AIBU to be shocked by public celebration of Michael Jackson?

[2021x]

Now the MJ film is out my social media feed is flooded with people doing the dances and talking about the movie etc. My local cinema is holding special events and screenings.

I personally have no doubt that he was a predatory paedophile. All the signs are there, especially how he talks about how he would never hurt a child and sharing a bed with them is the "most loving thing you can do in the world". He manipulated the world into thinking he had a "child-like persona" but was able to manage a music career worth millions... which someone who is naive would never be able to manage.

I also do not judge people who enjoy his music. It was very popular at the time, and would be associated with all types nostaligic memories. I listen to problematic artists all the time, but I don't pretend that they weren't abusive.

AIBU to be astounded that any business/media outlet would be seen dead even associating with him let alone celebrating such a horrifically abusive man.

I think using the example of Amy Winehouse's addiction issues to make your point on a thread about male predators is somewhat jarring. Referring to her 'an abusive alcoholic' is also reductive, to say the least.

I know you'll probably say that you were making a point about separating the art and the artist, but like I say, it jarred with me. AW doesn't belong on this thread.

Indeed. People will tell themselves absolutely anything to place the blame everywhere else but on the men - and it nearly always is men - who are actually responsible. And Jackson does bear responsiblity in this regard: the only ambiguity is to what extent. He is on record as stating that he shared a bed with 12-year-old boys. There are no circumstances - a big, fat none - in which such behaviour is not extremely harmful.

And the kind of defences seen upthread are why we have a culture of silence surrounding SA. It's why victims are afraid to come forward - check out the amount of victim-blaming and the blaming of the victims' parents for 'allowing' it to happen.

Also, even where there is evidence the goalposts shift to accommodate it. Recollect Mel Gibson and Oksana Grigorieva. She was lying. Absolutely, definitely, 100%. Then came an actual recording of his abusive behaviour - the voice on the tapes was unambiguously his - and when his culpability could no longer be denied, it must have been her fault. She 'drove' him to drink. (He'd been a raging addict for decades before). She was a 'gold digger'. When the abuse could no longer be denied, the focus shifted instead to 'she was asking for it'.

Society is more comfortable with the narrative that victims (usually women and children) lie, than that far too many men are abusers. Or, if they weren't lying, it really wasn't as bad as they said, and even if it was, they deserved it. Male predilections are protected at all costs. We'll get no further toward solving this kind of social malady until these attitudes somehow shift. And even on a site with an overwhelmingly female demographic, there are sadly no signs that this is even close to happening.

When I see these people falling over themselves to protect men like this, I ask myself 'who stands to gain through keeping the status quo exactly as it is?' Hint: it isn't women. And it certainly isn't children.

Alcohol and drugs don't excuse abusive behaviour.

Agree! He had a number of very very close friends!! Bill Bray, Quincy Jones, Brooke Shields (for quite a time), Lionel Richie, Chris Tucker, Macaulay Culkin, Diana Ross, Elizabeth Taylor, Princess Diana etc etc. and these are just the ones that were public.

It's so sad isn't it? You're so right that this exact behaviour is what stops SA victims speaking up. By the time something happens to us we've heard a million different reasons why a victim wouldn't be believed or how it may have been their fault and apply it to ourselves 💔

Some of these people (Taylor, Di etc) were suckers for a sob story and a victim

Culkin was a child

Shields would have felt sorry for him

The musicians would have had a musical connection with him of course, no one is denying he is a musical genius and they would have had a shared interest

But this is not someone who would have had reciprocal emotionally mature relationships with other adults as equals.

What advice about your love life or day to day decisions or chats about the world would he have had, apart from simplistic obtuse perceptions of things. Would have wrapped it up to make it all about him. Would have been completely self absorbed as a 'friend'.

It’s really sad, My husband has had to block half of his family because they are openly supporting an uncle who has been found guilty of SA his own daughter.. There reasoning is horrendous, lots of “She should have said something at the time” sort of crap, She was 5 at the time.. Stupid fuckers.

That's horrific, I'm sorry your family is going through that and I think your family member is so brave to have come forward and your DH is a good egg by standing by her 🩷 I think sometimes they just don't want to accept it and it's easier to say such awful things than accept that their Uncle isn't who they thought he was. Similarly I think sometimes when people say these things about celebrity cases it's a way to distance themselves from it, well that child got abused because they did X sort of thing as though they can protect themselves that way but as PP says it's just benefits abusive men.

And there's no doubt in my mind that he wasn't a paedophile. So does that cancel out your surety?

The families took money. Everything you need to know.

Agree. As has macaulay culkin. He was very troubled from his childhood trauma. I personally think he was actually aesexual.

It's very easy to look at someone "weird" and come to the conclusion they're a predator.

Telling children if they love you they will sleep in a bed with you is categorically abusive whether anything sexual happens or not.

I'm sorry, when did he say this?

Sorry it's been so long I couldn't tell you the name but one his victims said this about sleeping in MJs bed. I also remember seeing MJ say his children often slept in bed with others and he saw no problem with it. He was always spreading this idea that only people with 'sick minds' would see a problem with random men sleeping in bed with unrelated children as though it isn't an obvious safeguarding issue and almost always abusive in some way as a child can't really feel comfortable to say no.

I believe he sexually abused them but if he was asexual I think he still treated the relationships with the boys as 'romantic' relationships 🤮 like they were his little boyfriends. It's almost as bad.

I don't come to the conclusion that he's a predator because he's 'weird'. I come to that conclusion because he had obsessive relationships with little boys, had them sleeping with his bed and would then replace them with younger models.

Its in the Bashir documentary, cant remember the name of the child but he says it right there, Micheal kept going on and on.

All of this is correct, except he wasnt asexual because he had tons of porn, some of it was not young children exactly but teens. Its in one of the documentaries, I cant remember which one

Gavin Arvizo said it in the Martin Bashir documentary. Michael did say he slept on the floor though in that interview.

It really easy to think that when they share their bed with children and abuse them.

Hmm

Yeah, he did have porn.

Just making the point because asexual women or men will often still be heterosexual, or there can be asexual gay people, so despite 'asexuality' people can still have a group they're interested in relationships in, so I'm sure it would follow that there can also be asexual people who are exclusively interested in children also, so he was still having relationships with these little boys, it's not really any better. Just trying to get people to see that it was inappropriate regardless even if they don't believe there was sexual abuse.

He was charged but a jury found him not guilty. (A US jury also found OJ Simpson not guilty). There was a lot of evidence, including two children's detailed accusations , one could describe Jackson genitals in detail. Watch the recent BBC 3 part documentary. It's pretty haunting.

I can’t separate the art from the artist in this case. It’s the same as the sick bastard from Lost Prophets. I would never listen to one of their tracks again and I have to turn the radio over every time a MJ track comes on. I have no idea why so many people support him.

I hate the argument that because some boys claim they weren’t abused, MJ cannot possibly be a pedophile. He was, sadly, smart enough to realise that he’d have plausible deniability if he left some kids, and definitely the more high profile child stars, alone.

I’ve never said it did.

Oh yeah I remember that. He did say he slept on the floor that time though. He also said he never invited the kids to his room. Whether that's true or not though who knows.

I read about certain pedophiles before who believe that 'loving' a child is just the most beautiful thing and natural thing and so it should be legalised and the ones who have an issue with it are the ones with the sick minds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophile_advocacy_groups

Now whether they actually believe this or just say they do is a different story but I guess what differentiates some of them from other child abusers in that some want a full relationship with the child/children, which is not how people tend to think of pedophiles, instead they think of them as people who just sexually abuse them, most often with some grooming, but they're not living their lives as if they're in a full relationship together. Or they might think in terms of say Josef Fritzl and see how abusers can keep a child locked up as a sex slave, but maybe they just don't understand that there are some who would claim it's all just love and rainbows and that these relationships are beautiful and natural 🤮🤮

From that link, from the literature of one of the groups they say '"The 'protectors' of children are the real perverts, the real child abusers, the real molesters who take advantage of innocence and inexperience to spread the venom of guilt and fear.'