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BPX037: Jackson's HIStory

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    BPX037: Jackson's HIStory

    This week see's the airing of the heavily talked about Michael Jackson documentary Leaving Neverland that see's two accusers detail, over four hours, their stories of abuse at the hands of the infamous singer.

    The documentary has seen a huge reaction and is seeing swathes of people turn against the musical legacy Jackson left behind after his death ten years ago. The singer was dogged by allegations for roughly fifteen years, culminating an a high profile court case that found him Not Guilty on all counts. In the years after that outcome he worked on new material and began to turn his public persona around building up to his massive arena comeback tour, the one he never got to perform.

    Many who have seen the documentary have talked about how harrowing they have found it and the strong emotions they now have about Jackson. However, his estate (as you'd expect) has move aggressively to denounce it. Normally this would be something to brush over however there is a counter argument that fuels the fixation the documentary has drawn. It was worked on for over two years and yet makes no attempt to present any balanced argument or assessment of the information and stories being brought against Michael, and it doesn't fact check the claims either instead providing an accuser focused emotion targeted representation.

    It's a complicated tale.

    We know a lot about Jackson's life and there are some really... not alright aspects about it not least how close he was to the children who visited Neverland Ranch. However, there has never been any definitive evidence of physical wrong doing on the singers part despite many attempts to investigate or catch him out. If you know of an incident or piece of evidence that implicates Jackson it has near certainly been clearly discredited at some point, you likely didn't hear about it though because the media's relationship with Jackson was so antagonistic also.

    There's an often discussed psychological component to Jackson as well, his history and troubled star childhood known to fuel his later personality and insecurities. What we are seeing this week is a two fold situation where two accusers will levy deeply traumatic accounts of abuse against Jackson but also have a myriad of evidence that suggests they are liars and opportunists. The second situation to consider will be that in the modern era there is a growing line of thought that accusers deserve to be believed however the countenance to this is that it also means Guilty till Proven Innocent... or potentially, maybe in Jacksons case Guilty Despite Proven Innocent.

    What makes this interesting is that the documentary airs mid-week meaning we can share our thoughts and assumptions on Jackson before it airs then again after.

    So, what are your current views on Jackon's legacy, psychology and potential guilt?
    20
    Guilty of Physical Abuse
    0%
    2
    Guilty of Abuse, But Not Physical
    0%
    0
    No Guilty But Deeply Troubled
    0%
    7
    Not Guilty Just Odd and Innocent Enough
    0%
    9
    Other
    0%
    2

    #2
    Who knows?

    There's no smoke without fire or throw enough mud and some of it will stick?

    I'm sure we've all told a Michael Jackson joke with no concrete evidence, but that helps cement your opinion of him.

    Part of me thinks it's a me-too thing with both children and parents so starstruck or scared to speak out against him.

    Part of me thinks both accusers in the documentary previoisly defended Jackson in a court of law and any sane parent wouldn't let their kids stay in the same bed as a grown man.
    He went to court several times, never got convicted and was investigated unsuccessfully too by the FBI for a decade.

    I also think it's hard to define the truth because we're a society that loves the idea of an eccentric millionaire with his own fairground, but we also love to see them fall from grace.

    Most people seem happy to accept these new anecdotes as fact, but who knows?

    Maybe the accusers are shy of cash, maybe the director wants to make a name for himself, maybe HBO are so desperate to get viewers back from Netflix, they'd defy the anti-defamation contract they previously signed to exclusively show a Jackson concert.

    Maybe he's a monster that used his fame and money to abuse children and it's taken me-too to start giving people courage to speak out about their abusers.

    I think the best thing to do is to view the documentary as other people's opinions, not fact, make your own opinions and accept that they are also just opinions, not fact.

    Who knows?

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      #3
      When it comes to Neverland I find the best way of thinking about it is:

      If I had millions upon millions and someone said to me I could have my own private theme park, would I want that?
      Yes. Yes I would.
      It's almost more weird not to want it

      The key thing with Jackson is that he shared a bed with other people's kids. It's in inherently creepy thing that frankly most parent's would never agree to regardless of their views of him. What I am curious about though is how he's painted as predatory evil upon vulnerable children yet we know he didn't actually spend that much of his years at Neverland with the kids compared to what public opinion says and yet little comes from anywhere else. If it was so focal there, why did investigators and surprise raids never find a trace of evidence?

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        #4
        There doesn't appear to be any concrete facts against him.

        Either he was really clever or there are none.

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          #5
          I'm not sure there is any evidence that he even shared a bed with kids. I know he had them stay over (which could/couldn't be innocent), but is there any proof he stayed in the bed or even in the same room?

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            #6
            It'd be one hell of a long con for his intelligence to have gotten him through everything given his state of mind. I feel like there are different stages and layers to Jacksons history that observers need to work through to get near the truth but the sales pitch of 'in bed with children = abused them' has always been a simple and importantly marketable one.

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by Cassius_Smoke View Post
              I'm not sure there is any evidence that he even shared a bed with kids. I know he had them stay over (which could/couldn't be innocent), but is there any proof he stayed in the bed or even in the same room?
              I think multiple families have stated it and Jackson himself admitted to it during the Martin Bashir interview that sparked the court case. The thing there is that Bashir didn't provide any evidence of wrong doing either, just shock that Jackson would share a bed. There has been an absolute deluge of wrongful claims about it though, tons of claims that were raised for high sums of money to newspapers but never to the police as well as regular evidence countering them too. It's not helped by Jackson no longer being here to speak for himself either, either in defence or to question/trip for wrongdoing.

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by Cassius_Smoke View Post
                I'm not sure there is any evidence that he even shared a bed with kids. I know he had them stay over (which could/couldn't be innocent), but is there any proof he stayed in the bed or even in the same room?
                There's plenty of proof in various documents surrounding this and Jackson has admitted it himself. One of the biggest tells is how one of his groomed charges was able to accurately describe all the marking on his penis.

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                  #9
                  I would urge everyone to read this wiki article about the most recent case against him.



                  tldr: The prosecution had nothing but a queue of liars literally crumbling under any questioning. No physical evidence was found and Wade Robson, who is now making these claims, stood up in court and defended Jackson.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    The 'penis' story is a good one though for showing what's reported versus what officials found. By the time Jackson passed and his autopsy was conducted the description story had been debunked and found to be false, not matching Jackson's member at all though by then the accusers mother was a long term known extortionist, the father had killed himself after multiple further attempts to cash in on Michael and overturned lies whilst said accuser had admitted being forced by his parents into his statement and had fled the US so he wouldn't be called on to testify.

                    It sums up the side against Jackson, if he was guilty it was hard to get to because there's an absolute tsunami of misinformation and proven liars against him also in the mix.

                    I'm aware of the history of Wade and his co-accusers path to this documentary as well which will make watching it very interesting to see if it expands on questions that exist with both their and Michael's accounts as well as the line of proven lies they have between them.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Wade Robson and James Safechuck speak about their childhood experiences with the pop superstar – and Dan Reed explains why he felt he had to expose their allegations in his film Leaving Neverland


                      Nicely timed a pre-showing interview. It's interesting because in the last week or so I've already seen multiple accounts, testimony paperwork, evidence etc that shows several of the things mentioned in this are outright false. It just feels like it's going to forever be hard to get to the truth because... well, why is this documentary being taken as gospel? For one, they claim they were abused hundreds of times yet one of them only visited Neverland four times, Jackson himself present on only one of those occasions. It also begs the question, why were Jacksons wives unaware or aiding Jackson in this, why are hundreds of staff members, families, other children and celebrities all in on it? He was followed constantly by the media, shadowed by Bashir and a TV crew for 8 months during the cited abuse window and videotaped a lot of these Neverland evenings. It's more interesting to ask, why so many questions aren't being asked?

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by QualityChimp View Post
                        There doesn't appear to be any concrete facts against him.

                        Either he was really clever or there are none.
                        Exhibit A

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                          #13
                          Gotta clean Bubbles out somehow

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                            #14
                            Think he has blown bubbles many times in the past.

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                              #15
                              See, that's the thing, I was passing along jokes about Jackson with punchlines like "I'm forever blowing Bubbles" and "Kids will do anything for the taste of Dairylea" before I really understood them or the implications, but it's those unsubstantiated jokes that perpetuate the idea he was a paedophile and muddies the water over his actual guilt or innocence.

                              Comment

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