Raluca

Michael Jackson and the Romanian Police

What strikes me most about the video found on Youtube with Michael Jackson attending a mass gathering in Bucharest in 1992 is the obedience and docility with which the Romanian police follow his orders. Would I have done the same if I were a policewoman?

I’ll never know, but Foucault seems to know it better when he talks about power as a major source for social discipline and conformity. In the video, the system of surveillance and authority is embodied by an anonymous Romanian male voice giving directions throughout the whole video. “2 steps to the right”, “Align!”, “Do not surpass him”, the voice says, the body listens, and the mind perhaps travels. The body learns to be in a certain way, more bodies learn what the normal, accepted way of behaving is. What if one of the policemen would have stumbled?