Michael Jackson is "evil"

Just read Ben Lee's review in The Guardian and even that is hard to take.

FYI "Ben Lee's review in The Guardian" -> https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jan/25/michael-jackson-documentary-leaving-neverland

ebro the letter (Whiney G. Weingarten)
Posted: January 25, 2019 at 11:47:31 PM
I read the big Taraborelli MJ book and I walked away feeling like he wasn’t a molester but just ... way ... off ... in ways that were weird. Definitely sounds like this doc is gonna make me rethink that. What a drag.

Are you referring to Untouchable? I read that a couple years ago and came away with the same feeling. The book was pretty unsparing toward MJ otherwise. I don’t remember what year it was written but maybe those earlier weird parent driven accusations were all there was to go on at the time.

that review...this will be grim

Yeah. Just read it.

Described as “a sensitive boy”, he preferred dance over basketball

He's Australian, I doubt he'd be playing basketball tbh.

The Rolling Stone review similarly doesn't hold back

https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-features/leaving-neverland-michael-jackson-doc-sundance-784801/

Cool that as a society we waited til after he was dead to figure this out

He's Australian, I doubt he'd be playing basketball tbh.

Friends of mine were on the basketball team in high school, and the Sydney Kings were a pretty huge thing in culture and merch amongst youths at the time*. Just looked it up & Robson’s home team won the championship twice in his time living there, and were in the finals the last year before he moved to America.

*not least because they were ~the~ Sydney team, vs 30-odd rugby teams, but

as a society we waited til after he was dead

We figured this out over and over during the last two decades of his life, stans are still going to disbelieve despite this latest documentary

(xp) Ah right, I was thinking he must have mentioned something about basketball himself in the documentary.

I honestly have not spent much time digging into the MJ accusations, since I had WGW’s take on things, always thinking he was more a deeply fucked up victim and deeply weird than an actual criminal. Obv he was a victim at this be point too, of course...

It’s not surprising at all that his hardcore fans would completely disbelieve it, we live in world where Ted Bundy still has fans who believe he was innocent, the scumbag from lostprophets probably gets fan mail every day, R. Kelly is being railroaded and the girls were “getting something out of it too...”

I just wonder if he was always like that, if any of this shit goes back further than these accusations. I haven’t read any biographies on the dude so idk. From the far outside looking in, he seems to have had it more together at the beginning of his solo success, and then he just rapidly disintegrated personally, professionally, creatively...

Obv he was a victim at this be point too, of course...

“...a victim at one point too...”

In that thread I linked above ilxors compare MJs behavior w kids to an adult who climbs trees - ie weird but not dangerous or criminal

just an Icarus flying too close to the sun

or a kelly slater of pedophilia, endlessly riding the barrel, but never gettin truly pitted into the nastiness of it all

the scumbag from lostprophets probably gets fan mail every day

a while back i was startled at seeing him on the cover of some true crime magazine on the stand at walmart.

confirmation bias : I voted for X so he must be right, I liked Y's records so he must be innocent

looking forward to seeing this, but...I’m surprised there are so many MJ truthers on this site

i think we can safely remove the quote marks from this thread's title now

Yeah, no

https://globalnews.ca/news/4890058/michael-jackson-musical-to-hit-broadway-in-2020/

all hardcore fandom is bizarre, but that there are people, in 2019, sending threats to the director of an anti-MJ movie is just astonishing to me

I mean, he was probably the greatest performer of the 20th century

Wrong

James Brown

Come on, it's clearly Shakin' Stevens

Bert Williams

how can you all be so wrong?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aH_hS_AVuA

(well, at least until the Netflix Charo documentary, which i hear is a major bummer)

I think the reason people wanted to not believe wasn’t because they didn’t take it seriously, but because they did. The crimes are too reprehensible to square with the idea of the person eho made such great music. Not an “excuse” for overlooking the crimes but an explanation.

what does great music have to do with being a piece of shit person (or not), though? pretty much all of what we publicly knew about MJ's private life and psyche, even prior to the major revelations about his pedophilic abuse, pointed to a deeply fucked-up person at best. i mean, i found the allegations surprising insofar as such things are always surprising, but him being a great talent didn't factor into that one way or the other.

I have known that art can be disconnected from the creator's morality for awhile, it's true

i'm sort of inclined to think that expecting those who make the art you like to be wonderful people is sort of childish.

or any particular kind of people at all...

ok but like

what he is accused of is unconscionable. it makes sense ppl would be disturbed to know they were dancing along to music made by someone who did that.

he wasn't accused of being a cheater or a jerk. he has been accused of being a predator.

Is being a murderer more unconscionable than being a child molester? Because I've been known to listen to music by a few of those tbh.

i mean

i don't think ppl "shouldn't" enjoy the music

but

it promotes a different kind of relationship to the artist

and the musical "text"

dude

stop

we are embodied subjects. art of any kind is interesting to us because people made it. there isn't just "art" and "life" these things are co-implicated

soto, why should i stop?

it's just a reflex for you guys to get annoyed when i am engaging normally with the topic of discussion

Think to yourself.

it's just a reflex for you guys to get annoyed when i am engaging normally with the topic of discussion

i think it is

"Michael Jackson likely assaulted children and should I keep listening to his music?" is the question, and it doesn't require every tergiversation of thought on ILM.

it's an old question fair enough. i was just pushing back against the idea i saw implied that for some listeners the knowledge wouldn't matter--like you can make a neat separation

Treeship, I assure you that for some people it won’t matter.

and it doesn't require every turdferguson of thought on ILM.