Kamal Ghorui
‘Michael’, the new biopic about the early life of Michael Jackson, has arrived in theatres to a storm of mixed reviews and significant backlash. The film has been accused of glossing over the darkest aspects of Jackson’s legacy, while fans have largely embraced it. Here is everything you need to know about the controversy.
Why is ‘Michael’ being called incomplete?
Forbes reported that in the last two decades of his life, Michael Jackson was repeatedly accused of child sex abuse. Jackson and his estate consistently denied the claims, but ‘Michael’ does not mention the accusations at all. The film depicts Jackson’s life up until 1988, ending before the abuse allegations began to emerge in the nineties and beyond.The film hit theatres seven years after Jackson’s legacy was revisited by the documentary ‘Leaving Neverland’, which featured lengthy interviews with two men who claimed to have been sexually abused by Jackson as children. The Jackson estate described the claims in that documentary as “tabloid character assassination” and pursued legal action against the broadcaster, resulting in ‘Leaving Neverland’ being removed from circulation.
The costly reshoot that changed the film
According to Variety, the final act of ‘Michael’ originally dealt with sex abuse allegations made by 13-year-old Jordan Chandler and the subsequent police investigation in 1993. This plotline sparked early backlash after a leaked script report claimed the biopic “wants very much to convince you Michael is innocent.”However, the controversial storyline never made the final cut. During the editing stage, it was discovered that the Jackson estate was barred from depicting Chandler or his family in any film. As a result, all mentions of the child abuse allegations were removed in an extensive reshoot, estimated to have cost between USD 40 million and USD 50 million.
How the cast and Jackson family have responded
Jaafar Jackson’s co-star Colman Domingo addressed the backlash on NBC, explaining that the biopic covers “the making of Michael” and hinting that a sequel could continue the story. “The film takes place from the 60s to 1988. It does not go into the first allegations. There’s a possibility of it being a Part 2 that may deal with some other things that happened afterward,” he said. “This is about the making of Michael, how he was raised and then how he was trying to find his voice as an artist and be a solo artist.“Jackson’s nephew Taj Jackson posted his thoughts on social media, writing, “Sorry media, u don’t get to control the narrative anymore of who Michael Jackson truly was. The public gets to watch this movie. They will decide for themselves. And you can’t handle that.”Jackson’s daughter Paris also weighed in, saying in a video posted last September, “A big section of the film panders to a very specific section of my dad’s fandom that still lives in the fantasy.”
How is ‘Michael’ is performing?
According to Forbes, ‘Michael’ has received sharply divided scores, with a 38 per cent press score sitting alongside a 94 per cent audience score, reflecting the clear split between general viewers and those with reservations about the film’s approach.‘Michael’ ultimately depicts a version of the King of Pop that Jackson fans have long wanted to see on screen.
