By Linda-Raven Woods

Michael Jackson as “The Maestro” in Ghosts Photo courtesy of Getty images

Long before a film called Leaving Neverland raised controversy and the lynch mob hysteria of “Cancel Culture” began screaming for his head, Michael Jackson was already on to the public perception of him that had been fed largely in part by the tabloid media, and at least in some measure by his own aesthetic choices. In a song titled “Is It Scary?” Jackson acknowledged that, like an artistic changeling, he would become whatever we projected upon him. “I’m gonna be exactly what you want to see,” he sings, later raising the question, “Am I amusing you/Or just confusing you?/Am I the beast you visualized?/And if you want to see eccentrialities/I’ll be grotesque before your eyes…” For Jackson, an artist who had long thrived on public adoration and the unconditional love of his fandom, it had taken an extraordinary journey to arrive at a point where he could write such lyrics, to acknowledge that he must accept and embrace the duality of a persona that now invited as much fear, scrutiny and speculation as it did joy.

That song came from a 1996 movie called Ghosts which has also become chillingly prophetic in its own right. As the lovable but enigmatic “Maestro” who is ultimately persecuted for his differences, Jackson foreshadowed not only his own physical death, but the imminent reaction to it. After an immense battle in which the forces of light and dark clash, his character The Maestro admits defeat (but not before he has effectively proven that “the freak” resides within everyone). To the persistent claims that he must agree to leave, he concedes with a bow and declares without further protest, “Fine. I’ll go.” And, just like that, he drops to the floor, a lifeless corpse. The camera pans to the shocked reactions of the townspeople standing by, the parents and kids who had come with the intention of running him out of town but had slowly come around to loving his whimsical magic and fun surprises — even the thrill of the occasional “scare” ( always accompanied by the tagline, “Is this scary?”). From their stunned reactions, it is clear that an unanswered question now lays heavy on their hearts: Has The Maestro’s death been a willful suicide, or a homicide brought on by their own judgment? Then, his corpse begins to slowly disintegrate, the natural process of decay accelerated by movie magic.

Getty Images

As the inert figure on the floor crumbles to dust, accompanied by evocative music, the camera again pans to the reactions of the children and their parents. The expressions of shock have given way now to something much deeper, the sadness of realizing what cannot be undone. With The Maestro’s death, the fun and magic are gone. Within the scope of a few seconds, his remains have crumpled to a heap of dust. A few seconds more, and what is left of him has vanished completely. The villagers stare in heartbreak at the empty spot on the floor, only now — in this moment — realizing the enormity of their actions as well as their loss. The old adage of “Be careful what you wish for” seems appropriate. It is only when The Maestro has turned to dust and vanished that the people realize how much he had meant to them.

The death of “The Maestro” occurs at the 29:00 mark:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2scdw8

When Jackson died in 2009, many pinpointed this scene as prophetic of the public reaction. Collectively, we mourned the loss of a misunderstood genius and icon, and even those who may have had their doubts about his guilt or innocence regarding the crimes he had been accused of seemed willing to forgive and forget. At the very worst, they conceded, Jackson had never been convicted of any crime, nothing had ever been definitively proven, no inculpatory evidence had ever been presented, and certainly there was more than enough justifiable evidence that the two families who had accused him had more than substantial credibility issues and questionable motives. In other words, it seemed only fair at this point to at least give benefit of the doubt, to let the man rest in peace, and to simply celebrate his life and music.

But ten years later, and we have arrived back to that same crossroads. Figuratively, it would seem that Jackson’s corpse has again been laid at our feet while many ponder what to make of his legacy in the wake of Leaving Neverland. Already, many radio stations in New Zealand and Canada have pulled his music, while clothing lines such as H&M have pulled their Jackson merchandise and even a classic episode of The Simpsons featuring Jackson’s voice has been pulled from rotation. While the backlash has not been nearly as severe as that which resulted from Surviving R. Kelley, it doesn’t erase the problematic question of whether “Cancel Culture” should be targeting Michael Jackson at all. I state this given both the credibility issues of Leaving Neverland as well as the inherent flaws with so called “Cancel” and “Outrage” culture as a whole. It seems right now that few in the mainstream media are willing to raise those questions; fewer still are willing to address the correct questions we should be asking. It has now been three weeks since the film premiered on HBO (to a rather dismal 1. 26 million views and only about 9K on its second night), yet “think pieces” on the film continue to be generated on an almost daily basis, with everyone from The Wall Street Journal, to The Washington Post, to Billboard Magazine weighing in on whether “the art should be separated from the artist” (if we neatly summed up all of them into one convenient paraphrase).

By the sheer volume of such headlines, we get our first clue of why the media is willing to have it both ways, or as the old adage goes, why they long to have their cake and eat it, too. By their own admissions, the authors of these think pieces already are well aware of the impossibility of “muting” Michael Jackson. To “mute” or to “cancel” means to make that person’s name irrelevant; to erase him or her and all their accomplishments from history. For obvious reasons, we can’t just eradicate a 45-year legacy that not only changed the face of popular music but also broke down the racial barriers of popular music. But for the media, the idea of “muting” Michael Jackson is also problematic because his is a name that continues to generate enormous revenue in terms of headlines and click bait. At long last, the media seems to have the cottage industry of Jackson-generated headlines that they were denied back in 2005 when Jackson was acquitted on all charges. Obviously, his is a name that will not be muted anytime soon, certainly not from the very media outlets that thrive on the revenue his name generates.

But the bigger problem is that all of these articles are basing their premise on an assumption of guilt that has still not been proven. Leaving Neverland is a highly flawed, one sided documentary that offers only the testimony of two individuals and their families. It does not offer(as some have erroneously claimed) “new evidence.” It offers, at best, the credibility of two men who have already perjured themselves in court and whose numerous evolving stories continue to raise suspicion.

Second, we have to take a step back and look at the bigger picture of what is really happening here. Despite almost two months of hype, when the film finally premiered in the U.S. it was thoroughly trounced by a sub par episode of The Walking Dead and a re-run of Real Housewives. The Oprah Winfrey follow-up special, After Neverland, fared even more poorly at about 900k viewers (in other words, it didn’t even crack 1 million). Later that week in the U.K. (and despite an aggressive smear campaign launched by the British tabloids) the film debuted on Channel 4 to a measly 2 million viewership-and this is being generous with both nights combined. Throughout the Western world, the pattern has been repeated in country after country. In Italy, the numbers were an even more dismal 439.000 viewers, or roughly about 2% of the nation’s viewership . In France, where director Dan Reed was subjected to a particularly critical debate by channel M6, the tally came to 1.8 million on the first night, falling to 1.1 million the second night.

In Sweden, the ratings topped out at 74k. In Russia, the broadcast was cancelled completely. In Australia (Wade Robson’s own home country) it struggled, with both nights combined topping at just under 800k. Despite desperate attempts to spin these numbers as a “hit,” the overall figures have to be devastating to Kew Media who oversaw the film’s worldwide distribution. To be fair, the film still has yet to air in several markets, but the numbers have already shown a consistent pattern of disinterest across several of the major key countries — the very countries where Amos Pictures, HBO, and Kew Media Distribution were most dependent upon the public’s salacious interest in “Michael Jackson’s personal life,” according to Jonathan Ford of Kew Media. (In itself an ironic quote considering how hard Reed, Robson and Safechuck have worked to spin the “it’s not about Michael Jackson but about victims” line). What’s more, in every country where Leaving Neverland has bombed, the backlash on social media has been equally severe, and interestingly enough, it does not appear in every case to be merely the backlash of angry fans, but rather, neutral viewers who simply did not find the accusers or their stories credible. This is a far cry from what we saw on social media in the aftermath of Surviving R. Kelly, for example, where most viewers were universally on the same page in condemning Kelly’s actions after watching the film.

So clearly, given the numbers, the public has spoken. The question, then, is why this massive disconnect seems to exist between the film’s poor reception and the media’s drive to continue the saturation of its coverage? Given the dismal ratings, it is doubly clear that the “cancel Michael Jackson” movement is largely being fueled — not by the public’s outrage of what the film claims-but, rather, by the media’s insistent coverage of the film’s contents. No one is reporting that the “fake outrage” is actually being driven by a handful of service outlets who have bowed to media pressure or, in some cases, were directly contacted by members of the media. A case in point would be a story that circulated in mid February about a Michael Jackson statue to be removed from a Danish shopping mall that features celebrity wax figures. The manager of Roedovre Centrium Mall, Jesper Andreasen, did relent on this decision after a heavy backlash against the decision, stating that Jackson “has never been found guilty of any of the accusations against him.” But why had he even considered this action in the first place? According to several media outlets, Andreasen claimed to have received 15 email complaints from families concerned about the statue. But the truth was a different matter. As it turned out, Andreasen actually revealed via a private interview that it was a local news outlet who had called him about the statue, asking if it would be removed and then creating the story. It is still uncertain where the phantom “15 complaints” came from. This was one isolated incident, but an important one in revealing how the media has manipulated and, in some cases, generated the “Cancel Michael Jackson” movement. One story creates a buzz, falsely or not, and feeds into the next story. A rumor circulates in the media about a particular merchant dropping their Michael Jackson merchandise, and immediately that company’s rival merchant feels the pressure to follow suit. If one radio station is rumored to have dropped his music from their playlists (whether true or not) it creates more pressure on other programmers to do likewise. The media continues to fuel this faux outrage, pro actively contacting outlets and rushing to gleefully report any hint of a cancellation (often before it is even confirmed). The “Danish mall” story is a very typical case in point. Even now, if one googles the story, one will have to wade through at least a couple of pages of “Michael Jackson Statue Removed from Danish Mall” before, finally, uncovering a few isolated articles on about page 3 that acknowledge the retraction of that decision.

This goes back to my original premise. The disconnect between the film’s reception vs. the media embracing of it is problematic because it shows, at least on one level, that the drive to “cancel” Michael Jackson in the wake of this film is a corporate and political interest driven agenda rather than an organic outrage that has grown out of true public sentiment. It’s a movement that has been fueled, at least in part, by the film’s own symbolic ending, where Wade Robson (presumably circa 2013) heaps his most “valuable” MJ memorabilia into a symbolic funeral pyre (never mind that Robson had already sold his items of true value two years previously to Julien’s Auctions, but that is all ground I have covered in previous articles). As the camera zooms in on a sparkling glove, a memorial program and other items disintegrating in the flames, the scene emerges as a powerful symbolic statement of what the vulnerable viewer — who has already been emotionally manipulated for over four hours — should feel compelled to do, as well.

“Leaving Neverland” Feeds The Flames of Faux Outrage

In fact, the film has had exactly the opposite effect, with streams of Jackson’s music actually increasing. Most notable is the fact that it has been radio airplay, rather than streaming, that has seen more significant impact, given that radio stations and programmers are directly tied to corporate interests.

However, the bigger problematic issue is the presumption of guilt that continues to dominate media discussions of the film. Already the fallout from the film has generated a slew of similarly titled and themed stories, from The New York Times to The Washington Post, in which cultural critics are either pontificating on the future of Jackson’s legacy or whether the “art” can be viewed as “separate” from the artist. But nowhere in any of these pieces do the authors ever seem to question the actual validity of the claims made by Wade Robson and James Safechuck. Journalists and cultural critics who certainly should know better are already acting as if there has been a new trial by judge and jury, and Michael Jackson convicted.

And that is a huge problem. Before we start allowing ourselves to pontificate on Michael Jackson’s “dark side” or how we must come to terms with how we view his music and legacy, we have to start first with whether we should even believe these two men in the first place. Considering that the film presents no evidence whatsoever, and considering that the motives of Robson and Safechuck have been called into question on numerous fronts (not the least being their ongoing litigation against the Michael Jackson estate for a figure that is easily in the three digit range, if not more) and considering that even the emotionally manipulative testimony of Robson and Safechuck — which so many have apparently bought into — has lately come under even more fire, it really begs the question: Why are we taking all of this as gospel truth just because…well, just because two men sat in front of a camera and said so? If we aren’t at least willing to address that question, then there is no way we can expect to have any kind of honest and open dialogue about what Leaving Neevrland means, culturally, politically or otherwise.

The True Agenda of Leaving Neverland…More Problematic Than You Think

When I published my first piece on this film, one of the major points of critique I received was that I had to admit I hadn’t yet seen it. I still stand by the validity of my views, as one who has been well versed in the ongoing civil suit of Robson and Safechuck against the Michael Jackson estate and Michael Jackson’s companies. I certainly didn’t need a four hour soap opera of testimony from these two men to convince me. Funny, but six years’ worth of reading testimony already given in a court of law can have that effect. But anyway, I digress. I did finally have the opportunity to watch it after its initial broadcast (and, fortunately, the original 237 minute version, not the — ahem — butchered version that made it across the pond once all of the inconsistencies in the timelines of the stories had been pointed out). I cleared out an entire afternoon and settled in. At some point, I even put my notepad aside and determined that I would just take it in the same way as would any unbiased viewer. I imagined myself in the position of some of those viewers at Sundance, sitting there as a captive audience and seeing/hearing it all unfold, four hours of unfiltered testimony on the big screen, with no cross examination but lots of syrupy music, archival footage and exquisite drone shots.

Now, I will confess I am a sucker for reality drama. As such, it wasn’t hard to get swept up in the stories of these two families. After watching it, I had to admit that I felt a bit more kindly disposed towards those critics who tweeted their initial reactions during and after the Sundance premiere. I was now better able to understand and appreciate just how powerfully and emotionally manipulative the film is. I am a university instructor, and teaching both rhetoric and critical thinking is part of my job. Part of teaching argumentation is making sure that my students are aware of the differences between pathos, ethos and logos. Leaving Neverland is pure pathos as it seduces the audience into caring about these protagonists and their families. The entire initial 35–40 minutes of the film is a slow seduction, every bit as much of a grooming process as what they will later claim of Jackson’s methods. By the time Robson and Safechuck are introducing the sexual elements, the viewer has already bought into them as straight faced, credible witnesses from likable families who….well, maybe just got a little too caught up in the trappings of fame and celebrity adulation for their own good. That is both the film’s charm and, ultimately, its pitfall.

Michael Jackson, from the first time he “appears” in the film, is never humanized in the same fashion. We’re not really given glimpses of who Jackson was. Granted, this was not supposed to be “about” him as per the narrative that director Dan Reed continues to insist on. And yet, this creates a problematic void especially since we can’t escape the fact that this film has everything to do with him; hence, Robson and Safechuck would not be given this platform. Instead, Jackson is kept purposely at a distance, just slightly out of focus, by turns both a caricature and a boogey man who apparently lives for nothing but some insatiable, innate desire to groom and seduce children. One almost wonders how he would have ever had time to write and record, let alone tour, since our protagonists would have us believe he was obsessing over them every waking moment.

Or was he? You see, here is where it starts to get really complicated. This doesn’t emerge as a simplistic tale of child abuse, but rather, a very complex and dark tale of erotic child lust (yes, you heard right) and romantic infatuation with an adult figure. In graphic detail, Safechuck presents himself almost as Jackson’s seducer, while Robson portrays in graphic detail a sordid tale of being in love and having, as Reed put it, “a sexually fulfilling relationship.” Throughout the film is a disturbing thread that both boys actually enjoyed and benefitted from the relationship, and only became bitter or resentful when they started to feel they were being pushed out or replaced in Jackson’s affections. Then there is the theme of their mothers and the jaw dropping sense of entitlement they seemed to expect. At one point, Joy Robson (who had purposely made the decision to pull up stakes and move the family to America to pursue Michael Jackson) expresses disgust at being placed in a dumpy apartment and having to get a rental car to drive to the “Black or White” video shoot, all because (according to her) Wade had been supplanted by Macaulay Culkin as Jackson’s new “friend.” The outrage seems to stem less from “What is going on with my son?” and instead is all about, “How dare he replace us!”.

I am an adult survivor of both childhood sexual abuse and incest. My father abused me sexually from the time I was nine years old to fourteen, with varying periods where the abuse would stop for awhile (for example, when I reported him to the school counselor and we had to go to family therapy for a couple of years) but always would start back. I finally ended the cycle by leaving home for good. As someone who has been through that experience, I was triggered by Leaving Neverland in ways that were very disturbing, but not for the reasons one might think. I was more disturbed by the fact that something seemed very “off” about their almost clinical descriptions of the abuse. I realize that every victim’s experience is different, but for that reason, too, I found their almost comparable stories lacking in credibility. I had a hard time buying that any child would “enjoy” their sexual experience with an adult to the point they would actively initiate and even look forward to it. True childhood sexual abuse is a very traumatizing experience, and even if the physical response feels good, the emotional reasoning is very much aware that this isn’t “right” or “normal.” I remember one particular morning after my father had tried to force me to do oral sex the previous night. I was supposed to go to school that morning, but I couldn’t even get dressed because all I could do was sit on the bed, feeling nauseous and retching. I couldn’t get the memory of having my own father’s penis in my mouth out of my mind — the smell, the taste, my own gag reflex as he pushed me down upon it. There was no way I could hide my physical repulsion and act normal, as if nothing had happened. Even though I kept it a secret for a long, long time, every adult around me knew something was wrong. My mother knew it; people at school knew it. A child is simply not capable of handling that kind of trauma without giving outlet to it in some visible way.

I could see, perhaps, one of these young men being capable of successfully hiding their trauma — or even not feeling traumatized at all — but to believe that both Wade and James were able to successfully hoodwink their families all the way into adulthood (and in Robson’s case, throughout his ten year romance with Michael Jackson’s niece Brandi) boggles belief.

Barbara Streisand was roundly criticized for a controversial tweet in which she acknowledged the film as a tale of man/boy erotica rather than of sexual abuse. Although she later offered an apology, the fact remains that her initial tweet was not inaccurate. And this goes back to a key point which has been raised before, which is the similarity of the claims made in this film to a book of fictional NAMBLA propaganda originally written by Victor Guiterrez in 1997.

One of the few props I did give the film as a documentary was that, on a purely emotional level, I think it stands as a very powerful cautionary tale against the trappings of getting caught up in the chase for fame and fortune. Both the Robsons and the Safechucks experience the disintegration of their families as a result of this insatiable quest for fame and the misplaced priorities of putting celebrity worship ahead of everything else. In the Robson’s case, this included allowing Michael Jackson to supplant Wade’s own troubled father, abandoning this poor man when he probably needed his family most. Yet, try as hard as the film might to cast that blame onto the seduction of Jackson, the fact firmly stands that no one but the Robsons and Safechucks are ultimately to blame for their own family dysfunction and questionable priorities. The fact stands that Michael Jackson did not actively pursue either family. Instead, they both actively pursued him, latching onto him for the favors he could provide, taking advantage of his own vulnerabilities, and ultimately repaying him with the gift of Leaving Neverland.

The film is, ultimately, long on pathos but hampered by questionable ethos. And if we add into the mix a complete lack of logos (that is, actual evidence) we start to see just how unbalanced and one sided this damaging narrative actually is.

More Problems For An Already Troubled Narrative

A few journalists and viewers who were admittedly caught up in the film’s emotional manipulation have since reassessed their opinions in light of further research and/or additional reflection. One of those is Stereo Williams, an entertainment journalist for The Daily Beast and other publications who admitted that his first assessment of the film as “a damning final nail for the horrific allegations that have dogged Michael Jackson for the better part of 25 years” was not only wrong, but to some extent a by product of the kind of duress and “peer pressure” that many journalists have been put under in writing about this film, thanks in large part to the #MeToo movement which has made it all but impossible to question the motivations of “victim” claims (regardless of how absurd) to the point that even glaring and egregious errors in the stories of both Robson and Safechuck are being conveniently ignored.

And just in the last week, two details have been brought to the forefront, via a couple of startling revelations from Michael Jackson biographer Mike Smallcombe that have started to gain some traction in the U.K. media.

In the film, James Safechuck, who claims that his period of sexual abuse was from 1988–1992, lists a detailed account of all the locations he was presumably abused at Neverland. He explicitly refers to the train station — apparently forgetting, or failing to take into account, that the Neverland train station was not even comissioned to be built until 1993, and was completed sometime in 1994, long past the period in which he is claiming abuse.

The iconic Neverland train station did not exist in its complete form until 1994-despite claims made by Safechuck of being abused there during the time from 1988–1992.

Image courtesy of MSN.com

This has been among the first of the film’s many egregious timeline errors to finally awaken the “woke” media that Leaving Neverland may bear closer scrutiny at the very least.

Apologists for Safechuck are insisting that it’s impossible for a victim of childhood sexual abuse to clearly remember all details. That is true — to a point. However, Safechuck as an adult is very explicit and specific in pinpointing the train station in the film, referring to a room “above” the train station which the film then shows. It is clearly the iconic Neverland main train station that is being referred to. Again, to draw on my own experience, I was nine years old when I was first molested. I remember very specifically where I was, what room we were in, where my father sat (in his favorite green recliner, while I was coloring with crayons on the floor). I have never once in my life had to think back, struggling to recall…I think I was in the living room of our house…no, wait a minute, it was my room…no, wait, I think we might have been in the car…” You don’t forget those kinds of details. You don’t confuse them with other memories. It doesn’t become “a blur” in your mind. You remember, because that’s what trauma does. It imprints itself forever.

My little sisters and me (center) in our living room where my abuse first took place. The green recliner (behind us) was the scene of the first incident of abuse. I don’t have to second guess these things. They are cemented in memory.

The second revelation involves a pivotal claim Robson makes in the film about a trip his family took to The Grand Canyon in 1990, leaving him alone at Neverland with Jackson for five days. Robson claims that this was when the first incident of abuse took place. But according to Joy Robson’s 1993/1994 deposition, Wade actually accompanied his family on that trip. It gets better. Allegedly, when Wade Robson was drafting his tell-all book on his abuse (the one no publishers were interested in and which is never mentioned in Leaving Neverland since it became such a point of contention in his lawsuit) he apparently couldn’t remember any details about his own abuse, and so was regularly emailing his mother for details. Joy Robson was busy writing her own book at the time. In this email exchange from 2012, which was entered as an exhibit during the course of Robson’s litigation against Michael Jackson’s estate, Robson and his mother can clearly be seen hashing out various details of his story.

Taken alone, these details may not say much but when added to an already growing list of problematic holes in this narrative, they certainly can’t be discounted, either.

All of which brings me back to my original premise. Before we are so quick to condemn Michael Jackson and to proclaim him guilty, we had first better be taking a long and hard look at what we’re basing that presumption on. To all those headlines proclaiming these allegations as truth, and to all those journalists who want to navel gaze over philosophical questions of whether we should accept perfect art from imperfect, flawed human beings, let’s not forget the most important question we should be asking ourselves before even considering that possibility: Is it any of it even true? And if Leaving Neverland offers no new evidence, why are we now dispensing all benefit of the doubt just because…just because two men with questionable motives and conflicting stories have said it’s true?

Back in 1996, Jackson used the power of film to convey the prophetic message of his own “cancellation.” Although his death in the film lasts all of a few minutes before he is miraculously resurrected, those few moments are enough to show us what a world without “The Maestro” is like — a cold, empty place devoid of fun and magic. The people of Normal Valley had, in essence, vanquished his existence due to their belief in the lies they have been fed, and only realize the error of their hasty judgment when his symbolically slain corpse lays at their feet.

We lost Michael Jackson physically ten years ago this June. But in spirit he has been very much like the resurrected version of himself that springs back to life in Ghosts — continuing to loom, larger than life, as irrepressible and invincible as ever. His songs continue to inspire, pushing us onto the dance floor but, more importantly, bringing us together in times of crisis. He remains a lightning rod of controversy and contradictions — one who, by turns, equally repels, fascinates, and inspires. That there are so many even questioning the cultural void we would create by his “cancellation” speaks both of its futility and, ultimately, its impossibility.

But for those of us not so quick to bend to the pressure of “group think” the issue of even condemning Michael Jackson at all, based on nothing more substantial than a one sided documentary, remains itself a quagmire. While headlines proclaim Jackson a “monster” without even benefit of the word “alleged,” all while his “victims” receive standing ovations, photo shoots in“Billboard” magazine and the world’s proverbial red carpet, no one, it seems, wants to address the problematic white elephant that is looming large:

What if it’s all a lie? What then?