Michael and Donald
Stop the hagiography.
Perhaps you can forgive me for living in a closet built in 1997, but I literally just learned that there’s a Michael Jackson biopic out. Currently, it’s challenging Melania for biggest difference in audience and critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. The scary thing is that even the critics managed a 38% approval rating – about the same as Donald Trump’s approval rating of late. Meanwhile, a fawning audience has given Michael a 97% on the review aggregator (not quite as high as Melania’s 99%, despite its 10% critics score).
All of this is seriously pathetic – really. I imagine that the 97% of people who approve of the Michael Jackson film, which, it seems is a hagiographic portrayal that makes Jackson out to be a sensitive, generous, kind soul – never mentioning his child molestation, his drug abuse, his hanging his own child over a balcony, his greed, or his ever-erratic behavior – have pretty much no overlap with the Melania crowd that somehow sees something positive in her, despite a lifetime of doing nothing for anyone but herself.
Yet all of it – including the 39% of Americans who are still supporting Trump despite every moral and logical reason not to – says something about us as a nation, and it isn’t good.
But let’s start with Michael the Molester.
Personally, I always felt that Michael Jackson was hugely overrated. His songs, to me, sound very similar for the most part, and he wasn’t a writer – which, forgive me, is where I believe the real talent lies. He could sing decently and he was an excellent dancer.
But I don’t real give a shit about that, to be honest.
I think Billy Joel is the greatest musical talent the world has ever seen. But if he was a child molester, like Michael Jackson, I’d never listen to his music again. If he supported Trump, even, I’d quickly say he could go fuck himself.
Truly, I don’t understand why this is hard. I myself won’t watch a movie that includes people I find morally repugnant. No more Sly Stallone for me, no more John Voight; but also no more John C. Reilly, who made a film with Roman Polanski, who, in case you forgot, is a child rapist. Same goes for Jodie Foster, Adrian Brody, and any other worthless asshole who makes a film with Polanski. I used to like Walter Mathau, then I found out he can be included in that class.
Bye-bye, Walter.
So why someone would want to pay money to see a movie honoring Michael Jackson, I truly have no idea.
If you’re one of those people, by the way, still denying that Jackson was a child molester, let’s look at some of the evidence:
1. Jackson has been accused by multiple people at this point, as outlined in this Rolling Stone article. The allegations date back to 1993, when Jackson paid one victim’s family $20 million to shut them up, which, I’m sorry, you don’t do if you’re innocent. If you’re innocent, you fight that charge to the death.
2. Jackson later paid out millions more to more victims. Due to a change in California law, some victims have just recently earned the right to sue, and they’re doing so, going after Jackson’s estate.
3. Jackson was constantly looking to befriend boys and have them over to his Neverland ranch, behavior that fits with a child molester.
4. He admitted to sleeping in the same beds as these boys, and tickling them.
5. He called these boys “rubbers.”
6. He had a secret room attached to the bedroom where he would take these boys.
Let’s just say there’s an awful lot of there there.
Curious how the film dealt with all this, I found out from the Rolling Stone article that it didn’t. But here’s the interesting thing: it wasn’t because the director, Antoine Fuqua, whom I’ll simply call Dumb Fuq, didn’t want to. In fact, Dumb Fuq had originally started and ended the film with the allegations. But here’s the kicker: it was intended as a way of showing how innocent and abused Jackson was.
You read that right. Not how Jackson abused innocent victims, but how he himself was innocent and abused because he was, Dumb Fuq believes, likely being shaken down for money, and because the cops made him strip naked at one point to see if one victim’s description of his penis matched.
Ultimately, all of this was left out of the hagiographic biopic, not because it was in extremely poor taste to portray Jackson as the victim, but because this putz Dumb Fuq seems to have been the only one not aware that Jackson had a settlement with the first victim’s family that prohibited him or his estate from attacking them. They had to delay the release of the biopic and refilm parts because of this monstrous fuck-up. So they end the film in the 1980s, before the allegations occur. It’s like having a film about Hitler and only concentrating on his paintings.
Just brilliant.
It disappoints me, by the way, to have learned that Colman Domingo is in this film, since I think he’s a terrific actor. But one now who should be completely fucking ashamed of himself for being part of this travesty.
Liberals really have to stop doing this. Someone shouldn’t get a pass on all their wrongdoing simply because it’s someone you like. Then you’re doing no different than the Trumpers, who give Dirty Donald a pass because, as they see it, he represents their team.
Donald Trump is disgusting and Michael Jackson was disgusting. The sad thing is, it feels like only 10% of the country would agree with both of those statements, even though it should be about 98% and the other 2% should just be fucking crazy.
Yet people’s loyalty and identity often blind them to logic and morality.
A recent example:
You may have noticed from this article and about a thousand others, that I’m not too fond of Donald Trump. Yet, watching the clip of Nora O’Donnell interview him about the recent shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner, I left with a different impression, I bet, than many liberals had. I’m sure a lot of liberals were toasting O’Donnell for her confronting Trump with the shooter, Cole Allen’s, manifesto (around 7:30), and reading the accusations Allen made within it, along with his criticisms of the Secret Service. Now, Trump being Trump, he was typically nasty in his response, rather than being able to handle such questions with class and aplomb as other presidents would have.
But still…
What kind of fucking journalism is that?
To begin with, why the hell would you want to reward a potential mass murderer by reading his manifesto on air in front of millions? Even Trump said, “You shouldn’t be reading that…,” and – ready yourself – he’s actually right. Don’t read a criminal’s manifesto – that encourages more attacks from loons.
And, furthermore, who the fuck cares what Cole Allen said?
If you want to confront Trump about his failure to live up to his promise to release all of the Epstein files or everything else in his ultra-shitty presidency, don’t use Allen’s manifesto or his supposed “observations” as a screen; just ask Trump directly.
What O’Donnell did, is, to me, journalistic malpractice. Yet many liberals – my group – won’t see it because they’re blinded by Trump’s garbage heap.
Just like fans of Michael Jackson won’t see who he really was because they like his music or his dancing or whatever else they see.
Reality shouldn’t be optional. If, as liberals, we want to hold Trump and all his sycophants to account, we shouldn’t be hypocritical and ignore the crimes of Michael Jackson, Roman Polanski, Elvis, or anyone else. We shouldn’t be Dumb Fuqs.
Throw out those Michael Jackson records and move on.