Listening to Michael Jackson in Tehran
By Ali Alizadeh
Published 1 January 2021
Smuggled across the fierce chasm
between us and the US, and then
hidden, stuffed between Farsi
and Science textbooks in my school
bag, the illegal and sacrilegious
cassette-tape of Thriller, ready for
revelation to the sheepish, ignorant
kids on the bus to my primary school
in war-stricken Tehran. My plan:
to expose the forbidden thing, exhibit
my courage, rebelliousness, etc. Autumn
of ’83, desperate for attention/approval
from the other kids. My copy of
dangerous Western ‘art’ would
unsettle the boring, Islamic world
of my classmates – and elevate my
cowardly, chubby, unpopular
self. I whispered to the kid next to me
if he had ever heard of ‘Billie Jean’
and ‘Beat It’; if he knew anything at all
about the number one famous
star of our wicked enemy. “I love
Thriller! Aren’t the zombies so scary
in the music video! They’re so ugly!” His
boisterous words echoed. The bus
vibrated with the singer’s name. Another
shouted he had a Thriller poster, and
another, a ‘Billie Jean’ T-shirt, a gift from
Turkey. Silenced, robbed of my planned
stardom, I sank in my seat; later threw out my
Thriller tape, the fetish of Great Satan’s
useless, ubiquitous popular culture.
Originally published in Ashes in the Air, by University of Queensland Press.