On Michael Jackson
The Tangle of Truth and Memory
This Culture Digest focuses on Michael Jackson. His biopic has broken box office records, despite critiques for being clichéd and sanitizing his legacy. What does its success say about us?
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On Michael Jackson
TW: child sexual abuse
On my school’s playground in the early ’90s, Michael Jackson’s name was a slur, a synonym for a child molester and occasionally for gayness. That’s just a truth and a childhood memory. For most of my life, that’s what Michael has represented, the tangle of truth and childhood memories.
It’s been surreal, as an adult, to witness Michael Jackson once again gripping the media. He’s all over my feeds: tributes to his dancing on TikTok, scene-to-life comparisons of his new biopic on Twitter and heated debates on whether he was a pedophile. That queasy tension between celebration and the unthinkable has defined him.
Michael was not part of my Mexican upbringing in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Of course my family knew who he was; he was a global phenomenon. But The Jackson 5 had not been the soundtrack of my parents’ childhood, we didn’t see young Michael go solo and we hadn’t crowded around the TV to watch him debut the Moonwalk live. Michael arrived to me as a fully formed superstar.
Without that nostalgia, it wasn’t as easy for me to glide past his eccentricities as it was for other people. To me, he was just an adult man who sang and danced and who, for some reason, always hung out with my kid crushes. I’d see his photograph in a supermarket tabloid on the red carpet with Corey Feldman or Macaulay Culkin. I remember watching the premiere of the “Black or White” music video, which Culkin stars in, and even as a kid, I had the sense of, oh, he’s got a new boy.
When I questioned this, adults would parrot the talking point, “Michael’s childhood was stolen, so he just loves being around kids!” But without the familiarity of his origin story, it never made sense to me.
After the first accusations of sexual abuse in the early ’90s, I couldn’t get past the discomfort and suspicion and I was never able to. You won’t find Michael’s songs in my library. That’s not meant as a virtue signal; there are other instances where I separate the art from the artist. Michael just isn’t one of them.
I also don’t judge people who can separate his art from the allegations, for whom his star is too bright, too important in American race relations, for whom the good he did far outweighed what he “may have done.” And I don’t mind dancing to his music; he’s inescapable in nightlife. I do cringe when “PYT” comes on.
We’ll never know the “truth” about Michael, though some of the evidence and testimonies feel too difficult to dismiss. But like all celebrities, how we react to him has always revealed more about us. Having witnessed decades of media cycles, it’s strange how public opinion of Michael and the allegations ebbs and flows. It exposes our relationships to fame, race and our own experiences with sexual abuse. What does the record-breaking success of the new movie and his renewed virality say about this current era?
Had his biopic been released in 2000, when he was a pariah and punchline, or even a few years ago at the height of #MeToo and the release of Leaving Neverland, would the box office numbers have been the same, or would there have been protests? Would people be embarrassed to love it so publicly?
As I watched a TikTok of a toddler dressed as Michael dancing during the biopic’s credits, a darker thought emerged, as uncomfortable as those slurs on the playground: do the allegations no longer matter? Has fatigue over Epstein and predatory politicians, the way “pedophile” is thrown around in rap beefs or “groomer” is aimed at Queer people, has it all desensitized us, given the public permission to stop caring? Have we metabolized the abuse allegations, forgiven them or just forgotten them?
The value of Michael’s contributions never seems to change, but the weight of the sexual abuse accusations does. Is there a future where they’re worth nothing at all?
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Previous Culture Digests:
Michael Jackson as a figure in the news growing up in the 2000’s was for a lack of a better term, a joke.
Media like Scary Movie 3/4, Family Guy or Mad TV presented a consistent caricature of him. A washed up, child snatcher with pale white skin and a series of fluctuating haircuts and disguises. This sort of “boogeyman” of Jackson’s image isn’t shocking from the era (most things from the Bush era loved to push “PC”), but we also haven’t gotten the cultural turnaround yet to discuss Michael in his later years.
This new film (and the Jackson estate) is doing nothing other than attempting damage control. Focusing on the “origins and rise to fame” narrative of a tarnished yet still profitable image. For the public, they want to present popcorn entertainment, refusing to engage in deeper issues or struggles in Michael’s life rather than “my dad was abusive but I persevered”.
It’s easy to speculate this film wouldn’t occur at all if Jackson was still living,(he wouldn’t see past the MeToo movement in my opinion, but that’s a different realm of speculation) Close to 20 years after his death, the tides of public opinion (or at least box office appeal) have definitely shifted in his favor.
All this to say, the idea of who Michael Jackson was as a figurehead, a pop idol, or a human with extreme physical and physiological issues later in life has become erroneous and warped in our post-truth reality anyways.
p.s. Kori King from drag race does a great MJ impression
At the end of the day, I am mostly angry at Michael. Michael Jackson's Thriller was the first album my dad ever bought me for my boombox which was a gift in the early nineties. I listened to it endlessly. His music was such a part of my childhood. I would tune in to watch the release of a new music video. Of course I moved on and had other musical interests, and I can't say I was a rabid Jackson "fan" who might line up for an autograph or something. But his music was a part of me. He was an undeniable talent.
After watching Finding Neverland, it can never be the same for me. James and Wade have continued to tell their stories even with no money on the line. Michael Jackson being gay has nothing to do with him being a pedophile. He raped a 7 year old. The depravity of it, and to do that to a child who basically idolized him, its so atrocious. There was a reason he needed propofol to sleep at night. I wish people would cut the crap and stop pretending this didn't happen. As much as he meant to me, I can't look past that and it does ruin the art.