Michael Jackson is "evil"

LL otm about his dancing. i still love watching choreo rehearsal footage of MJ. like, there’s hours of Dangerous tour rehearsal but thats more saddo territory lol

i like this Thriller one - https://youtu.be/3Y9jwxE0TJA

born in 83. i was just getting into music right at the moment when MJ and Prince had become kinda outdated -- hip hop totally twisted the world upside-down. vanilla ice & mc hammer, and i remember reading a kris kross interview or something i think where they mentioned liking michael jackson?? but then really the chronic, and finally doggystyle ... snoop dogg was my michael jackson at age ten. MJ and Prince felt like they were from another era, he seemed weird and creepy, and the new or recent music never lived up to the reputation. there was a whole aesthetic shift at that moment. i did like one prince song ('lovesign') but it almost felt like prince doing G Funk! ALso I should mention aside from "Cream" by wu tang which spoke to me as a kid somehow lol I really associated this shift with west coast rap and derivatives like da brat, new york rap got hot again for me as a teenager more, and in the late 90s

obviously loved mj & prince when i got into them as a 'music nerd' in my late teens & of course there were certain songs (thriller) (human nature cuz of the nas sample, lol) that I knew already as part of the ambiance but yeah there was a definite generational shift at one specific moment

oh and i DEFINITELY learned the "whats the difference between neil armstrong and michael jackson? Neil Armstrong WALKED on the moon ... and Michael jackson [child rape joke]" on the playground in like, elementary school. there was always some 'question' about it ... but it was more an aura around it

i actually do kind of remember the Pledge of Allegiance thing that Whiney mentioned

people really love that fucking forbes article

https://t.co/GJ2j7TlEsK An informed and well argued piece about the huge absence of context in the new doc on Jackson.

— Nelson George (@nelsongeorge) January 29, 2019

questlove too

its interesting that it's all posed in the language of "real journalism" like ppl want to rely on Authoritativeness to bolster their intuited feelings about the situation So Bad

This forbes piece on on #MichaelJackson should be read. That’s all. https://t.co/fTOrmCOKOu

— Questlove (In E flat) (@questlove) January 30, 2019

Disclaimer: this article is not intended as a review of Leaving Neverland, which I have not seen,

okay

huh. i wasn't really aware of the details regarding these new witnesses.

i don't know. there as something profoundly inappropriate with his relationship with children and occam's razor says he it was what it looked like. but if he was actually some extremely gentle and naive person who everyone thought was a monster than that is really, really sad.

There is no non-sad interpretation possible

very true

Nelson George goin after Kamala Harris and defending MJ in the space of a week, cool agenda he’s got there

Don't find the Forbes piece particularly convincing. Wade Robson changed his story and Michael Jackson was kind and generous towards some children is all it says. Those two things are hardly inconsistent with MJ being a molester.

thread is a handy reminder that middle-agedness isn't quite the flattener it seems. i'm in my mid 40s and five years either way doesn't seem like a big deal now . . . except for enormous things like 'your age when you encountered hip-hop'

Wade Robson changed his story

This is a very strained reading of the forbes article.

Is it? The article says he testified in court that nothing sexual had happened between him and MJ, and then later said it did.

ok, I'm not sure which side you're on, but this stuff from the forbes article:

In 2011, Robson approached John Branca, co-executor of the Michael Jackson Estate, about directing the new Michael Jackson/Cirque du Soleil production, ONE. Robson admitted he wanted the job “badly,” but the Estate ultimately chose someone else for the position.

In 2012, Robson had a nervous breakdown, triggered, he said, by an obsessive quest for success. His career, in his own words, began to “crumble.”

That same year, with Robson’s career, finances, and marriage in peril, he began shopping a book that claimed he was sexually abused by Michael Jackson. No publisher picked it up.

In 2013, Robson filed a $1.5 billion dollar civil lawsuit/creditor’s claim, along with James Safechuck, who also spent time with Jackson in the late ‘80s. Safechuck claimed he only realized he may have been abused when Robson filed his lawsuit. That lawsuit was dismissed by a probate court in 2017.

In 2019, the Sundance Film Festival premiered a documentary based entirely on Robson and Safechuck's allegations. While the documentary is obviously emotionally disturbing given the content, it presents no new evidence or witnesses. The film's director, Dan Reed, acknowledged not wanting to interview other key figures because it might complicate or compromise the story he wanted to tell.

say there's more investigation into Robson's charges needed before we conclude that MJ definitely molested them.

The above is evidence of nothing. It's implied there that as Robson's life and finances were falling apart, he eyed up a sexual abuse accusation as his next paycheck. Just as likely (and I'd say a whole lot more likely) is that his initial denial was about Stockholm syndrome, about confusion about what happened, about a desire to be associated with MJ's fame and glamour and to parlay that into a career in the entertainment industry etc. And when all that waned, he went public.

True enough, but the "reasonable doubt" factor (in the court of ILX) comes into play. I haven't seen the movie either, but I will watch it when it's on HBO.

Max Wall invented the moonwalk, as any fule kno.

To this day I remain haunted by his enunciation @ 0:29:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyPbeFDS-y0

rivelinho iirc

Put your hand flat on a surface and touch your pinky to your thumb. Do you see a raised band in your wrist? That there’s a vestigial muscle called the palmaris longus. It used to help you move around the trees. About 14% of us don't even have this muscle anymore. (2/8) pic.twitter.com/ZF3Ta91IGy

— Dorsa Amir (@DorsaAmir) January 15, 2019

To this day I remain haunted by his enunciation @ 0:29:

jfc are all the people commenting on that video suggesting that jackson was just too pure or naïve to realize that sleeping in the same bed w/ a young boy would have "sexual connotations" to most people, aware that when he died they found mountains of pornography in his home, including some that essentially represented or simulated man/boy sex? (he also had heterosexual pornography and "adult" male pornography fwiw.)

there's really nothing exculpatory that holds up.

as for the supposed unreliability of the witnesses, i mean, sure, we'll never be 100% certain. but the fact that the motives of one of the witnesses may not have been entirely pure is... not really surprising at all? or damning? anyway, his account would hold less water if it weren't congruent with those of several other boys.

people really want to think MJ was innocent. i guess i kind of understand why and yet, ... why?

following is presented on not the firmest footing, being that its coming from a white guy awash in privilege, but offered in good faith…

Why do Nelson George, Questlove and other african americans stand up for MJ year after year, when it is self evident that he did everything he possibly could, using his vast resources, to eliminate his physical connection to the african american community? over and over again over at least 25 years, he tried to resemble a confluence of Joan Collins and a white boy, ostensibly because his father made fund of his nose when he was a kid, among other hideous depredations? It seems to me that his mental illness/working through childhood trauma should not excuse what appears to be a visceral insult.

similar to a post upthread, when he says "why can't you share your bed?" it has stayed with me…chilling…1:14:24…the whole thing is mesmerizing…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z34BKlCr9o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9e_EmoB83Y

can't find unedited clip of Katt Williams talking about MJ onstage, but this is the audio…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZKTfaYwmFY&t=269s

was listening to the Breakfast Club this morning and yeah w/that and Questlove the official hip hop position is that this documentary is irresponsible and they should have never made it, Charlamagne the God was going but Angela Yee and Envy were agreeing w/him

Race is not about appearance, vm

Xp

I hear you…it is super presumptuous of me to ask such a question…

i think people recognize he was obviously suffering from body dysmorphia and it felt cruel to lay into him over that

It's not just that though, it's also that the black community tends to bristle (rightly so) at being told by white people who gets to be considered black.

I think the broader point with the hip hop community though is that it is really really rare for the black community to outright reject a previously successful one of their own for transgressions that make their way into the spotlight of white, mainstream media. Really the only instance I can think of is Cosby, and that was really recent and sort of unprecedented. Maybe I'm forgetting other examples, but I can think of lots of high profile examples where the "circle the wagons" mentality has prevailed. The black community tends to give a loooot of leeway and room for forgiveness, for obvious historical reasons that I hope I don't have to go into.

Is this the thread where white people opine about the thoughts of the black community's opinions on body dysmorphia. Just wanna pop in and say hi

"the black community"

I wasn’t speaking for anyone in particular. But if i were to guess why anyone at all would be hesitant to condemn jackson for the plastic surgery stuff, i’d say it had to do with feeling bad for him

yes WGW yes it is

had never seen this non-video video for ""Liberian Girl;" it's a sort of late 80's rosetta stone

Three dozen actors, musicians and celebrities can be seen in the short film, including Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Paula Abdul, Whoopi Goldberg, Bad producer Quincy Jones, John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John (making their first on-screen appearance together since 1978's Grease), Steven Spielberg, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Suzanne Somers, Lou Ferrigno, Don King, illusionist David Copperfield, Richard Dreyfuss, Danny Glover and Dan Aykroyd. During the video, a mysterious person wearing bandages can be spotted; in the short film's end credits, he is credited simply as "?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3V-7DEAgdc

John Travolta, Jackie Collins, Lou Diamond Phillips, Billy Dee, Rosanna Arquette...

birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon, back again

...Pepsi didn't start the fire...

eg from Skase to Pell

hey I got this one in under the wire

and in other "kept going to court very late in wheelchairs and oxygen tanks in order to somehow prove they couldn't be child molesters" news, Dragoncon founder Ed Kramer lasted two months out of his 5-year house arrest before getting caught photographing a child in a doctor's office

the first part of this is on channel4 next wednesday.

I was just reading this:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/mar/01/leaving-neverland-is-it-still-ok-to-listen-to-michael-jackson

I have never really associated Jackson with his music. I was born in 1989, and grew up in a pop landscape where he was decreasingly visible. His songs remained totemic, but so much so that it rarely occurred to me that they had been made by humans, the same way that I never wondered who designed the McDonald’s logo, or what’s really in a can of Coke.

Lol this is totally off to me surely most kids wonder what is in a can of Coke (apart from mountains of sugar).

Whaaaaat? No. Most kids are definitely not thinking about the ingredients of Coke. In your teens, you might be like "why does mtn dew have something called yellow #5 in it?" if you are an observant and reflective person.

Yeah, a very musically aware millennial friend of mine, after Jackson's death, posted saying "Oh wow, I've been listening to MJ's work, and I know you all said that he invented Pop, but I didn't realise that he you meant that he actually invented Pop"

ah ok I remember a period where I was thinking about the formula of coke. Guess I somehow heard that it wasn't something you could look up + it tasted different to Pepsi. Snapes saying she didn't wonder maybe me think it was a thing to perhaps wonder about it. xp

OK, maybe something like that would pique my interest if I had heard it, but I don't think I'd ever thought about it as a kid myself.