the slog
Discussion about the two-part HBO documentary Leaving Neverland rightfully continues, and just today a Facebook friend posted a link to the really quite frustrating Forbes article that essentially works to discredit Michael Jackson's accusers, and said friend also confessed to having no intention of watching the film. That was what promoted my post basically laying out counter-arguments (which I also posted as a Twitter thread).
A woman tried to challenge me in the tweet in which I mentioned Wade Robson and James Safechuck did not meet as adults until after filming was done, and when I challenged her to provide a credible source she tried to turn the challenge around on me: "Do your own homework." Uh . . . done! I then told her, "So: your turn. Put up or shut up." She did report back, but with pretty weak information based on a technicality, with a source that actually supports my initial argument. In fact, she's willfully attempting to distort my initial point -- which was that the two men did not meet to compare notes during filming. (I continued to engage with her until she blocked me; any of you clicking through can see the arguments, but I cannot see her tweets anymore.)
Anyway. I just find this documentary so powerful that I cannot abide the people attempting to pick it apart. It's beyond stupid, all these people totally unwilling to accept even the possibility that Michael Jackson was a pedophile, presenting nothing but quite easily refuted arguments.
A lot of this remains in my mind because, even though watching all four hours of the two-part documentary on Monday evening was too much, I only discovered yesterday that Oprah Winfrey's interview with Wade Robson and James Safechuck, as well as the film's director, Dan Reed, was also available on HBO. I was very interested in further information about what making the film itself was like, and so I watched that -- at least it was only an hour -- last night. Winfrey quite rightly talks a lot about how typical the patterns of behavior are, and how easy it is not to see it or be blinded to it, although to be honest I found some of the typical "talk show" trappings of the presentation slightly unsavory.
I do kind of wish Oprah had said something, anything, about her own personal history with Michael Jackson. She remains one of the most famous women in the world, and she has personally interviewed Michael Jackson (in 1993), who was the most famous person in the world. To be fair, I can't find any record of her having interviewed him any more recently than that, although I do remember her asking him unusually direct questions, about things like why his skin was so much lighter than it used to be (vitiligo), or why he grabs his crotch so much while he dances (I recall him saying it just felt like a natural part of his dance moves, and even demonstrating once in his chair).
In retrospect, it's bizarre how permissive people were about the crotch-grabbing thing -- the two men interviewed in Finding Neverland both started as very young children impersonating him, and this documentary has footage of them doing the very same move! How is that not fucked up? And don't even get me started on the controversial extended ending of his "Black or White" video, in which he unzips his pants before a mix of dance moves and crotch-grabbing, before zipping his pants back up again. And still plenty of people were like, "Yeah, it's fine to let him sleep alone with young children he barely knows!" The fuck?
Nearly everything about Michael Jackson, in retrospect, creeps me out now. Oprah referenced this New York Times piece and I think it is also worth a read. Oprah quotes these great lines: "Celebrity supersedes criminality. How can you see clearly when you’re looking into the sun? How can an icon be a con?" When it comes to that shit, we were all complicit.
All right. Enough of that for now, I guess. What else did I do last night? I also watched Sunday night's episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, which had a great story about the often-unclarified complications regarding automation and how it affects jobs over time.
Before that, I actually left work half an hour early so I could make it to the 4:30 showing of Sharkwater Extinction, which I liked okay, after not liking it much, before realizing I was not liking it for by-definition ignorant reasons (I did not realize the focus on the filmmaker was so prevalent because he actually died during filmmaking). The next showing at Pacific Place was not until 7:15 and going to the 4:30 show on my way home made things a lot easier for me.
I made myself a delicious sandwich when I got home, which I just sat and ate at the dining table while listening to the end of a minisode of the My Favorite Murder podcast. After that I went into the bedroom to write the movie review, before moving on to the TV I watched.
Thankfully, there shouldn't be any more documentaries or TV shows about world famous pedophiles to slog through.
[posted 12:36 pm]