My love and adoration for Janet Jackson runs deep and true, and if I had to choose a single musical artist as my all-time favorite, it would be her. No contest. For most of my family and friends, this confession is neither surprising nor particularly revelatory, since I never kept my fandom much of a secret. Posters of Jackson adorned my bedroom walls. I celebrated her May birthday rather than the end of the school year and never missed an opportunity to insert her music or lyrics into my homework. A number of passages scribbled on the pages of my senior-year yearbook mention my infatuation with Janet as one of my defining characteristics, a badge of honor I was all too happy to carry with me to college and into adulthood. Even one of my tattoos--the first one, actually--is Janet Jackson related: a symbol from The Velvet Rope on my upper left arm, the significance of its permanence not lost on me.
Whereas Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill defined an era for millions of people the world over, my friends and I included, Janet Jackson's The Velvet Rope seemed more singularly important in my journey of self-discovery. Though I fully recognized my adoration for Jackson was well established and others obviously connected to The Velvet Rope for a variety of reasons, I felt as if this Jackson album spoke directly to me and my burgeoning sense of identity when it arrived in the fall of 1997. I was 20 years old at the time and serving my second year as a Resident Advisor in the on-campus apartments at UMD. Many of the close and life-long friendships made that first fall grew stronger over those two years. Others faded. New lasting friendships developed as my position as an RA connected me to new people on an almost daily basis. The days of living within a shell were officially gone, and with the awkwardness of freshman year receding into the past and my first year as an RA successfully under my belt, my self-confidence and sense of purpose never seemed stronger. I felt like I had found my calling and finally began to understand who Chris was. In short, life was great. Never before had I felt so alive or so connected to my fellow human beings. I lived for socializing with my friends, hosting programs for residents, and going to class more often than not (most weeks). I threw myself and all of my energy into the people and activities that brought so much fulfillment to my life. Despite my amazing circle of friends and profound sense of happiness, however, something inside of me was just not adding up, something I couldn't quite identify. Or, more appropriately phrased, there was something I wasn't quite ready to acknowledge and accept. I was having the time of my life but felt as though part of me was missing and false, and I worked really hard to focus energy on everything else. Turns out leaving that shell I lived underneath proved more of an evasive maneuver than a courageous declaration to the world that I had arrived. Shells and living underneath them provide a certain amount of protection from the outside world, this much is true. But they also sometimes facilitate the time and space needed to engage with the type of introspection required for self-discovery. You see, I had a secret I didn't want to confess or confront. I liked men. I REALLY liked men. I lingered over images of shirtless men in print ads. (Marky Mark's famous campaign for Calvin Klein comes to mind.) I anticipated movies starring Hollywood hunks. (Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall anyone?). In the very early stages of the Internet, I also chatted with guys I'd never meet. (Anonymity was key.) But I didn't quite fully understand that part of myself. I definitely did not embrace it yet, and I avoided sharing this information with anyone for fear of rejection, though I'm pretty sure they all knew and accepted me for who I truly was. All the signs were there, stereotypical and otherwise. My ever-so faint lisp. My slightly effeminate affect. My obsession with Disney movies. My love but not lust for Janet Jackson. And, of course, my ogling of guys passing by. So, as aspects of my identity became more difficult and scary to face, I ventured further and further away from that shell, and my introverted self tried very hard and mostly succeeded at appearing as an extrovert. For a while. Along came The Velvet Rope. I plopped the CD into my player and pressed play. The first words Janet spoke were, "It's my belief that we all have the need to feel special. And it's this need that can bring out the best yet worst in us." Wait, what? Something triggered in my brain. Was that what I was doing? The wonderful friends around me made me feel special, that's for sure, and I cherished every moment of that. But by completely embracing that feeling of being special and being part of something special without regard for the scary yet honest truth within myself, was I also bringing out the worst by justifying a false life, a lie? Okay, Janet. Where are you going with this? And did you write this just for me? Over the subsequent 75 minutes of songs and interludes, Janet continued reaching out to me, relating all too closely to my emotional and psychological journey at the the time with lyrics like: "You spend most your life pretending not to be the one you are but who you choose to see" and "Boy meets boy, boy loses boy, boy gets cute boy back. Girl meets girl, girl loses girl, girl gets cute girl back. One rule, no rules. One love, free Xone." She even tackled the subject of meeting strangers online: "How could it be that you knew me? My deepest fears, my fantasies...confide in you what no one knows, but it feels so real." In almost every way, The Velvet Rope proved the album I needed most in the fall of 1997, and to be perfectly honest, that need still resurfaces from time to time. At one point during the title track, Janet sings a line that rings as true today as it did 20 years ago: "One love's the answer, you'll find in you." I'm still working on that, though I recognize and acknowledge that I'm now in a much better place in terms of self-identity and self-acceptance. After all, I didn't have to leave my shell behind, I simply needed to come out of it. It would take another two years before I fully came out. Many wonderful friends helped me through the process, but, in part, I also have The Velvet Rope to thank for that.
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I am a self-proclaimed pop culture geek and list enthusiast who is celebrating the big four-zero by counting down the most important, influential, and favorite music, movies, television shows, books, and video games of my life so far. Categories
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