It’s a movie starring his nephew in the lead role, approved by his estate, and by all accounts it just feels like an attempt to whitewash him. This is a man who was accused of being a serial child molester, settled with a family out of court for $25 million just to avoid a trial (Chandler), and openly admitted he slept in the same bed as kids while he was an adult (Bashir interview), among other things. I don’t really see what there is to debate.
Anything pointing this out gets backlash on movie-related subreddits, which I find wild. It makes me wonder, if Epstein could sing and dance, would he have gotten a biopic too? Would people be defending him like this?
you’re not too woke.
you’re not even wrong on your assessment.
I think you just need to chill out. it’s a biopic. Hitler has had tons of biopics done, think anyone believes he didn’t do the terrible shit he did that weren’t already sympathetic to his goals?
my point is, everyone knows he was a pedophile and the people who refuse to accept that are never going to change their minds.
The thought of white washing MJ is kind of hilarious
He did it to himself 😂
I thought everything against MJ was pretty much determined to be completely fabricated by a physiologist convincing kids that they “remembered” things that never really happened?
I personally think he didn’t do anything. I think he was weird as hell and people took advantage of it. People who are incredibly talented tend to be really different personalities. Look at great composers and painters.
People always point out things that the kids claimed but no one seems to talk about the kids that were forced by their parents to make up shit to sue him for millions. I don’t care, i’m not here to defend the dead guy, but people just want to believe he’s a pedo monster, but normal ass people wanting to get rich quick is not an option? These people were responsible for their kids and were like: yeah, you can have a sleepover with the weirdo. Macaulay Culkin seems like a pretty honeat guy, who speaks out over a lot of shit happened to him and the industry in general, and he said: nah, just a weird dude who liked to have children around.
Dude was so rich in his prime, he had no idea what money even was. Of course he would rather spend 25million dollars to make a lawsuit go away than being questioned over and over again, while people already made up their mind.
Maybe focus on the pedophile in the Whitehouse that the maybe pedophile that is dead.
Michael Jackson never had a childhood and as a result had some clear psychological issues.
Given the evidence (or lack thereof), I’m inclined to think the dude just wanted the childhood he missed. And no one shared the same excitement for it as him than actual kids.
I sure wouldn’t have wanted to hang out with him if I was his age.
That’s…
OK… Let’s practice some Occam’s Razor here. What do you think is the most likely answer?
- MJ was inappropriate with children.
- A psychologist devised an elaborate plot where he managed to somehow make multiple children remember something that didn’t happen.
I mean… It happened with the Satanic panic. This is exactly the plot of it
…because nothing even remotely complex has ever happened before?
We haven’t seen any rich or powerful people turn to paedophilia to manage their internal pain no no that is so rare
I think its right amount of woke.
I personally dont like these kind of things.
I havent and dont intend to watch this or pieces like Oppenheimer or Monster series. I can watch legit documentaries of Dahlmer or unabomber, but i find it to be poor taste to make entertainment from things like that.
My son is a big cinephile, and we watch a LOT of movies, but I am also a history guy, so my son knows that I really don’t like biopics, or films that portray some historical event. Invariably, Hollywood decisions outweigh historical accuracy, and the result is usually impossible for me to tolerate. I would rather see a boring portrayal of the actual events, than an exciting rewrite.
MJ and I are the exact same age, and I grew up LOVING his music. The allegations were shocking, and I studied every interview and watched every documentary and news coverage of it that I could. Today, I can’t really say I trust either side. I see problems with the accusers, I see problems with the accused. Lawyers advise their clients to settle all the time - “It’s not personal, it’s just business.” I’ve been on the receiving end of that “advice,” and it’s hard to hear, because you know people will always see it as an admission of guilt, and not “just business.”
So while I abandoned Bill Cosby (another heartbreaker I grew up with) I’ve decided to keep listening to MJ. We will never know the entire story, but I know enough that the accusations have a LOT of problems, and I’m not willing to throw MJ aside for that.
So while I am still a big (but conflicted) fan, I probably won’t watch the film, and if I do, I won’t be taking it seriously.
I saw a thread recently that seemed to indicate the Epstien files exhonorated Michael. Apparently it may have been a smear campaign against someone on the spectrum that wouldn’t work with them. He was notoriously picky about who he would work with.
Epstien files exhonorated Michael. Apparently it may have been a smear campaign against someone on the spectrum that wouldn’t work with them.
I haven’t looked further into it myself, but I also heard much the same.
Props to him if this is anywhere close to being real. He was one hell of a damaged person carrying a shitton of psychological scars, but it sounds like he really did care about the kids.
And he was one hell of a good singer. I’ve got most of his albums on vinyl and MP3.
Eh, just because he rebuffed attempts by Epstein doesn’t prove anything. MJ wasn’t into hanging with those Walk Street billionaire types. Besides, he had his own place to entertain kids, if he wanted to.
From what I saw, it wasn’t so much that he rebuffed attempts. Epstein actively implemented plans to destroy him, much like Brendan Frasier, because he wouldn’t play ball.
To be clear, I am, and have always been a punk rocker/metal head, so I couldn’t give a rats ass about the king of pop.
But he always struck me as very much on the spectrum, of course not when I was growing up, since it wasn’t a thing back then, but I find it very unlikely he did the things he was accused of.
I could be wrong, but it felt like a cash grab by the parents.
I’ve also seen many people’s personal accounts indicating he was protecting them. I believe m. culcan was one of them
I think that you’re living you life in an incredibly boring consumptive way if you even have an opinion or care about this movie.
You don’t have to watch every movie. Thousands of terrible movies come out every year, just don’t watch them. If someone makes a bad movie. How would that personally affect me? Unless I was strapped down and forced to watch it. Who cares.
You making this thread and getting people talking about the movie is you low key doing marketing for the movie, whether you like it or not any attention is attention.
So so congrats on going out of your way to market this movie that you don’t have to watch or think about.
I couldn’t care less about it myself. More trash for the dumpster fire of American culture.
This is the one sex allegation I just don’t believe.
And its a biopic so… It wouldn’t matter who it was about. Shit… I’d watch a biopic about Epstein. I’d still hate the fucker at the end.
Yeah Michael Jackson was a breed of his own. He apparently had little boys SLEEPING in his bed, which is weird and absolutely unacceptable especially in today’s climate, but he did not touch them. McCauley Culkin said “We were just SLEEPING.” Still completely inappropriate but that family who got $25 million out of Michael, they were just shamelessly telling lies to milk an easy cash cow.
You’re not too woke. You’re to green and innocent though. Movies glorifying pedophiles shouldn’t surprise you. Trumps wife just got her own movie ffs.
The people with power like this stuff and want us to like it too.
We will never have the truth in our entire lives. But! I kind of see how MJ could actually not be a pedo, but just a special flavor of weirdo.
Imagine that you are born into a family of 8 (2 came shortly after) that live in 2 bedroom home. Paretns are working class and an oppressed minority, so are you. At age 5 parents put you in a family band where they forced you to play and punished for mistakes made during rehearsals and performances. Time goes by. Your band becomes a sensation. You are the front man. You grow out of it and go solo. You are consistently the most famous artist. All eyes on you. Everyone knows each and every step you make, in tiny details.
All that while your childhood was spent never having own corner, never having time to play with other children. You are constantly performing everywhere. Your life is not like “the other kids”.
Now you are famous as hell with a millions to your name. You can do pretty much anything. And you, of course, might get that feeling of wasted time that you probably can catch up with. You attempt to create a real Neverland, spend tons of time with children, try to make their lives magical and wonderful. You do things for childer that you’ve dreamed you’d like to have when you were a child yourself. BUT you are at the age of 30 and every one assumes that you diddle children. Which, again, might be true. We cant possibly deny false accusations in favor of getting rich by settlements. And that baby over the balcony didnt help either.
I, honestly, feel bad for him. Great musician, vocals are top notch and unmatched. Dancing moves out of this world. Great showmanship. Terrible personal life full of abuse, discrimination, specualtions, accusations, failed childhood. Poor guy. He was fucked up in head. Maybe not in pedofilic way. But he was certainly not fine. All that life experience plus super likely drug abuse since we are talking about show biz.
From hearing Macaulay Vulking tell it, it sounds exactly like that. Like Jackson was stuck as a child and just wanted childhood friends and sleepovers. Weird, sure but nothing sexual. He has other accusers, but I really dont know if that was just people being creeped out by his weirdness or not and misinterpreting things.
We will never know. But coming to the fact that after death not so much surfaced, I am pretty sure poor guy was just unstable mentally and not a pedo like Epstein.
His life is something few if any of us could bare. No flashy movie will be able to show it in full picture.
But coming to the fact that after death not so much surfaced
Grow up. His estate spent millions in hush money and NDAs. He may have died, but he’s still a money maker.
Just tacking on to your comment… The Jackson’s were aggressively exploited by most of the key adults in their lives from a relatively young age. Michael was like 10 when the Jackson 5 had their first big hit single. Joe Jackson and Berry Gordy recognized they had a “cash cow” on their hands and resolved to squeeze it for every penny they could.
Dealing with a relentless work schedule where you’re harshly punished for your mistakes and then having your life shoved under a microscope for the entire world to see would break a lot of adults. It’s no wonder Michael went off the rails.
At the very least they could have made a better movie that acknowledged the abuse and how screwed up he became because of it. Would be a far better story too, the movie is essentially just an extended highlights reel
I agree. Movie is plain cash grab made up out of highlights of MJs life. Nothing “true” is in this movie besides already widely known facts.
It is just weird to me that OP lines up MJ with someone like Epstein. I just feel that these are two different types of creep that cant be really compared.
Personally I find all celebrity biopics disgusting.
I mean, it would be different if these things tended to actually be honest deeply researched analyses done by hard-nosed experts (which would probably mean they would be spectacularly boring as movies and better as articles or books) and if celebrity status was highly correlated to the greatness of one’s achievements for society rather than to being well known because of practicing a very public profession (so, featuring more of, for example, Great Scientists and fewer Star Musicians and Movie Stars), but in the current society, celebrity biopics are fantasy spectacles about people whose fame is due to nothing else than being a competent professional in showbiz.
That in itself doesn’t make the biopics “disgusting” but the recent abundance of them does add up to too much to of an overly sweet low-nutrition thing the point of being stomach turning, IMHO.
Personally I find all celebrity biopics disgusting.
Hey, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is a classic and a masterpiece, I’ll have you know.
Wrong kid died!
i like biopics that don’t pretend to be anything more than entertainment, like Weird Al and Nick Cages biopic movies
I have a theory about Michael Jackson. First, a little background for reference. I am not a fan of MJ or his music. I respect his talent and what he did with it, but it’s not really my style. Also, I was a child when the accusations started. We all heard and told the jokes about him diddling little boys. I have no reason to root for or against Michael’s innocence.
That being said, I don’t think he did anything inappropriate.
I could totally be wrong. I wasn’t there and I’m not going to claim that my theory is undeniable truth, but after watching a few of his interviews, I noticed that he never acted like he did anything wrong. I get that someone without remorse would act like that, but typically they know what they did was wrong, and they lie and sneak their way around any implication of involvement. Not MJ. When asked about his “sleepovers” he never denied them. He consistently said “Yes, I did invite them over for sleepovers. Yes, we often shared a bed. We would stay up late watching movies and fall asleep in the bed. That’s what a sleepover is.” It didn’t feel like a predator denying abuse. It felt more like asking a ten year old how his sleepover went. They’d tell you honestly what they did, if they slept in the same bed, and wouldn’t think anything was weird about it, because they’re just kids.
Combine that with the abuse he suffered as a kid. His father treated those kids like a troop of trained dogs. Constantly practicing, constantly performing, always bringing in more money for the family. Michael was a superstar around age 6, and did not slow down until he was an adult, away from his dad and performing for himself.
I think that Michael Jackson never really grew up. He named his ranch Neverland, from the story of Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up. I think MJ felt like HE WAS Peter Pan. He had no childhood, and never developed like the rest of us. He was a 10 year old mind in the body of an adult. I don’t think the amusement park in his backyard or the pet chimp were bait to lure children in, I think he just really wanted to live in an amusement park, race go karts, and hang out with like minded children like any insanely wealthy pre-pubescent boy would. Many of the children he hung out with have said that nothing happened, including Macaulay Culkin, who was his bestie for quite a few years. Even after MJ’s death, he said “He never did anything to me. I never saw him do anything. And especially at this flash point in time, I’d have no reason to hold anything back. The guy has passed on. If anything - I’m not gonna say it would be stylish or anything like that, but right now is a good time to speak up. And if I had something to speak up about, I would totally do it. But no, I never saw anything; he never did anything.”
Maybe I’m wrong, maybe Macaulay was groomed and helped MJ abuse other kids and cover it up, but I think Michael was just a emotionally undeveloped abuse victim trying to reclaim the childhood he never got to experience.
To nitpick: it’s fair to say his relationships with children were inappropriate. The stipulated behavior crosses a lot of lines of propriety.
The stipulated behavior doesn’t amount to being harmful or abusive.
Yeah, I can see that if you define inappropriate as “against societal norms”. I intended the word to mean abusive or sexual in nature.
Yes, it is not the behaviour of a healthy adult, nor is it something that should be treated as “normal”.
Also: it does not cross the line where a biopic is “disgusting white-washing” as OP claims.I think even what we do know about his relationship with children was harmful, just not to the same extent as rape.
Even if he was just having sleepovers with kids, that’s not a healthy thing for Michael or the kids. For one, it sends very confusing signals to the kids in terms of what is acceptable behavior. Secondly, it dragged these kids into Michael’s own traumas (assuming that is the cause of the behavior).
I’m not sure if any of it would rise to a legal level of wrongdoing, but I don’t think anyone was really looking out for the kids best interests regardless of what was really going on.
It was not just sleepovers.
Good argument, definitely provided valid proof or even anything that can hint at it and you also held an objective view and humility like the comments above…
///ssssss
You should feel bad about yourself for being so dumb and lazy to have written that comment. (And to be clear, I say nothing against or for any views here).
Give it up, man. He did it. It’s over.
Thanks for putting my thoughts into words. I’m of the same opinion that his own childhood was shattered and he sought a simulacrum of a childhood as an adult.
Corey Feldman also said that while almost everyone in Hollywood sexually abused him as a child, Michael Jackson is the one person that didn’t. He did also say that he doesn’t defend MJ anymore because others have accused him though.
which is a healthy pr take to have for corey, he isn’t going to go out and speak for others. As a lot of people in this thread seem to have no problem doing lol
There’s a conspiracy floating around that Jackson became aware of the human trafficking to the ultrawealthy and he was smeared and possibly killed for it. No real evidence but it’s a fun one to think about.
That’s your idea of fun to think about?
Yes. A less fun one to think about is a CIA redacted book called “The Adam and Eve Story”. Every explaination i can think of is deeply unsettling.
I don’t think you need to worry too much about that one being true.
You just take Wikipedia at face value for everything don’t you?
I’m aware of how cooky the guy was. He also for sure did a bunch of government contracting and Einstein thought he was smart. Oh also a large chunk of the book is still classified.
It’s not that I think what’s in the book is all real. It’s that any of it might be even partially true and what is in the redactions.
You can read it. You could also read it as early as this review in the winter of 1982-83. The article begins on page ten with the relevant mention on page 11.
If you scroll to page 50-51 of the pdf that was declassified, you’ll see a transit slip (the missing page 48 in the book is because it’s a blank page in the book following a section that ends on an odd number, like the missing pages 18 and 52). I’m guessing that piece of paper was the relevant document and it was found being used as a bookmark in this book. Scroll further to page 56 of the pdf, to see the supplementary reading and that’s what I’m basing my skepticism on. The Wikipedia page is just a helpful summary.
I could totally be wrong.
Sadly, you are. Would multiple firsthand witness accounts and more wtf-episodes than you imagine change your mind? If so, you should change it. The documentary is damning.
How often did he call one of the boys and ask them to retrieve their bloody underwear from the trash so the cops don’t find it? Well, at least once that we know of. And 100 more things like that.
once that was alleged…
Interesting take on a grown man who was regularly spending the night alone with young boys in his bed.
Super abnormal behavior and when you couple that with his security for that wing of the house along with the alleged victim testimony, he seems guilty as fuck. I don’t want it to be true, but there’s too much smoke for there not to be a fire.
Maybe. Like I said, I don’t know for sure that I’m right, and I’ll admit it’s totally strange behavior for a normal adult man, but I do think there’s a chance that we’re injecting our own perverted assumptions on something we can’t understand.
Seriously, watch Leaving Neverland and see what you think. It’s astounding. You will be like
Just for giggles, I chose to check the wiki for leaving neverland…
Safechuck says Jackson eventually replaced him with Brett Barnes; Robson claims he was replaced by the actor Macaulay Culkin, who is two years older, because Jackson preferred prepubescent boys
Funny, Culkin explicitly says nothing ever happened. Culkin must just be lying though, right? One of the people in that documentary said he was the next in line, so that’s that.
He’s interviewed at the end of the documentary. It’s worth it.
A quick scan of wikipedia is not sufficient.
Should I also watch Loose Change because it’s compelling and would leave me flabbergasted if I didn’t do any other research?
One of the two kids who the documentary follows makes an outrageous claim that we already know is fake based on the word of the person who allegedly experienced it. Just because you enjoyed it doesn’t mean it’s accurate.
I don’t even have any skin in he game (I don’t like Jackson’s music, personally), but the rhetoric around the man has always been contentious, and not always consistent. I’m not going to waste tons of time on a subject I don’t care about by watching a documentary that I already know includes a major falsehood from one of the primary subjects.
Honestly, I wasted more of my life on this subject than I wanted just responding here, so duces.
Should I also watch Loose Change because it’s compelling and would leave me flabbergasted if I didn’t do any other research?
Well they’re not the same thing at all so your rhetorical comparison shows your lack of good faith in the question.
One of the two kids who the documentary follows makes an outrageous claim that we already know is fake based on the word of the person who allegedly experienced it.
What? Try that again.
I’m not going to waste tons of time on a subject I don’t care about by watching a documentary that I already know includes a major falsehood from one of the primary subjects.
So you don’t care and you’re wrong and don’t want to see it. Got it.
Honestly, I wasted more of my life on this subject than I wanted just responding here, so duces.
Just have a habit of shitting in threads about things you don’t care about, eh. Yeah. Alright then.
As we all know, wikipedia is all lies without sources and all documentaries are truthful without editorial bias.
Yet opinions about any lengthy works by people who have never read / seen / heard those works are abundant.
Ok but it’s easy for a documentary to make you go insert shocked gif here if they just lie about things
True. So are they lying? I don’t think so.
Seen it, you are clearly dumb enough to fall for a ton of wishy washy nothing “proof”.
Wow so multiple first-hand accounts, archival media supporting it and additional contemporary witnesses aren’t enough to convince you?
Well then you are a True Believer™ . Go forth and enjoy your bliss.
all that stuff that he was acquitted for? It’s not like he was exceptionally rich and ripe for people to try and make a dollar off him due to his strange behaviors. I dont know one way or the other, but way too many people seem to claim otherwise when we ultimately just don’t know. and probably never will. IMO continuing to claim someone is guilty when the law says otherwise is just as bad as people blindly claiming someone is innocent. He was weird. thats really all we know.
The trial is a super interesting part of it. His reaction to it in particular. Exceptionally rich and famous people don’t usually lose. And it wasn’t a civil trial anyway.
Fuck everything about this movie
interesting that you should mention epstein because when macaulay culkin was interviewed about that a while ago he brought up mj. mac said that one time as a child, he was scheduled to go to epsteins island when jackson called out of the blue to ask if he wanted a tour of the neverland estate. since jackson was famous, mac and his agent went to neverland, and he and jackson apparently became friends. mac stressed that he had never even gotten a creepy vibe, just that michael genuinely liked children.
maybe this was entirely coincidental, i don’t know. but there is a chance that michael knew about epstein in the 90s and tried to help people steer clear.
all i know is that culkin seems like a good guy. he’s called out bad practices and abuse in the industry before, to his own detriment.
Edit: Apparently that interview was faked. bummer.
Mac has defended Michael for years but the Epstein tie is untrue
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/macaulay-culkin-michael-jackson-epstein/
oh that’s unfortunate. i’ll add a clarification.
