According to The Onion of some weeks ago, Michael Jackson died years ago and was replaced by an alien body snatcher whose presence at Neverland can be documented by the faint but distinct flapping of invisible leathery wings. It captured something, that description, a pervasive sentiment that there is something peculiarly otherworldly about this trial. More recently, I heard commentators on NPR's On the Media describe the trial as one that has not gotten the kind of attention that other celebrity debacles have commanded. Unlike Scott Peterson or O.J. Simpson, People magazine has given almost no cover status to the Jackson case. He doesn't fit the "narrative," apparently. The narrative requires a victim who can play the role of innocence aggrieved and a defendant who can embody pure villainy. While Jackson's trial is appalling, it is not the stuff of ordinary tabloid catharsis; as one commentator put it, this is just plain "icky."

The precise nature of "ick" went undefined. But it undoubtedly has something to do with the fact that while there's plenty of underage sex, it's allegedly of the homosexual persuasion, which tends to send your average reporter into paroxysms of anxiety. There's a race card bandied about, usually good for some fun, but no one's quite sure which race that might be. There's untold wealth but not a bit of it spent on things most grownups would covet. And while there's an abundance of graft and greed and shady dealing, it sullies every soul within fifty miles of the courthouse; there's just no one to root for.

This exceptionalism, however, disguises the degree to which there is a narrative norm at the core of this. Not just a story of pedophilia, which surely makes it so particularly hard to ponder, but also a plot line that merges P.T. Barnum and Count Dracula. The very strangeness of the trial marks an aversion from seeing, an awkwardness about naming, a hesitation to judge. It is an odd reaction, given the moral temperament of the times; it is a departure from the no-holds-barred rhetoric of good versus evil, of innocence and guilt.

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