Michael Jackson Biopic Condemned as Ghoulish, Sanitized
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The Jackson Estate waged a 5-year legal war against HBO.
Ultimately, they won — getting Leaving Neverland permanently removed from HBO Max due to a contract from 1992.
Now, the new Michael biopic is telling a new version of the legendary singer’s story.
The film’s story ends before any allegations of sexual misconduct emerged. And people are furious.
‘Michael’ tells a very selective story about the King of Pop
In Michael, the titular singer’s own nephew, Jaafar, portrays the larger-than-life King of Pop during his meteoric rise.
Michael Jackson first became famous as part of the Jackson 5.
The siblings’ infamous father’s plans paid off for the entire family, and all that it cost was unspeakable psychological damage that would become a family curse.
Michael himself was the most successful, breakout out into a solo career that is now much better known than the rest of his family’s work combined.
That is covered in the biopic. And basically only that is covered in the biopic.
Michael does not include or address the famous sexual abuse allegations against the late singer.
This was clearly a film intended to cater to fans who enjoyed his music and would simply rather not think about the harrowing allegations of sexual abuse leveled at him by a number men who say that he abused them as children.
The Jackson Estate financially backed the film. Michael uses the singer’s original vocals for some of the numerous vocal numbers.
One genuinely positive thing that critics have had to say is that Jaafar, son of Jermaine Jackson, did an exemplary job of portraying his uncle.
The reviews for Michael Jackson’s biopic are in
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The ‘Bad’ jokes write themselves
The rest of the film, however, did not receive rave reviews.
Simply put, a lot of people found it straight-up appalling that the biopic ignored the singer’s biggest scandal.
There are many — essentially, anyone who isn’t a fan of his music — for whom his child sex-abuse allegations are more infamous than his songs ever were.
Even many who once enjoyed Michael’s music can certainly agree that the allegations of sex crimes against children are more important than how fun his music was.
“Separating the art from the artist” makes sense if you want to listen to a bop (and the artist or author or whoever is dead and will not benefit from your enjoyment). But it doesn’t really make sense in a biopic, which is inherently about the artist.
According to a stunning report from Variety, Michael would have originally included at least some references to the molestation allegations.
A historic NDA from a settlement with accuser Jordan Chandler forbids his depiction in any form in the film. (Old contracts seem to be doing a lot of favors for the singer’s image.)
This meant a whopping $15 million in reshoots and a partial rewrite. The film ended up covering Michael’s story from the ’60s until the ’80s, at which point it stopped.
Critics have likened this to a biopic about Jeffrey Epstein as a financier, palling around with tech billionaires and powerful politicians, with no mention whatsoever of victims.
But we cannot rule out that someone will eventually make a biopic that matches that description. It takes a lot to make a good movie. But to simply make a movie, all that you need is money.
We should count ourselves lucky that Epstein couldn’t moonwalk or whatever, or maybe such a project would have an audience.
