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The new Michael Jackson fans who don’t want to hear the truth · The Front

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Speaker 1: It sort of makes me think of the character of
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Speaker 1: Julius played by Arnold Schwitzenegger and Twins.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: I don't know if you have you seen that?
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Speaker 3: A classic classic. I'm gonna watch it again. Actually from
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Speaker 3: The Australian. This is the weekend edition of The Front.
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Speaker 3: I'm Claire Harvey. Michael Jackson is back in a massive way,
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Speaker 3: back at the top of the charts, back making billions
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Speaker 3: of dollars at the cinema and for Netflix. He's generating
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Speaker 3: huge numbers of streams in a documentary that I don't
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Speaker 3: think his a state would like very much. I'm joined
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Speaker 3: by Kristin Amy at The Front's producer and Jasper Leak
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Speaker 3: are audio lead to talk about the legacy of Michael
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Speaker 3: Jackson and the way his estate is remaking his image
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Speaker 3: for a new generation. Jasper, let me start with you.
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Speaker 3: You're a musician and grew up kind of in the
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Speaker 3: Michael Jackson heyday the eighties and nineties, not to aide you.
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Speaker 3: Why was Michael Jackson the defining pop star of our childhoods?
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Speaker 3: And again now.
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Speaker 1: I think to understand how he became this global superstar,
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Speaker 1: you have to look at his pedigree and appreciate the
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Speaker 1: fact that he essentially grew up in a last furnace
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Speaker 1: of music entertainment, starting his career with the Jackson Five,
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Speaker 1: but importantly going through the riggers of Showby's training at
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Speaker 1: Motown under people like Berry Gordy and Diana Ross, but
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Speaker 1: also having first hand access to Stevie Wonder basically as
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Speaker 1: a kid, and then going on to being selected by
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Speaker 1: the Motown machine to have his own solo career that
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Speaker 1: eventually went stratospheric when he left Motown, signed with Epic
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Speaker 1: Records and essentially traded Berry Gordy in for Quincy Jones.
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Speaker 1: The Motown sound was an undeniably popular sound at the time,
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Speaker 1: but it wasn't the pop sound that he created with
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Speaker 1: Quincy Jones and Quincy's team. Quincy had a vision for
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Speaker 1: whom Michael could be as an artist, a sound world
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Speaker 1: that he could inhabit, drawing on decades and decades of
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Speaker 1: experience at the forefront of American music.
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Speaker 3: He's back, though, Chrissy, Isn't he in a way that
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Speaker 3: the other artists of the eighties are not, even artists
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Speaker 3: who were themselves highly influential and exceptional performers. Can you
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Speaker 3: just describe for me the way Michael Jackson has come
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Speaker 3: back as a cultural force. His song Chicago, for example,
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Speaker 3: it was at the top of the Billboard R and
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Speaker 3: B chart. It's not long ago, So.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's undeniable at this point in time
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Speaker 2: that social media is probably feeding this beast, if you
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Speaker 2: want to put it that way. Michael Jackson is arguably
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Speaker 2: more accessible than he has ever been to anybody anywhere
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Speaker 2: on the planet with an Internet connection or not.
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Speaker 4: Spread love, joy and peace. That is what I want
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Speaker 4: the world to feel.
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Speaker 3: Magic.
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Speaker 2: But we've seen in the last couple of months the
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Speaker 2: biopic that's come out with Michael Jackson's nephew, Jaffar Jackson
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Speaker 2: playing him. His performance as Michael Jackson has been largely praised. However,
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Speaker 2: critics have said that this film, which is produced by
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Speaker 2: and large by Michael Jackson's estate, is a sanitization of
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Speaker 2: those serious allegations that were made against him over the
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Speaker 2: course of his life and career. And now we've arrived
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Speaker 2: at the place where the Netflix documentary machine has decided
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Speaker 2: to reassess this issue, which never really went away. But
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Speaker 2: it seems to be that this is providing, if you
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Speaker 2: want to call it, a counterpoint too, that film that
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Speaker 2: despite the criticisms of it, as I understand, it has
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Speaker 2: made almost a billion dollars globally. It's been very commercially successful.
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Speaker 3: It's definitely fans who are driving that movie because I
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Speaker 3: think the one thing you know about it going in
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Speaker 3: is that it's not going to touch on the sexual
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Speaker 3: abuse allegations that he faced throughout his life. Disturbing accounts
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Speaker 3: of young boys who say they were manipulated and abused
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Speaker 3: by the King.
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Speaker 4: Of pop now adults who say Michael Jackson groomed and
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Speaker 4: sexually abused them over a twenty five year period. There
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Speaker 4: have been many disgusting statements made recently concerning allegations of
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Speaker 4: improper conduct on my part. These statements about me are
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Speaker 4: totally false, as I have made.
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Speaker 3: He was of course acquitted of charges relating to the
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Speaker 3: abuse of children, and he always denied any wrongdoing. But
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Speaker 3: he's been the subject of repeated allegations by multiple people
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Speaker 3: who are now adults, that he was a pedophile. His
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Speaker 3: estate has settled cl aims against him by some of
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Speaker 3: these people. There's now a legal dispute going on with
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Speaker 3: one family in particular, the Cashio family, who say that
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Speaker 3: they were all abused for children, all abused by him
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Speaker 3: over the years, and their accounts are incredibly compelling. That's
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Speaker 3: what the documentary touches on in part. Does it go
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Speaker 3: further than the Leaving Neverland documentary that was so kind
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Speaker 3: of seismic about Michael Jackson a few years ago.
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Speaker 2: It doesn't focus so much on the allegations, and I
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Speaker 2: know that that's quite a strange thing to say. What
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Speaker 2: it actually looks at is the justice system in relation
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Speaker 2: to this issue, and the media in relation to this issue,
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Speaker 2: how it was reported, how people reacted to it. So
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Speaker 2: it is a kind of a cultural assessment. I guess
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Speaker 2: in that perspective, I walked.
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Speaker 4: Into what looked like a circus.
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Speaker 2: We believed he was.
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Speaker 1: A criminal, and he was able to get away with
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Speaker 1: that because of his fame and celebrity care.
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Speaker 4: It was very moving testimony.
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Speaker 3: You really got to me.
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Speaker 2: Actually in the new documentary, The Verdict on Netflix, we
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Speaker 2: don't have victims voices other than what was said in
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Speaker 2: court and the evidence that they gave, the statements that
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Speaker 2: they made to prosecutors and to police. What there is
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Speaker 2: members of the media, investigative journalists, there are members of
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Speaker 2: Michael Jackson's staff, There are his close friends, his biographer
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Speaker 2: is in it, and there are also jurors, which is
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Speaker 2: a feature of the American system that jurors can be
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Speaker 2: interviewed by media after a matter has concluded. We can't
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Speaker 2: do that here in Australia. So we actually get the
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Speaker 2: perspective of some of the people who were on the
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Speaker 2: jury and who ultimately acquitted Michael Jackson of those charges.
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Speaker 3: I think in that documentary also we see a little
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Speaker 3: bit of the interview that he did with Martin Basheer,
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Speaker 3: the British journalist famously who interviewed Princess Diana as well.
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Speaker 1: Do you think missus Parker Bowles was a factor in
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Speaker 1: the breakdown of your marriage.
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Speaker 3: Well, there were three of us in this marriage, a
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Speaker 3: bit crowded in that interview with Princess Diana. He's been accused,
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Speaker 3: particularly by Dinah's sons, of manipulating her into giving the
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Speaker 3: interview in the interview with Michael Jackson, which interestingly has
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Speaker 3: become this battleground on social media now there's millions of
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Speaker 3: TikTok clips from that interview, either accusing Martin Basher of
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Speaker 3: being unethical or pointing out that Michael Jackson admits in
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Speaker 3: the interview to sleeping in the same bed as children
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Speaker 3: who were not his own children.
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Speaker 4: Why can't you share your bed? The most loving thing
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Speaker 4: they do is to share your bed with someone.
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Speaker 3: What did you think watching that Muttin Bescher footage again.
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Speaker 2: I found it chilling. I guess when that interview originally aired,
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Speaker 2: I was quite a bit younger. I was broadly aware
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Speaker 2: of the commentary around Michael Jackson at that time, but
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Speaker 2: all I really knew was his music. Watching it back
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Speaker 2: now as an adult, and as an adult working in
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Speaker 2: the media in a post Epstein world, in a post
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Speaker 2: to Me Too world, it was absolutely chilling that he
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Speaker 2: felt so confident in his beliefs and his choices that
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Speaker 2: he would openly admit to that on camera with one
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Speaker 2: of the children in question sitting beside him holding his hand.
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Speaker 2: It was really hard to watch.
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Speaker 3: He also says in that interview that he hasn't had
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Speaker 3: any plastic surgery, hasn't had anything done to his nose,
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Speaker 3: which at this stage is like a ski jump. He
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Speaker 3: hasn't changed his skin. He claims that his children, who
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Speaker 3: were born to a surrogate mother, were both born to
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Speaker 3: black women, although Martin Basher has some incredulity about businesses,
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Speaker 3: but these children are basically white. How can that possibly be.
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Speaker 3: Michael Jackson seems to be to my eyes, living in
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Speaker 3: a fantasy world, like he's living in a world created
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Speaker 3: in his own beliefs where he's not offending against children.
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Speaker 3: His children are black, and he hasn't had anything done
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Speaker 3: to his face. It's interesting to me that one of
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Speaker 3: the takeouts from people isn't Martin Bee she was doing
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Speaker 3: something wrong there. You can criticize the way he got
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Speaker 3: Princess Diana to talk to him, and it sounds like
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Speaker 3: he did manipulate some documents allegedly in that case. But
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Speaker 3: I mean the accusation against him in Michael Jackson's case
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Speaker 3: is that he spent eight months with Michael Jackson. Like,
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Speaker 3: what's wrong with that?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's journalism, yeah, and it's journalism that was invited in.
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Speaker 2: But I think it also goes to that point of
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Speaker 2: what the commentary was at the time or how that
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Speaker 2: was received at the time, and what it's like now
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Speaker 2: to watch it. But even I remember people saying that
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Speaker 2: Michael Jackson was like a kid himself, that he'd had
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Speaker 2: a very difficult life and particularly coming up through that
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Speaker 2: motown machine. As I understand that there was abuse allegedly
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Speaker 2: in the Jackson family and that any child's star, as
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Speaker 2: we now I think are well aware, has a pretty
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Speaker 2: tough time in Hollywood and in the music industry. That
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Speaker 2: he was sort of stuck as a child, and that
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Speaker 2: kind of it wasn't a justification for but that it
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Speaker 2: went some of the way people felt to explaining his
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Speaker 2: explanation of that behavior. He lived at a theme park,
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Speaker 2: he seemed to be more comfortable around children and exactly
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Speaker 2: friend exactly yes, And maybe people who don't judge him
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Speaker 2: or you know who don't ask the hard questions and
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Speaker 2: don't hold him to account for those actions, because in
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Speaker 2: the Michael Jackson The Verdict documentary on Netflix, we hear
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Speaker 2: that there were staff members at Neverland who allegedly saw
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Speaker 2: things and never spoke up about it. And you could
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Speaker 2: go down a rabbit hole of talking about who should
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Speaker 2: have said what and when and to who. But yeah,
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Speaker 2: it seems to be that this idea is persisting of
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Speaker 2: Michael was like a child himself, and maybe that explains
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Speaker 2: some of what went on, and maybe that explained some
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Speaker 2: of his mindset in that Martin Bescher interview in that
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Speaker 2: he seems to genuinely.
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Speaker 3: Believe what he's saying, yeah, and genuinely believe that people
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Speaker 3: will accept the weirdness. It's almost like being weird in
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Speaker 3: plain sight is enough to help you get away with
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Speaker 3: kind of doing whatever you want to do and saying
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Speaker 3: whatever you want to say.
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Speaker 1: Just spicking up on Chrissy's sort of eternal child theory,
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Speaker 1: it sort of makes me think of the character of
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Speaker 1: Julius played by Arnold Twrotzenegger and Twins. I don't know
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Speaker 1: if you have you seen.
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Speaker 3: That classic classic I'm gonna watch it again.
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Speaker 1: Actually, like Julius is this science experiment where he's raised
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Speaker 1: in complete isolation on an idyllic island, and he's a
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Speaker 1: perfect specimen in every aspect, and by the time he
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Speaker 1: enters society at thirty five years old, he sort of
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Speaker 1: has all these skills, but he's completely ill equipped for
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Speaker 1: the real world. And I think there is a parallel there,
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Speaker 1: albeit maybe a strange one. But like, if you sort
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Speaker 1: of think about that blast furnace that Michael Jackson grew
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Speaker 1: up in by the time he was twenty I think
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Speaker 1: it was, or probably even younger when he acted in
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Speaker 1: the wiz, but famously he was first there, last to leave.
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Speaker 1: Every day, knew everybody else's life lies on top of
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Speaker 1: his own. He was like a showbiz machine. But at
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Speaker 1: what cost.
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Speaker 3: There's a theory that people who go through trauma are
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Speaker 3: frozen in time at the time of that trauma, and
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Speaker 3: so children who are abused might might have struggles maturing. Basically,
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Speaker 3: there's also huge amount of evidence that people who are
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Speaker 3: victims of abuse are prone to re victimization and are
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Speaker 3: also prone to becoming perpetrators themselves because their ideas of
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Speaker 3: love and intimacy have been broken and damaged. I just
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Speaker 3: don't get why we can't hold the two things simultaneously,
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Speaker 3: that Michael all three things, That Michael Jackson was a victim,
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Speaker 3: that he was a perpetrator, and that he was a genius.
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Speaker 3: But do we have to bring him back? Like does
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Speaker 3: the world need Michael Jackson today?
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Speaker 1: It's interesting in the States, like he never went away.
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Speaker 1: I mean, it obviously impacted certain aspects of society, but
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Speaker 1: my sense over there is like he's still held up
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Speaker 1: by a lot of people as this godlike figure.
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Speaker 3: And it seems though, to do that, they have to
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Speaker 3: deny that these people who say that they are victims
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Speaker 3: are telling the truth.
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Speaker 1: It's like, well, that's it, isn't it. It's a sort
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Speaker 1: of like a selective sort of passing of the story
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Speaker 1: for different people.
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Speaker 3: How did we end up, though, in a place in
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Speaker 3: twenty twenty six where we're denying the claims of children
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Speaker 3: who say that they were reviewsed. Like to your point
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Speaker 3: earlier about living in a post Epstein and post me
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Speaker 3: Too world, is it like, well, we believe all victims
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Speaker 3: except if they were Michael Jackson's victims.
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Speaker 2: I don't necessarily think it's about disbelieving people. I think
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Speaker 2: actually we've come a really long way in that respect,
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Speaker 2: and that's why the Netflix documentary is so interesting to
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Speaker 2: look back at how the justice system treated victims. But
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Speaker 2: I've been thinking about this for days because I knew
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Speaker 2: that we would have this conversation, And where I've kind
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Speaker 2: of landed is that you can't unscramble an egg. That
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Speaker 2: it's one thing to maybe decide to not consume Michael
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Speaker 2: Jackson's music directly, and a question for people themselves is
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Speaker 2: would we want to do that because of how richly
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Speaker 2: and creatively he has contributed to Western culture in particular.
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Speaker 2: But I wonder if we've got to the point and
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Speaker 2: I certainly feel this kind of level of exhaustion where
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Speaker 2: it's getting really hard to find the ray of light.
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Speaker 2: In a very short space of time, We've lived through
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Speaker 2: a pandemic, the Me Too movement, the Black Lives Matter movement,
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Speaker 2: a very divisive and ongoing conflict in the Middle East,
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Speaker 2: and now just the eternal horror of the Epstein files.
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Speaker 2: Can we really be expected to think critically when we're
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Speaker 2: sitting at the pub with our friends and the DJ
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Speaker 2: puts a Michael Jackson song on.
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Speaker 3: Isn't the music the ray of light that an abuse
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Speaker 3: victim who was himself a perpetrator could create or participate
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Speaker 3: in the creation of transcendent, joyful music.
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Speaker 1: Yes, it's hard if you can compartmentalize those things, and
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Speaker 1: I think some people can. I think some people can't.
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Speaker 1: But I mean I think about this all the time.
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Speaker 1: If we only read books by ethically sound authors, appreciated
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Speaker 1: art created by ethically sound artists, the list of what
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Speaker 1: is available to us might be a lot smaller than
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Speaker 1: we are happy with. It's sort of like it's a
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Speaker 1: very uncomfortable truth.
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Speaker 2: Yes, and a lot of the discussion that I saw online.
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Speaker 2: Put it down to this cult of celebrity and the
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Speaker 2: impact that that has on stories like this where they said,
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Speaker 2: you know, if this was Jim from three doors down
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Speaker 2: who said, hey, do your kids want to come and
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Speaker 2: stay the night in my bedroom? But don't worry mum
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Speaker 2: and dad, everything's fine, nothing's going on, would you still
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Speaker 2: so vehemently defend that person. No, it's because this person
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Speaker 2: has been held up as an icon, as a genius,
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Speaker 2: and to a very far extent, has enabled that behavior.
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Speaker 3: Thanks guys, thank you. This episode of the Front was
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Speaker 3: hosted by me Claire Harvey, produced by Kristin Amiott, and
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Speaker 3: edited by Leat Sammagluke. Thanks for joining us on the
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Speaker 3: Front this week. Our team also includes Tiffany Dimack, Joshua Burton,
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Speaker 3: and Jasper Leak, who also wrote art Beam