The social experiment of Leaving Neverland
Opinion Richard Swainson
Ihave yet to watch Leaving Neverland. Sitting through a documentary on child molestation doesn’t sound like the most enjoyable employment of four hours of my life.
In someways it’s more interesting to observe the show’s impact without having watched.
It’s like a big social experiment, an examination of human psychology, pop culture and the political zeitgeist all rolled into one.
In the matter of Michael Jackson’s guilt or innocence, I’ve long harboured definite views.
Suspicions that the singular gloved one was exactly what he appeared to be – deeply disturbed, with a predatory interest in minors – were confirmed in the absolute when I came across an article on the mountain of pornographic material police found in 2003 when raiding his Neverland bedroom.
Nothing illegal exactly, just peculiarly focused.
One or two art books might be explained away, a vast library of sexualised youngsters, not so much.
Essentially, Jackson was a monster, hiding in plain sight.
When Jackson was alive the collective capacity to overlook his abhorrent predilections bordered on the astonishing.
Astonishing, but not unprecedented.
Jimmy Saville was Jackson on an even grander scale. Untold Catholic clerics could be thought of in a similar light.
Exploiters of the innocent, hypocrites mouthing pious platitudes and sentimental cliches while indulging in practices embodying the exact opposite.
Whether the power comes from pulpit or stage the pattern is the same: grooming, abuse, cover-up, silence. With Jackson long dead and evidence of his crimes available and spelt out in horrifying detail, this mass denial persists.
Millions continue to keep the faith. They too refuse to watch Leaving Neverland, though in their case it is the blinkered behaviour of the ostrich and the sand.
Anything that cannot be explained away must be ignored outright.
That pristine image of ‘‘The King of Pop’’ is preserved at all costs.
Facts, logic and the prevailing consensus count for nothing. Just prior to the screening of the documentary I had a conversation with a Jackson apologist.
A learned man, he had earlier impressed with his knowledge of film and popular music.
Clearly, he was a long-time, dedicated fan of the singer, emotionally invested in Jackson material.
Quoting detail from the various trials and allegations that plagued Jacko in life, he made a case for respecting the judgment of the court.
Jackson had been investigated exhaustively then exonerated.
To revisit the allegations was not merely redundant, it was in poor taste. A form of bullying even.
Such touching faith in the American legal system rather ignores untold examples of miscarriages of justice, not to mention the realities of pay offs and the social pressures involved in trying a living legend.
If Jackson was innocent he was innocent in the same sense as OJ Simpson: a symbolic gesture, at odds with the evidence, to counter centuries of prejudice and injustice visited upon African-americans.
Just as fascinating as the mass denial of the faithful is the drive by many others to obliterate Jackson’s music and memory from the culture overnight.
With all the dedication of a Stalinist retouching old photographs of Trotsky, New Zealand radio stations have ceased playing the seminal sounds of a generation.
The hits of the Jackson Five, of Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad will no longer be heard on our airwaves.
Elsewhere, the producers of The Simpsons will remove an old episode that featured Jackson as a character in which his voice fleetingly cameos.
Even in a society that prides itself on cultural amnesia such efforts will likely prove fruitless.
I’m inclined to see them as objectionable, too.
If Jackson is on the no-play list, what about the huge library of music produced by Phil Spector, a convicted murderer?
Can we no longer listen to Be My Baby or My Sweet Lord?
And what of the output of Brian Jones, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and James Brown, all of whom beat women?
What of the seminal rock ‘n’ roll of Jerry Lee Lewis or Chuck Berry? The former married a 13-year-old, the latter set up cameras in toilets to record people defecating.
Whatever the crime, let’s distinguish between art and artist.
Richard Swainson is Stuff columnist based in Waikato.