Why hasn’t Michael Jackson been cancelled??

Google is your friend, don’t be afraid of it.

So give us your list of artists you’ve identified as paedophiles you feel we need to be aware of..

Let me know when you have eschewed all pedophile artists from your life completely and then come back to me. As you’re not even aware of many of them I’ll wish you the best of luck.

If you’d put up with a paedophile you’d put up with anyone right?

Questionable or paedophile?

I was 12 when Billie Jean was released. That’s the last of his singles I actually liked. After that he was just a weird, crotch-jiggling, falsetto-singing munchkin.

His songs are nothing like as good as implied - musically limited and repetitive; trite (but retrospectively disturbing) lyrics; he doesn’t play an instrument, his voice was actively annoying.

So yeah my 80s and 90s did not feature MJ.

Are these the only other questionable artists you can name? And you can’t think of any era where underage girls were routinely bedded and ‘in relationships’ with famous and charismatic men? No? You’re safe then, carry on in your little bubble.

Good grief.

Well I’m not the one who’s confused, I have never said he was convicted.

I quoted the FBI agent who investigated the Gavin Arviso case who said he may have been convicted then if Robson and Safechuck had been ready to testify at Arviso’s trial.

I hope you’re ready to deny yourself a looooot of music and films and art based on this premise, however.

I’m struggling to think of music and films made by prolific paedophiles that remains celebrated in the mainstream. I don’t read William Mayne or listen Gary Glitter, R Kelly, Ian Watkins or Rolf Harris. I’m not keen on Balthus but his interest in prepubescent girls in questionable poses may have been limited to art. I’m also struggling to think of an era when paedophilia was “commonplace”.

I was 12 when Billie Jean was released. That’s the last of his singles I actually liked. After that he was just a weird, crotch-jiggling, falsetto-singing munchkin.

His songs are nothing like as good as implied - musically limited and repetitive; trite (but retrospectively disturbing) lyrics; he doesn’t play an instrument, his voice was actively annoying.

So yeah my 80s and 90s did not feature MJ.

I can’t really speak for current young people but the only way I can articulate it myself is that MJ was the 1980s and a lot the 1990s. You can’t think of that time without him. He was everywhere and many of us born in the 1970s/80s can’t really separate our childhood memories from MJ because so many are intertwined. There really isn’t anyone else like him in that respect. r Kelly isn’t as big an act (although I still love ‘I beleive I can fly’). I hear an MJ song and I can pretty much pull a childhood memory. the Bad album was the first CD I ever saw and physically held. I can picture the room I was in and my sibling and I looking at it. So when I hear MJ songs, I’m not really thinking of the person, I’m thinking of my childhood and those memories. I don’t really think of him.

I can’t really speak for current young people but the only way I can articulate it myself is that MJ was the 1980s and a lot the 1990s. You can’t think of that time without him. He was everywhere and many of us born in the 1970s/80s can’t really separate our childhood memories from MJ because so many are intertwined. There really isn’t anyone else like him in that respect. r Kelly isn’t as big an act (although I still love ‘I beleive I can fly’). I hear an MJ song and I can pretty much pull a childhood memory. the Bad album was the first CD I ever saw and physically held. I can picture the room I was in and my sibling and I looking at it. So when I hear MJ songs, I’m not really thinking of the person, I’m thinking of my childhood and those memories. I don’t really think of him.

I can’t really speak for current young people but the only way I can articulate it myself is that MJ was the 1980s and a lot the 1990s. You can’t think of that time without him. He was everywhere and many of us born in the 1970s/80s can’t really separate our childhood memories from MJ because so many are intertwined. There really isn’t anyone else like him in that respect. r Kelly isn’t as big an act (although I still love ‘I beleive I can fly’). I hear an MJ song and I can pretty much pull a childhood memory. the Bad album was the first CD I ever saw and physically held. I can picture the room I was in and my sibling and I looking at it. So when I hear MJ songs, I’m not really thinking of the person, I’m thinking of my childhood and those memories. I don’t really think of him.

An opinion, sure. A conviction? Evidently not.

I think that’s where you’re getting confused.

Don’t listen to his music if you’re bothered. I’m sure it won’t matter one jot. I hope you’re ready to deny yourself a looooot of music and films and art based on this premise, however. To just single out one artist based on a completely unbiased and non-sensationalist media would be very hypocritical when so so many, especially from eras when these things were much more commonplace, are hardly above reproach. I wonder what you’ll be left with.

Completely disagree. Jackson is a particularly pressing issue because he represents

1. The bias that exists in ‘cancelling’. Rolf Harris went to jail and is no longer on tv - but what did he do? Do you know single person who can name crimes without googling? It wasnt repeatedly raping boy after boy I know that much. Huw Edward’s inappropriately messaged a young person, Scott Mills did something, neither did anything illegal and yet that’s it. Careers over.

Im NOT saying their behaviour is ok and all power to the employers who drew a line at predatory behaviour. But why isn’t this applied everywhere? The bar isn’t ‘illegal
actuvity’ as evidenced by Edwards and Mills. Jackson walked around holding hands with CHILDREN and slept with them in his bed. I’d say that’s easily akin with what Edward’s did.

2 - Jackson is being actively marketed and pushed onto a new audience. Someone listening to ignition by R Kelly makes no difference to anything because he is no longer played and celebrated publically. School discos, radio stations, parents, anyone anywhere playing Jackson are complicit in this collective…denial. We’re just pretending nothing happened.

Other people have done bad things. Yes. But I can’t think of anyone (in the UK, the US government is a whole different thread) for whom there are such astonishing levels of doubt, forgiveness or ‘separate art from artist’ with equally astonishing accusations. Jackson is in a class of his own and a lot of us on this thread are trying to take a stand against it. This is so much bigger than 1 man, it’s what he represents.

An opinion, sure. A conviction? Evidently not.

I think that’s where you’re getting confused.

Don’t listen to his music if you’re bothered. I’m sure it won’t matter one jot. I hope you’re ready to deny yourself a looooot of music and films and art based on this premise, however. To just single out one artist based on a completely unbiased and non-sensationalist media would be very hypocritical when so so many, especially from eras when these things were much more commonplace, are hardly above reproach. I wonder what you’ll be left with.

I'd never seen that video clip - that's awful

We are all certain that MJ slept in beds with children because he has said so.

We have read the details of the police investigation including the contents of MJ’s bedroom.

We have listened carefully of the accounts of the complainants and feel they’re authentic.

I’d say that’s a reasonable evidence base for an opinion.

As I said, you seem to be quite certain. Not sure why a police investigation and trial were needed really. Indeed, no case should go to trial - you just read about it from your armchair and let us all know your verdict.

Even from the most superficial acquaintance with the case, you’d be aware there is far far more to it than that. Multiple accusers, multiple accounts from different sources, police evidence etc.

It just takes a few people to watch a couple of Netflix documentaries apparently - then a guaranteed sex offender is made. If only they’d been on the jury, this would have all been sorted out.