A grown-up man wearing red lipstick and Cleopatra eyeliner, come on now! Couldn't they find a more wholesome role model?
Of course, he is the world's most enigmatic performer with an awesome career as an entertainer who has sold more than 100 million records during the last decade.
Yet, I was still amazed with the run on tickets to see him in concert and the subsequent scalping that took place.
My mind rolled back to the '60s when Michael Jackson was a cute-as-a-button, cheerful youngster who, as lead singer of The Jackson 5, mesmerized millions with his unique, prodigious talent.
And yet, today, for our teen-agers, he is an even more spellbinding superstar.
He is the most talked-about, written-about and rumored-about pop star, who, my students remind me, is the greatest entertainer of our time.
But didn't they read the headline-grabbing child sex-abuse charges that threatened to end his career?
Sure, they did, and even though they agree with me that he is also the man for whom the word "bizarre" might have been invented, he is still utterly fascinating to them.
Our youth know all of the tabloid details, but he is still their idol.
According to them, no one ever said Michael Jackson wasn't weird. He is a 38-year-old boy who won't grow up; a once handsome young guy who used surgery and cosmetics to make his face look pasty and strikingly androgynous; a pop icon whose giggly, wispy persona can grab his crotch before millions and sing, "Give it when I want it/Cause I'm on fire/Quench my desire," and get away with it while being paid millions of dollars to do it.
In fact, many of my students don't agree with his close pal, Elizabeth Taylor, who doesn't think Michael is really way out there.
They acknowledge but are not really concerned about his profound weirdness - they accept the glove, the seaweed hair striping his face, the blanched skin, the pained eyes, the seemingly mournful soul.
Psychoanalysts have their opinions, too. Many say he is stranded between childhood and adolescence: loved by the public yet feeling caged and abandoned and searching, groping for the Edenic innocence he believes is any child's birthright.
And, in his double album, "HIStory," throughout 15 new songs, Jackson rants, stutters, hiccups and screams about the supposed injustices carried out against him.
So, for all us young, old and in between, what are the lessons of this idolatry?
All of his trials and tribulations - the very stuff of talk shows - take on a larger than life aspect of farce and tragedy.
The superstar has proclaimed his addiction to prescriptive drugs. The child molestation charges are there. His behavior on stage is deplorable.
Such allegations and Michael's "HIStory" also speak to our present-day concerns with child abuse. In an age when lurid lyrics, sniggering sitcoms and trash-talking stars work to rob children of innocence, the public reacts with wide eyes and a foreboding glint about abusive parents. In fact, the public becomes puritanical and voyeuristic at the same time.
And where do family values rank as we cheer, pay and encourage Michael in his superstar status? Jackson lived with his mom until he was 29. Raised a Jehovah's Witness, he never had a reputation for drinking or taking drugs, and his only public romance was with Brooke Shields.
Yet, stories abound of an early childhood often spent away from his adored mom, on the road with his older brothers and his allegedly abusive dad, performing first in crummy burlesque clubs and, after fame hit, working nonstop - rehearsing, recording and performing.
Now that Michael Jackson is an adult worth more than $150 million, who can do whatever he wants with his life, it is no surprise he craves the childhood he never had.
Is Michael Jackson a tragic product of his charmed but also tortured upbringing?
In the '60s, from working-class Gary, Ind., to the gated privilege of superstar wealth, the Jacksons embodied the Horatio Alger dreams of millions of Americans.
What could have been the story of a family's transcendence and triumph over poverty turned out, instead, to be a tale of tragedy and disappointment.
If Michael Jackson seems today paralyzed by his fear of relationships, his mistrust of people, and his confusion about intimacy and love, it is no wonder.
As a youngster, he watched helplessly as his father enjoyed extramarital romances, betraying the mother to whom Michael was devoted. He knows the heartbreak of an illegitimate birth within a marriage. He has cringed for years as his brothers treated women as sex objects. He's seen domestic violence time and time again.
WHAT is it that can be said to the millions of teens who shriek and drool at the mention of Michael Jackson's name? Perhaps, the best is to say very little; you see, our youngsters know his actions are often deplorable, yet they still idolize and admire his music and style.
It is, indeed, a great paradox! Yet salvation, as it does in so many, many situations in life, may lie in the very recognition and understanding of the Jackson paradox.
As all of us sit in awe of the magic this superstar brings to the American stage, we also need to remind ourselves just how important it is that every family take seriously its commitment to traditional family values no matter what the situation, and remember above all what fragile creatures our children are.