Music / Bad (Music Video)

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"Bad" is the Title Track and second single from Michael Jackson's album of the same name, released on September 7, 1987. Written and produced by Jackson and longtime producer Quincy Jones, it was part of the titular album's larger mission to give Jackson a harder edge to appeal to an adult audience. Lyrically, the themes are similar to Jackson's earlier hit, "Beat It", but instead of condemning senseless violence, Jackson lays down the gauntlet, and challenges his opponent to quit the tough-talk and actually prove how "bad" he really is.

The song was also accompanied by a music video, directed by Martin Scorsese, and featuring a then-unknown Wesley Snipes as the video's main antagonist. Filmed on location in Brooklyn, New York between November-December of 1986, the video debuted on television months later on August 31, 1987, as part of the primetime special, Michael Jackson: The Magic Returns, on CBS. Running at nearly 20 minutes, and costing over $2 million to shoot, it was Jackson's most expensive video until "Scream" in 1995, and his longest until Michael Jackson's Ghosts.

Loosely based on a true story about the killing of a black prep school student from inner-city New York Jackson had read about^note widely claimed to have been based off the 1985 killing of black Exeter prep student Edmund Perry, though Jackson's own description of the story doesn't quite line up with the Perry incident., The video's framing story portrays Jackson as a teenager named Darryl, who just finished a semester at a prestigious prep school, and returns home to Brooklyn for the holidays. Reuniting with his old gang, led by Mini Max (Snipes), things start off well, but Darryl's friendship with them soon become strained once it's clear how much he's has changed, and no longer enjoys participating in criminal activity. When Darryl is later all-but outright called an Uncle Tom by Max after refusing to join them in mugging people, Darryl leads the gang to the subway in an attempt to mug someone and prove that he's still "bad", but has a change of heart at the last second; saving the would-be victim from getting jumped by Max and co. After getting berated again and disowned by his crew, Darryl finally has enough, and screams that Max is nowhere near as bad as he claims to be. The video then switches from Deliberately Monochrome to color, and Darryl, now backed up by his own gang, switches to his now-iconic black leather streetwear, and starts singing...

Your tropes are mine, gonna tell you right...

• Badass Boast: "Bad", from the first until the last line, is Jackson trying to prove he is just as cool as the bad boys.
• The Big Rotten Apple: The short film takes place (and filmed on location) in late 80's Bedford-Stuyvesant, and pulls zero punches about the squalid state of Brooklyn at the time. Drug dealers, ruined buildings, homelessness, and more are part of the story's depressing backdrop.
• Brooklyn Rage: Max and his crew downright ooze Brooklyn aggressiveness. Darryl averts this until he's finally pushed to his breaking point by Max.
• The Cameo:
  • Singer Roberta Flack makes an audio-only cameo as Darryl's mother.
  • In a Creator Cameo, Martin Scorsese, director of the music video for "Bad", appears on a wanted poster in the subway station (Upon seeing this in the film, Scorsese's young daughter asked him if he had actually been to prison).
• Category Traitor: It's strongly implied, but not outright stated, that Darryl's friends think he's become an Uncle Tom after attending prep school, and not wanting to join in their criminal activities. Darryl tries to insist otherwise, but the others are ready to write him off unless he can prove himself; leading to a near-fistfight between Max and Darryl.
• Changing Clothes Is a Free Action: The music video of "Bad" does this. After Darryl gets bullied by his friends for not being bad enough and a "sissy", he yells back at them and suddenly in a blink of a second he is no longer wearing a casual sweater, but stands there in a leather suit with a whole bunch of dancing buddies who also seem to have come up from nowhere. Justified, as the color sequence is implied to have been Darryl's Imagine Spot.
• Concept Video: The music video for "Bad" is one of Martin Scorsese's many films (a short film in this case) about life in the Big Rotten Apple, depicting Jackson as Darryl, a reformed gangster attempting to prove to his former friends that he hasn't gone soft from attending private school.
• Deliberately Monochrome: The Talky Bookends of the music video were shot in black-and-white.
• Delinquents: Mini Max and his crew. All of them are high school-age young men who frequently cause trouble and rob people on the streets of Brooklyn. Darryl used to roll with them until he went upstate for prep school, and came back with a better moral compass.
• Dirty Coward:
  "Your talk is cheap, you're not a man
  You're throwing stones to hide your hands."
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Because the song and video were made well over a year before the titular album was finished, "Bad" uses a different arrangement for the music video; including more emphasis on the horns, and a completely different organ solo that remains unreleased.
• Imagine Spot: The ending of the video, where it transitions back from color to monochrome, reveals that the color sequence was just a fantasy in Darryl's imagination.
• Monochrome to Color: Aside from the opening title, the story portion of the video is shot completely in monochrome. When Darryl finally has enough of his friends trying to pressure him into proving he's still "bad", the video quickly shifts from monochrome to color as the actual music segment begins. It returns to monochrome at the end of the video, as Max and his friends leave; establishing that the music segment was Darryl's Imagine Spot.
• The One Who Made It Out: Darryl. He was originally another troublemaker who ran the streets with his friends, but after spending time at a prep school in upstate New York and broadening his worldview, he no longer has a desire to get involved with petty crime. Unfortunately for him, his old friends see this as weakness, and accuse him of forgetting his roots.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: The titular song and its call-and-response reprise at the end serves as Darryl's call-out to his old crew; calling them cowards, and telling them in no uncertain terms that they'll eventually end up in prison if they keep up their criminal lifestyle.
• Reformed Criminal: Darryl was a delinquent who used to commit petty crimes with his friends, but stopped after attending a prestigious prep school in upstate New York. Inevitably, this causes his still-criminal friends to give him no shortage of grief when he returns to Brooklyn for the holidays.
• Ripped from the Headlines: The framing story is based on a incident Jackson read in a magazine about an prep school student from inner-city New York being murdered by his jealous friends when he returned home for Thanksgiving. It's widely believed he was referring to the 1985 shooting of Edmund Perry (to the point where even the video's description on YouTube cites the incident as inspiration), but Jackson's description of the story he read doesn't line up with the Perry killing.^note Edmund Perry was shot by an undercover cop after he and his brother allegedly inflicted a vicious beatdown in a mugging attempt, the unnamed person Jackson specifically mentioned was killed by his friends.
• Satisfied Street Rat: Max and his crew take pride in being hoodlums, and have no aspirations beyond regularly mugging people. Darryl used to be one, but his worldview changed after spending a semester at prep school, which inevitably brings him into conflict with his old friends.
• Shout-Out:
  • Jackson's use of "shamone" was a reference to Mavis Staples' rendition of "I'll Take You There"; though the phrase became one of Jackson's own trademarks.
  • The music video (or at least the color portion of it) was inspired by West Side Story, specifically the "Cool" sequence.
• So Proud of You: As he's leaving school a teacher stops Darryl to let him know he's proud of how well Darryl did that semester. Darryl gives a weak thanks in response and a conversation with a Hispanic student later on reveals that two other people had said that to him, making it come off as patronizing.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Unlike the real-life incident the video was based on, Darryl survives his ordeal with his former friends.
• Tall Poppy Syndrome: Once it becomes clear that Darryl's gone straight during his time at prep school, and no longer wants any part of the criminal life, his old gang slowly turns on him, and try to pressure him into joining them in mugging people; accusing him of forgetting about them while he was away at prep school. Darryl initially succumbs to the pressure, but ultimately can't go through with the mugging, and stands his ground against his friends.
• We Used to Be Friends: Although they split on peaceful terms at the end, Darryl reluctantly ends his friendship with Max and co; not wanting to continue being someone who thrives off being a hoodlum, and nothing else.
• Wretched Hive: The video was filmed on location in 80's Brooklyn (specifically Bedford-Stuyvesant), and it makes no bones about the bad state the borough was in during the late eighties. Jackson himself was reportedly disturbed at how rough the area was while filming.