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?

  • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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    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.

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    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?

    • Tiral@lemmy.world
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      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.

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        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.

        • glimse@lemmy.world
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          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.

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      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.
      • QueenMidna@lemmy.ca
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        I mean… It happened with the Satanic panic. This is exactly the plot of it

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          We haven’t seen any rich or powerful people turn to paedophilia to manage their internal pain no no that is so rare

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    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.

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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      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.

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        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.

        • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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          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.

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            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.

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    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.

    • Bgugi@lemmy.world
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      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.

      • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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        Yeah, I can see that if you define inappropriate as “against societal norms”. I intended the word to mean abusive or sexual in nature.

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        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.

          • M137@lemmy.today
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            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).

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        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.

    • DaMummy@hilariouschaos.com
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      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.

      • edwardnashton@lemmy.world
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        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

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      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.

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      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.

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          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.

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              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.

              • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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                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.

    • Optional@lemmy.world
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      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.

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      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.

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        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.

        • Optional@lemmy.world
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          Seriously, watch Leaving Neverland and see what you think. It’s astounding. You will be like

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            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.

            • Optional@lemmy.world
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              He’s interviewed at the end of the documentary. It’s worth it.

              A quick scan of wikipedia is not sufficient.

              • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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                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.

                • Optional@lemmy.world
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                  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.

              • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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                Ok but it’s easy for a documentary to make you go insert shocked gif here if they just lie about things

                • Optional@lemmy.world
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                  Yet opinions about any lengthy works by people who have never read / seen / heard those works are abundant.

          • M137@lemmy.today
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            Seen it, you are clearly dumb enough to fall for a ton of wishy washy nothing “proof”.

            • Optional@lemmy.world
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              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.

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                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.

                • Optional@lemmy.world
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                  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.

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    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.

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      I’ve also seen many people’s personal accounts indicating he was protecting them. I believe m. culcan was one of them

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    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.

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    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.

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    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.

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    No, You are not too woke. However, being accused of a crime is not the same as committing the crime. Sleeping in bed with a child isn’t a crime. Settling out of court isn’t an admission of guilt. Making a biopic about Michael Jackson, the king of pop, is a no brainer for me.

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      I guess it depends. Is it factual and balanced or does it ignore that creepy part of his life? Being approved by the e$tate makes me doubt that.

      IMO, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Much has been said of his “child-like wonder and innocence”, but he wasn’t special needs or anything; he was still an adult! Like the rest of us, he made choices knowing how they would be viewed. Sure, maybe one family made shit up, hoping for a payday. But to then continue doing the same things after the initial accusation, bringing children into your bed at night…!? Personally, I would have installed cameras everywhere, hired a childcare person to always be there with the children, and, y’know, not have them sleep in my bed overnight. It would prove there was nothing going on, protect his reputation and fortune, give the parents peace of mind, etc. But he didn’t do any of that…

      • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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        So some people’s struggles get labelled as “special needs” and are treated differently, while others are viewed with suspicion and aren’t even attempted to be understood?

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          Yes, the difference is a diagnosis. And confronting them. My issues are not my fault, but they are mine to deal with. But let’s not forget we’re talking about literal child predation. Alleged, yes; but that can’t be dismissed as a “struggle” without it being a slap in the face to victims…

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            Not sure if I can add anything to the rest of your comment worth discussing, but I don’t think a diagnosis is the end-all be-all of how to treat someone’s mental state. Similarly to how laws are a (bad) approximation of morals, diagnoses are only an approximation of someone’s mental state.

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    I have a friend who worked for, and alongside MJ (they’re credited on at least one album). They became a personal friend and have a ton of amazing stories and insane memorabilia. On the day Michael died, his phone rang and rang with a LOT of people wishing him condolences.

    They tell me that MJ never really got a childhood, and in some ways lived his childhood through other children. My friend spent a couple nights at his Neverland ranch with his own kids and tells me that he trusted MJ and doesnt believe for a minute that he was actually guilty of anything untoward, and that things like “sleepovers” really did happen but were really from a place of innocence and MJ just wanting to have that childlike experience that he didn’t get.

    • Andy@slrpnk.net
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      I hear stories like this, and I think the part people stumble over is that it’s very common for kids to explore their bodies and each other’s at sleep overs.

      It’s not that hard to imagine his sleepovers being ordinary, kids sleepovers and also an environment in which he crossed some boundaries. That’s very common at sleepovers.

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        that it’s very common for kids to explore their bodies and each other’s at sleep overs.

        Yeah I don’t think so. I am way over 30 years old and never heard of that.

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          3 days ago

          It’s uncomfortable but true.

          Have you ever heard of kids playing Doctor? It’s not like kids routinely engage in sexual acts, but left alone at night it’s very common for them to do things like undress and compare bodies. Often it’s benign, but without an understanding of safe touches, it’s easy for such encounters to be unintentionally harmful.

        • andallthat@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          Well, I have regular sleepovers with my wife and I can tell you that at least once a month there is some exploring

        • Andy@slrpnk.net
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          3 days ago

          This is a topic that doesn’t get discussed much, but if you stop and think about it for a moment you might realize that we’re all aware of it, we just basically have a cultural taboo against thinking about it.

          Have you ever noticed that sleepovers are almost always gender-segregated? Why do you thick that is?

          • edwardnashton@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            well i cant speak for everyone, but when i was of the age of having sleepovers, i was very much of the mindset that girls had “cooties” and didnt want them at my sleepovers to begin with. had nothing to do with my parents decision, they werent invited to begin with.

    • thespcicifcocean@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Lots of child molesters have sad origin stories. Whoop dee doo, he didn’t have a childhood. He still molested kids

      • AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip
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        That’s the thing, though, we really don’t know that he did. He did some stuff people think is pretty suspicious, but there are genuine credibility issues with the accusers. It’s not impossible that there’s truth to the allegations, but from what I’ve seen, it’s more likely that greedy people took advantage of that suspicious behavior to milk him for money.

    • 3abas@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Your friend’s anecdote or the victims testimony… That’s a tough one.

        • 3abas@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          How do you justify that claim with that link? What in that article supports the idea that it was debunked?

        • 3abas@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          No…

          Anecdote: “he’s a nice guy who didn’t have a childhood so he hung out with children, he couldn’t have possibly done anything wrong, I know him” -> opinion

          Victim testimony: “he took advantage of my trust and innocence and molested me. I didn’t realize I’m being abused and it has given me a lifetime of mental suffering” -> data

          You can say you don’t trust the victims, but it isn’t the same as proclaiming someone definitely didn’t commit a crime because I have a positive experience with them.

          • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            Hmm, point taken. I think they’re both equally valid data points in theory, which is what I was trying to convey, but to your point, “he didn’t molest me” has much less determining power than “he molested me” when trying to determine if he molested someone. I see what you’re saying now.

  • _stranger_@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    In lieu of facts, I think most apologists who know the broad strokes of his life tend to address his behavior as the result of the significant abuse he received as a kid. I’m not really familiar with his behavior beyond the highlights, but I don’t know if he was ever accused of having raped any of the kids. I know he generally engaged in very creepy behavior with the kids, and the pedophilia was heavily implied though.

    To answer your question, yes, I think it’s a creepy cashgrab at best. I might watch it on a long flight out of curiosity if it’s available, but I don’t forsee seeking it out.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      but I don’t know if he was ever accused of having raped any of the kids.

      The first accuser…

      But that one was weird. The kids parents were divorced and the mom had custody.

      So the kid, his siblings, and mom hung out with MJ, and he took them to all types of shit, like award shows, giant concerts, trips all over the world. But not the ex husband, because the family was already split when they met MJ.

      Ex husband initially was super pissed, then one day did a 180 and started pushing hard for unsupervised overnight trips that had never happened before. Then the ex-husband (who was a dentist) gave his kid a bunch of laughing gas for a “procedure” and claimed that in that state the child told him of the abuse.

      MJ settled because that’s what people did, and the second that happened the floodgates opened.

      He was weird as fuck, and any parent that was letting him spend nights unsupervised with their child is a piece of shit…

      That doesn’t mean anything bad actually happened tho. There’s no real evidence it did, but it’s impossible to prove it never happened.

    • hOrni@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      That’s a cash grab? He’s been dead for almost 2 decades. They’ve made a film about Steve Jobs before his body got to room temperature.

      • M137@lemmy.today
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        Something being a cash grab has no relation to how recent the thing it’s about happened… How have you managed to think that’s the case?

    • Optional@lemmy.world
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      I’m not really familiar with his behavior beyond the highlights, but I don’t know if he was ever accused of having raped any of the kids.

      Leaving Neverland will erase any doubts you may have. He raped a lot of kids.

  • mrmaplebar@fedia.io
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    4 days ago

    Well… Melania got a movie too, and she and her husband were both best friends with Epstein and Maxwell.

    Michael Jackson was a complicated person. Extremely talented singer, songwriter, choreographer, dancer and performer from a very young age. Clearly had a strange relationship with his own race, age, and physical features. Clearly had a difficult time relating to people in a normal human way. Had a well-known child-like personality. A lot of rumors and allegations around him, and he did a lot of extremely questionable and problematic things that if nothing else, poured a lot of fuel on that particular fire. Fucked up his body with plastic surgery. Died of a doctor-supervised overdose…

    What I’m getting at is that a film is about telling a story, and I do think Michael Jackson had a fascinating life story with a lot of highs and lows. I’m not sure that he’s comparable to Epstein, and even if he was, I think that it depends how the film portrays him and his life.

    • bizarroland@lemmy.world
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      I’ve heard there’s also a conspiracy theory out there that Michael Jackson was either chemically or physically castrated to maintain his singing voice.

      If that happened early on in his life, that could actually explain some of the pathology behind what made him him.

    • nandeEbisu@lemmy.world
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      I mean, Melania’s movie was unapologetic whitewashing form what I’ve heard, so maybe not the best comparison.

      I do agree that there is compelling story to be told from the lens of building a revolutionary music career. I think simply making a movie isn’t inherently whitewashing, and there are compelling reasons to make a movie about MJ other than as a PR stunt so I’ll wait and see what comes out.

      • mrmaplebar@fedia.io
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        Well… I was referring to “It makes me wonder, if Epstein could sing and dance, would he have gotten a biopic too?”.

        Obviously Melania’s movie was essentially a corporate gift to the Trump family/administration, despite the fact that they were very close friends with Epstein. I don’t think it was a serious attempt at telling a genuine story about a strange person’s life, even if it could have been. Donald Trump has more proven connections to convicted sex traffickers than MJ ever had, just as a matter of fact, and even that didn’t prevent him and his family from taking over the world or having a movie made about his fake-ass wife.

        That’s not really the point… I should say that I don’t know anything about either movie and I’m not that interested in seeing them. I never even heard that there was a Michael Jackson biopic in production until seeing this threat.

        But my point is that film-making is a storytelling medium. A good filmmaker can tell a compelling story about good people and bad people alike.

        Good or bad, Michael Jackson is an interesting character who lived an interesting life. As such, it would be possible to make a great movie about him, just like someone could make a great movie about Hitler, Kim Jung Un, Donald Trump, etc.

        Will this movie be good? How will this movie depict MJ? Will he be treated as a sympathetic showbiz kid who never had the chance to grow up and live a normal life? Will he be treated as a pedophilic monster who systematically raped and trafficked children? …who knows… Ideally a good MJ biopic would drill down somewhere close to whatever the truth happens to be, depicting a complex and troubled person who lived an extraordinary (in the literal sense) life.

        If it’s just a cash grab by his estate to whitewash his character and ignore all of the deeply troubling things that happened in his life (both to him and by him), then it’s just not a good movie.

  • Zamboni_Driver@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    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.