Why hasn’t Michael Jackson been cancelled??

The thing is, how far do we go with cancelling people? If MJ gets cancelled and nobody listens to his music, then this should apply to numerous artists. David Bowie, members of Led Zeppelin and numerous other rock stars slept with underage girls. John Lennon most probably was violent towards women. Elvis was a creep who liked young virgins, yet these men are known as some of the greatest musicians of all time. Do you leave the dance floor when their songs are played? Roald Dahl had some controversial racist views, Charles Dickens was abusive to his wife and had teenage mistresses as a middle aged man, yet his literature is phenomenal and an important part of English literary heritage. Should we cancel their books too?

And what would feel right? In what way must SA survivors express themselves to “prove” authenticity? How do they gainsay thé preconceptions of their listeners. This is pretty dismal coming from a DV support worker as SA is a key component of DV.

It reminds me of the time a friend of mine disclosed serious sexual assault (ie rape) to her psychiatrist, only for him to gloss over it. Later when she challenged him on his response he said thought her reference to it was so matter of fact that it wasn’t a big deal.

I think him being black is very relevant. White people have been cancelled for (for example) saying we should ‘show grace’ to a young white woman who was found to have attended a plantation party when she was a teenager. The pile on was murderous and Chris Harrison merely asked if she’d been punished enough. He was kicked off his show and left without any hope of maintaining an income.

Many similar such cases.

People commenting that MJ is dead, so impossible to cancel, are being very naive. Cancellation would mean his music was never heard again, and his whole life’s work disappeared. Guilty or not guilty, he’s been given massive benefit of the doubt. He shouldn’t have been having sleepovers with kids.

I do think that paedophilia is in a different bracket to taking advantage of teen groupies who were old enough to have capacity to consent (13+) even if they hadn’t reached the age of consent.

I think that cultivating an image of childfriendliness and charitableness in order to get access to children to abuse them is particularly heinous. As is the institutional defence of paedophilia. MJ’s crimes need to be called to account is so that society can learn from them.

I’m not sure what we can learn from the fact impressionable teens have a tendency to throw themselves at rockstars. Other than promote awareness and protect our own kids. Jared Leto looks like he might be about to be cancelled on this front nonetheless. And if someone said they avoided Zep, Bowie or Elvis on that score I’d think that fair enough.

Fwiw I read Dickens but I don’t read Philip Roth. Dickens lived in a time when mistreatment of women was standard.

I find it notable that the "MJ was innocent" crowd are so quick to write-off the validity of the accusations against him - where testimony has changed over time - but fail to acknowledge that Jackson's response/defence in 1993 and 2005 also relied on testimony from those same individuals they now decry as too unreliable to be believed.

The "financial opportunist" argument does not stack up, for me. It would have been far easier for people to make claims during his lifetime, and they would have far more leverage to do so, while Jackson was alive.

If anything, this appears more the case of a prolific child sex offender who was protected by his wealth, as it allowed the prosecution to smear his accusers and the independent witnesses (the maid and security guard) as motivated by greed.

This. The next will be my love - Dave Chapelle, I fear.

I totally agree on separating the art from the artist and the world would be a duller place without that music and literature

That said, putting fingers in ears and going lalalala because you i(not you personally) idolise a personality so much is so dangerous. Its like because they are idolised and loved so much, their huge fans just can't take it in that they were monsters personally.

I asked earlier and ask again, why were alarms on the doors to his bedrooms? Why were there childrens fingerprints on porn magazines? What about the cleaner and finding bloodstained children's underpants and glasses of alcohol or Jesus Juice as he called it?

Of course we get the lazy argument about money money money, quickly glossing over everything....our wonderful Michael couldn't have done that!

None of it negates his musical legacy or any other artist either but facts are facts and not believing child victims in lieu if a pop prince is abhorrent to me.

Honestly I think it depends on what you mean by "cancel". I think a good balance would be dropping him from live broadcasts (e.g., radio playlists) but keeping his works available on-demand.

There's a difference between censoring media and celebrating it.

And for all the talk about sepearting the art from the artist - I don't think that's truly possible when the artist is a part of the art. E.g., most paintings, books, movies don't directly feature the artist themselves in the way that a singer/performer is featured in a song/video. If he were solely the songwriter it'd be more equivalent.

Its an absolutely valid point to make, and a great and interesting debate could be had about that

Its when fans just deny there was any abuse in the first place that's my issue.

Agreed, no one objects to documentaries about Hitler. But reading out his speeches and saying things like “ he was actually a very good politician you know” and called out for what they are - whitewashing and nazi sympathising.

Jackson was enormously influential in the pop music scene. You can’t erase that impact, it’s physically impossible because music that followed wouldn’t exist.

But this is far far removed from encouraging a new generation of fans via movies and playing his music publicly.

I’ve found out since I posted about this earlier in the thread that the 50% back catalogue Sony paid 750 million for 2016 was not MJ’s personal back catalogue but others that he had bought the rights to eg The Beatles. (Much to the annoyance of Paul).

MJ’s personal back catalogue was bought by Sony in.. 2024.

I figured the 2016 deal was before Leaving Neverland. But they can’t say that in 2024 they didn’t know the seriousness of allegations.

It’s so cynical.

Just to add - cancellation itself is not what this is all about, but acknowledgement of his crimes.

There needs to be a full investigation and clemency for his victims.

After that if people still want to listen to his music that’s up to them, along with Lost Prophets and Gary Glitter.

I read an AMA with a senior police officer who worked on cases of sex crimes against children, and one of the questions was did he think MJ was guilty. His answer was, that if he was guilty, then he would expect that, in his experience, that there would have been a lot more accusers.

obviously we will never know either way, but it certainly made me think.

How many sex offenders that he’s worked with were world famous?

How many of their victims were globally vilified by crazed fans as money-grabbing liars? And have had to live life off-piste?

How many victims of Epstein do we think there were vs the number who actually came forward?

Erm 🫤 we all had front row seats unfortunately as he didn’t exactly try to hide the fact that he wanted children in his bed. There have also been multiple documentaries and court cases. I don’t know that they weren’t prolific child abusers hence the bit where I said “as far as we know”. And none of them.. not even Elvis is celebrated like MJ to this day. They’re all disgusting but with MJ, people just can’t accept what was in front of their face. If they look weird and act weird. They’re usually a bit fucking weird. Jimmy Saville is another prime example of this.

How many people does it take to make a sex offender? One? Three? Fifty?

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.

I can only assume that a large portion of Jackson's defenders believe the reason that rape conviction rates are persistently low is because most accusations are false.

But surely your must agree that his actions are unacceptable, or at least by today’s standards? Sleeping in beds with teenage boys? Would you allow your child to do that? I know people argue that is parents allowed it, but were they groomed too? Maybe wowed by a megastar choosing them to socialise with?

Even if you feel that nothing sexual went in, there was definitely a lot of safeguarding red flags that wouldn’t be acceptable or tolerated today.

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.

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.

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.

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

Indeed. The king of pop never had sex with man or woman in his 30s. Alarms on his bedroom doors and choldrens bloody underpants

Nothing to see here folks....

Admittedly im biased because I never liked the creeps persona or music anyway.