‘Michael’ Wants You to Forget. It’s Important You Don’t

I still remember the very first moonwalk I ever tried. Obviously, I faceplanted. There was no way around it; I was never going to be as good of a dancer as Michael Jackson. I grew up listening to his music through my dad. He was a teenager when Off the Wall and Thriller were released, and as someone who was much more of a free spirit than I ever was, he was always dancing and moving to the music. It made sense that when he had a kid, he would pass that music on. It was a piece of American culture that was pervasive enough that a kid in Mexico was looking for a red jacket (similar to the one Jackson wears in “Beat It”). The feeling my dad had when he first heard Thriller, the feeling that I had when I first heard “Billie Jean”—that feeling is preyed upon by Antoine Fuqua’s Michael. Don’t get me wrong: the film is competently made, taking into account that the entire third act had to be scrapped and the opening changed. However, the shamelessness that would have confronted audiences directly is instead beneath the surface of the film. The Jackson estate is trying to trick you; Jackson’s music is strong enough to distract you, but the gray cloud of the sexual assault accusations lingers throughout every scene.

Michael Jackson’s music has meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people. To me, it meant music I could bond over with my dad. As I got older, it became music my mom would play to cheer me up. The magic that Jackson’s music is and was able to convey is portrayed quite accurately throughout the film. Fans would throw themselves at his car or pass out in his presence. Even toward the later parts of his career, his aura as a worldwide star was still there.

However, that is really a one-sided perspective of who the man was. The movie isn’t interested in generating any other perspective. As someone who grew up learning and knowing everything about Michael Jackson, it left a sour taste in my mouth. The film goes out of its way to show you a man who did not exist. The film, quite poorly, attempts to "sanewash" Michael. Unfortunately for the Jackson estate, we are not naive. You don’t live through the 2000s and consider him a well-adjusted individual. His legacy at that point was defined by the pedophilia allegations; Chris Rock’s bit lives on forever. The accusations and scandals that follow Michael can be tracked through his music catalog, a fact the filmmakers tacitly acknowledge by including “Bad” but not “Leave Me Alone.” Not only does the music track his changes as an artist, but it gives us the most insight into his personal struggles and his opinion on them. The film shows glimpses into his creativity and inspiration (the longest sequence being that of “Beat It”), but it doesn’t really care to show any other aspect of Michael’s song-and-dance-making ability. Its focus is on the strange performance by Jaafar Jackson—a performance that portrays Michael as an oversized eight-year-old boy with god-given talent. If it were truly committed to the fraudulent representation it shows, we would get more insight into the little things that made his music so special. Instead, it spends an exorbitant amount of time showing us Peter Pan and Neverland (in a manner that, if you are aware of any of the sexual assault accusations, comes off as foreboding and sinister) rather than trying to interrogate who or what inspired “Billie Jean.” Are we meant to believe this angelic figure was capable of writing a song rejecting the mother of his child? Nobody really knows; the Jackson estate just wants you to sit there and bop your head until you forget the horrible things he was accused of.

It’s hard to say how different this film would be if the filmmakers had been legally allowed to portray the sexual abuse allegations that are a part of his history. It’s likely that a second film would be built off the angel caricature and show Michael as a suffering victim of false accusations as he went on to cement himself as the biggest pop star in music history. The reality is much darker, and quite frankly, the music isn’t nearly good enough to distract people from the overall stench of his life. The film's decision to divert into the tangent of including Miles Teller, who plays Michael Jackson’s lawyer (if you’re wondering why he’s there: he helped produce the film), further emphasizes the road the Jackson estate is attempting to take us down. Teller’s inclusion doesn’t add anything substantive to the story being told; it feels, again, like a setup for a part of the film that never arrives. It’s modern filmmaking at its worst—placing a character in Part 1 so that when they show up in Part 2, their loyalty is cheered on. Teller isn’t doing anything interesting with his performance either; it’s just Miles Teller in a shitty wig, doing whatever Michael wants. Presumably, in the second (rumored) film, he would be the one defending Michael in the face of the accusations that dominated the 90s and early 00s.

Being able to work through the emotions that come with realizing the people you grew up idolizing aren’t angels is part of growing up. The film wants us to think otherwise—that Jackson didn’t grow up, so why should we? The reality is that Michael Jackson grew up to become the pop star of every generation and the pedophile of his generation. As fans, we have to acknowledge that. For my dad, it meant having hard conversations with me about what Michael Jackson did. For me, it means being able to discuss what his music meant to me while also being able to address the specifics of the accusations and the various settlements that exist. If the Jacksons get their wish, it's likely that most people will never believe the victims of Michael Jackson’s terror, but that’s a significant piece of Michael Jackson’s legacy now and forever. Jackson’s family thinks that the audience doesn’t know anything about him, that they will accept the image presented. It’s our job as consumers of his art to fight that and to acknowledge what he did. The film tries to paint a caricature; it’s up to us to paint the portrait.