As you may have heard, the new biopic “Michael” is on the way to becoming a huge box office hit, which Hollywood needs desperately these days. It is also a film that critics have nearly unanimously panned as pure hagiography. Sure, movies about real people routinely gild the human lily, but “Michael” has taken the whitewashing (Is it tasteless to use that term in reference to Jackson? I think it’s rather appropriate…) to absurd levels. The film stops before the 1993 allegations of child sexual abuse against the pop icon, in part because the terms of Jackson’s financial settlement ($20 million while refusing to admit wrongdoing) with an accuser prohibited the estate from publicly questioning the allegations against him. Thus “Michael” is a big wet kiss to the King of Pop and his fans, omitting the dark and creepy stuff, which in Jackson’s case is considerable. I would argue that it is also defining.
Jackson is played by Jaafar Jackson, one of the singer’s nephews, who looks like Michael might have looked if he were, you know, normal. Telling the life story of Michael Jackson while ignoring his disturbing pederastic tendencies is like making a movie about Errol Flynn or John Barrymore that never shows them taking a drink. Or a movie about John Wilkes Booth that leaves out that little Ford’s Theater incident. How about a Bill Clinton biopic that leaves out Monica? Fatty Arbuckle was a silent film genius: why ruin a movie about him by including that downer of a party he gave where a woman was killed and he was tried for murder?
Ethics Alarms 
the problem I have with this is that iconoclasts think that any portrayal of George Washington should have scenes of him beating slaves and stealing their teeth.
any production of 1776 would require a scene of Jefferson raping slaves.
Shakespeare’s treatment of Richard III was the exact inverse: demonize him in every way (sure, it was the source material)
telling a story does not mean including things not relevant to the story
leftists complain if you present anyone as a hero without displaying their worst flaws.
most people are considered heroes, not for their flaws, but in spite them.
-Jut
I think your examples are off. “1776” is a musical, so by definition it has signaled that it is abandoning realism. And its not about Jefferson, but about Jefferson and others during a single event—and as far as we know, Tom wasn’t raping any of his slaves in Philadelphia. If the biopic of George left out the fact that he was a slaveholder, I’d object to that; If it showed any of his mistreatment of slaves, the film makers would be obligated to also show his conversion to oppose slavery later in life.
Ethical obligation not to ‘grossly misrepresent?’ Yes.
Are they obliged to drag him through the mud? No. But to ignore his seemingly serious mental health issues and probable pedophilia is to create a dishonest experience. You cannot call the movie a biopic if it ignores much of the biography.
The movie trailer is impressive – excellent casting and production values. However, though Danny and I enjoy a weekly afternoon at our local movie theater, we won’t be spending our money on this one.
I think I chalk this one up to artistic license.
If a movie wants to portray only a part of MJ’s career (and not on his childhood, or later career, or relationships, or abuse allegations, or crazy time, or what have you), then so be it.
In statistics there are two type of errors, namely type I errors (false positives) and type II errors (false negatives). It depends on the context how serious each type of error is. E.g. in the context of the TSA a false negative (bag contains explosive, missed by scanner) is extremely serious, while a false alarm by the scanner is business as usual.
We may extend this to ethics and personal reputation as well. A type I error would be telling a reputation damaging falsehood about a person. A type II error would be to ignore a dark episode in a persons life to preserve a reputation, or other peoples feelings.
Type II errors are often made during eulogies. We want to remember the deceased in a positive light and tell the good things about his life, and skipping the bad stuff. In general the impulse to be graceful is praiseworthy, but it depends on how bad the bad things in his life were. E.g. in case of abuse the victims will be hurt when these truths are buried with the deceased.
Both type of errors are made in biographies. The type of error correlates with the views and preferences of the biographer, e.g. about an important political figure. I suppose that the same applies to biopics. The director of “Michael” may well be a rabiate fan of Michael Jackson, who decided to give his fan biases free reign in the movie. The producer may express a bias for commercial reasons, as he estimates that a hagiography is better for the box office than a dark story that involves child abuse. My ethical judgement is similar to that about eulogies that skip over the uncomfortable facts.
I have more problems with type II errors in movies and plays, where reputations are unnecessarily besmirched.
“We want to remember the deceased in a positive light and tell the good things about his life, and skipping the bad stuff.”
A Rabbi begins a eulogy, “We are here to mourn the passing of our friend Mr. Goldberg, a patron of the synagogue and dedicated Talmudic scholar.”
An old man jumps up and says, “Are you meshuggeh, Rabbi? This man hasn’t been in a shul since his bar mitzvah!”
After a pause, the Rabbi continues, “We are here to mourn the passing of our friend, Mr. Goldberg, a loving husband and dedicated father.”
Once again the old man interrupts, “Rabbi, you obviously didn’t know Goldberg. He cheated on his wife whenever he could and he never had time to spend with his
children!”
The Rabbi, at a loss for words, finally, says, “My friends, have we not as Jews suffered from the insults and prejudices of our neighbors? Must we stoop to their level and speak ill of our own people? Surely, there is someone in this congregation who knew Mr. Goldberg and can say something good and kind about his life.”
After a deafening silence, the old man blurts out: “His brother was worse!”
PWS
I wrote about that Titanic smear in Ethics Alarms. Murdoch also didn’t die on the ship and is still widely regarded as one of the heroes of the disaster.
Several Jack the Ripper movies and books make the case that Queen Victoria’s black sheep son or her royal surgeon was the real serial killer.
I’m definitely on the side of this production being what it is, so long as it’s not changing history, I’m fine if it only covers an aspect of the larger biography. With movies in particular, it’s impossible to tell a person’s entire story without it being a wandering, meandering mess. People who make movies are story tellers. I myself find it impossible to tell people, kids today what it was like in the 80s with Michael Jackson and how popular and impressive he and his music was to absolutely everyone. I haven’t seen this movie yet, but if this captures that feeling, that’s the story that was still missing from the cultural consciousness. Does this preclude a future movie that tells the darker side of his story? No. That sounds like an interesting and dramatic story, something you can prepare yourself to sit in discomfort for 2 hours. Making an entertaining movie that captures the public perception and moment in history that is focused on the creations and fever pitch of a period of time – that’s valuable. So, I agree with many of the comments above which are probably more eloquent than my own.
Ironically enough, rather than see Michael just yet, I went to AMC’s Screen Unseen last night. I took my wife on the chance that we’d see a shark movie. My wife LOVES shark movies. I was expecting it could be Deep Water (Aaron Eckhart, Ben Kingsley). It was not.
It was a movie written and directed last year by RZA called “One Spoon of Chocolate” and it includes a role played by Paris Jackson, Michael’s only daughter with Debbie Rowe. Not that I recognized her – she looks remarkably like Annie Murphy of Shitt’s Creek, but just this morning putting two and two together reading this post.
The movie itself was loaded with some of the worst exposition dialogue I’ve ever heard in my life, but serves the purpose of teeing up unredeemable white racists who have overtaken a town, killing black people to harvest and sell their organs. None of the character motivations make sense against that backdrop, but everything is there to serve the purpose of getting RZA to his comic book wet dream of a skilled black man going to war with an entire town to kill white racists.
Honestly, aside from the shallow environment and characters, the film is well executed and edited and gives a feeling of the 70s blaxploitation films and maybe things like Walking Tall. I can’t recommend it for anyone and I wouldn’t have picked it for myself, but Paris did well in her role and Shameik Moore who played the hero protagonist definitely confirmed his acting chops. (He’s the voice of Miles Morales in the Spider-Man animated movies.)
Thanks for reading!