In this edition of Cinema Issues we are talking about the recent underperformance critically of the new Michael Jackson biopic.
So an interesting comparison point for this is what happened with Scream 7, in which due to Melissa Barrera being removed from the film, for her abhorrent comments, critics tore the film apart for Palestine.
Whereas here the film is being torn apart by critics due to its sanitisation of the child abuse accusations leveled at Michael Jackson.
In both instances something from the real world is influencing critical scores. One would argue the key difference is that the Barrera issue does not effect the overall quality of the film as it is not as though a section of the film is missing, or that the full story isn’t being told, the story therein was changed. The film you get with Scream 7 removes any trace of her, whereas by accounts with Michael it is incomplete and sanitised and that matters in a biopic. People want warts and all.
With the broader discourse around Jackson there was a question of whether this film should have even been made, as many people consider him to be a monster. There are also plenty of fans of the artist who disagree, however the polarisation is at the heart of Jackson’s legacy so to not cover it is cowardice.
There is the idea that it is safer not to lean to one side or the other in terms of the film so the idea to just not cover it at all makes sense. However, then you set up white washing accusations.
Moreover, in terms of the accusations you can white wash a great deal many things, child abuse is not one of them. The fact that he was accused so many times of it leaves a bitter taste in a lot of people’s mouths, so the idea of separating the art from the artist becomes a lot harder to do.
Whilst normally the critics would be wrong to bring politics into their reviews, they are right to do so here as they are pointing out how a massive section of the film/Jackson’s life is missing and it’s a white wash.
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