MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
A new movie chronicles the rise of one of the world's most famous singers.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MICHAEL")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Ready whenever you are, Michael.
JAAFAR JACKSON: (As Michael Jackson) Woo.
(As Michael Jackson) Do you know what I'm after?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) You want to be the biggest star in the world.
MARTIN: It's called, simply, "Michael." Michael Jackson is played by his nephew, Jaafar Jackson. NPR critic Aisha Harris has seen it, and she's been revisiting Michael Jackson's complicated legacy for a special episode of our podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour. And she's with us now. Aisha, welcome. Thanks for joining us.
AISHA HARRIS, HOST:
Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: So let's just start with the movie. What did you think?
HARRIS: First, I will say that this is a jukebox musical. It's friction-free. There's not a lot of meat here. You've got all the iconography - the glove, the red jackets. And, of course, many of the hits are here from the Jackson 5 up until "Bad" - the "Bad" era, when the movie actually concludes. You know, this is also very much a family affair. His son Prince was one of the executive producers, as well as a number of Michael's siblings. And his estate is heavily involved. They were producers, including John Branca, who was Michael's lawyer for decades, and he's actually played in the movie by Miles Teller. Now, what you won't see in here are any of the allegations of child sexual abuse, which Jackson and the estate have always denied. Those are definitely not appearing in this movie.
MARTIN: That's so interesting 'cause, there's a - you know, there's a jukebox musical on Broadway which does allude to these allegations.
HARRIS: Yeah.
MARTIN: So it's not like people don't know about it or haven't treated those things artistically. I understand that they were going to originally have some reference to them.
HARRIS: Right.
MARTIN: But they don't appear in the movie. Why is that?
HARRIS: So the film was originally supposed to come out last year, but then they wound up having to do a bunch of reshoots because of - there was some reporting from places like Puck news and Variety that a heavy amount of the story line was about the 1993 accusations against Michael Jackson. And those had to be cut when the creative team learned from the estate that they were legally prohibited from depicting the family that made those allegations. NPR has not independently confirmed those reports, but the director, Antoine Fuqua, and producer Graham King were asked about that on Australian TV, and King said that parts of the film did have to be reshot because of legal issues, at least.
MARTIN: OK. Let me mention here that MORNING EDITION did offer an interview with the filmmakers, and through their publicist, they declined. So that being said, as I mentioned, this isn't the first movie or show about Michael Jackson. You've actually been rewatching them, Aisha. So do you think this adds anything to the understanding that we have of him?
HARRIS: Definitely not. I mean, I think the common throughline that we've seen with every narrative of the family and Michael Jackson, if you think about "The Jacksons: An American Dream," the miniseries from the '90s, and "MJ The Musical," which you've already mentioned, you know, the common throughline there is that Joe Jackson's domineering and abusive behavior was a big part of Michael Jackson's formation, but it's usually framed by the family as this kind of necessary evil that was needed to get them to be as huge and successful as they were. "Michael" - this movie - retreads the same narrative.
You've got Colman Domingo playing Joe Jackson, and he's sort of the obstacle - the main obstacle - Michael has in this movie to establish his independence as an artist and as a person. But, you know, like all these other estate-approved narratives, it really avoids the thornier issues, whether it's the 1993 lawsuit, the 2005 criminal trial, the 2019 HBO doc "Leaving Neverland," which featured hours of testimony of allegations of abuse against Jackson. This movie is not interested in any of those things. It's also just not interested in thinking about him as a gender-bending figure, a race-bending figure, someone who existed in pop music as this, like, towering phenomenon.
The angle here is sort of akin to - I'm sure you've read Margo Jefferson's "On Michael Jackson," her book. Fantastic book. And in that book, in the intro for - the 2019 intro for her book, where she's responding to "Leaving Neverland, " the HBO documentary, she basically says - and I'm paraphrasing here - he wanted to be loved, not understood. And I don't think this movie - you're going to come away understanding him any more. You're going to love the music. You're going to have nostalgia. But I don't think you're going to really understand him, and maybe we never will.
MARTIN: You can hear Aisha's deep dive into Michael Jackson's legacy in the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast feed. You can find that at npr.org/popculturehappyhour. Aisha, thanks so much.
HARRIS: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MICHAEL JACKSON SONG, "BILLIE JEAN") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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