ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a disability and performance studies perspective of Michael Jackson, and posits a post-identity body transcends cultural categories, performing humanity void of social markers and the meanings assigned to them. It points out that in a culture that largely embraces the idea of entering a post-identity space where race, gender, and, age are irrelevant in assessing individual worth and potential, Jackson's evolving embodiment reminds us of our dependency on these cultural signifiers and our anxious response to bodies that disrupt them. Through a series of cosmetic surgeries, Jackson's body occupied an increasingly liminal identity space. Jackson, backed with the testimony of his medical doctors, admitted that he had undergone plastic surgery and skin bleaching in an effort to hide the effects of two autoimmune diseases: vitiligo which causes one to lose skin pigment in patches and lupus which causes both hair loss and the appearance of legions on the face.
