for drug trafficking. Without his uniform and totalitarian sunglasses, the deposed Panamanian strongman has a please-let-me-putter-in-the-garden essence. For this guy we invaded a country?
Once confined to dusty police files and exhibited temporarily in newspapers, mug shots now are curated nonstop on the Internet. An excellent collection is at www.thesmokinggun.com.
The famous faces have been wrenched from their accustomed habitat of the red carpet, the sports palace, the celluloid fantasy. These are faces that, a few hours earlier, didn't know there was another camera in their near future -- faces snapped not long after the Breathalizer, the Miranda warning, the real-life chase scene.
Some stars attempt to show they are bigger than the medium and the circumstances. Matthew McConaughey smirks at the camera after his 1999 arrest for suspicion of possession of marijuana. Steve McQueen smiles and gives a two-fingered peace sign after a drunken driving arrest in Alaska in 1972. Few celebs look handsome or pretty, but Frank Sinatra manages after his 1938 bust in New Jersey for adultery. His lips are full, his eyes clear and a lock of hair dangles down his forehead just so.
The purpose of mug shots is to communicate data, not character. The light is harsh and straight on, evaporating shadows, while shadows often help suggest character in the subjects of art photography.
For a celebrity, the perfect mug shot may be one that's bland, affectless, saying nothing. Then members of the public inclined against the star will find no added grist, while supporters will project goodwill onto the blank slate.
O.J. Simpson tried for this kind of neutral perfection in his 1994 mug, but he is betrayed by his droopy, tired eyes and his shirt collar half under and half over his jacket collar. He looks like a man who doesn't have it all together.
Kobe Bryant's mug, on the other hand, is nearly picture perfect, a forgettable poker face after his arrest for alleged sexual assault, sending no signals, yielding no revelations.
Michael Jackson had the relatively rare opportunity to primp. He did know this particular camera was in his future. He wasn't taken by surprise.
But rather than succeed in using artistry to withhold revelation from this soul-searching medium, he did the opposite: He suggested that the real Michael Jackson is all about the lips and the eyeliner.
By touching up the mask, the only bit of control at his disposal, he revealed that the mask may be all there is.
