A TV Host Said Something to Teenage Michael Jackson. The Camera Caught His Smile. It Missed

The segment lasted four minutes. The host made a comment. The studio audience laughed. Michael Jackson smiled. The show moved on. In this video, we look at what happened on a major American variety television broadcast in the early 1970s, when Michael Jackson was twelve or thirteen years old -- and what the broadcast cameras did not capture. This story explores the specific vulnerabilities of growing up as a public performer, the cultural authority of American variety television, and the particular cost of being a young Black performer in an entertainment industry that praised and diminished in the same sentence. Michael Jackson, The Jackson 5, early 1970s, television history, music history, American variety television, Motown, pop history, Michael Jackson young, music documentary.