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?
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.
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.
https://www.ladbible.com/entertainment/celebrity/macaulay-culkin-michael-jackson-relationship-explained-503771-20250319
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.
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.