Anyone within my recent vicinity can attest to my long-standing Michael Jackson obsession, having been subjected for the past four months to my spontaneous moonwalking demonstrations and sleep-stealing art projects. Since my first binge of his "Thriller" album videos, my mind has held space only for Michael Jackson.
I'd always known of the singer's work, but only from a distance. It wasn't until this January that I fully reckoned with the utter spectacle of his life and career. So when the official trailer for "Michael," his biopic, was first released in February, I jumped on tickets the day they were put on sale and dragged my friends to the theater on opening night.
No amount of pre-release controversy could have kept me from that theater. I sat eagerly through the previews, convulsing in excitement before Michael finally chirped his first lines. But as the sequence unfolded, my fervor dwindled. And after the credits rolled, I began to reiterate just one word throughout the following days: mediocre.
"I've never before felt indifferent about anything Michael Jackson-related," I told my friends after the viewing.
For a star so culturally invasive, I hoped that any provocation — whether exceptional or inflammatory — would inspire my future ravings. But "mediocre" did not fit in my Michael Jackson vocabulary.
I left the theater that night not with ire or joy, but disinterest; for once, I had nothing to say about the King of Pop.
Even Michael's most formative experiences in the film are told in the dullest fashion, staging his family dysfunction and troubles with fame through Disney Channel punchlines. His Jackson 5 brothers, who marked a crucial point of tension throughout his early career, are flattened into background extras, while his absent sisters Janet and Rebbie are condensed into one inconsequential La Toya.
Perhaps the most egregious mischaracterization is that of Michael himself, who spends most of his screentime humming to the air and idling meekly as his managers execute industry deals. He remains clueless to the perplexed stares of his neighbors and hangs his head in confusion when his adult brothers refuse to play Twister with him.
After firing his father, he saunters blissfully around his family home without regard to the incoming wrath. In the theater, I sensed little of the brilliance that captured my everlasting fascinations, but felt rather that this Michael was not extraordinary, complicated or bold — this Michael was unassuming, naive and worst of all, unremarkable.
Fans are not ignorant of real-world accounts of the singer's arrested development, but the film neglects more mature nuances of his persona in favor of kooky absurdity. At best, Michael's character is meekly non-agentic, while his talents are actuated by his more business-savvy counterparts.
At worst, this redirects the narrative into a parody that borders on sinister.
In reducing Michael to a softhearted storybook hero, his father, Joseph, is accorded the sole role of the swamp ogre. Through explicit references to his physical abuse and greed, the film spares no leniency toward his cruelty.
I don't discount the tragedy of Joseph Jackson's fatherhood. But such animations of villainy deflate the complexity of Michael's pain and fear. Joseph's abuse reads not as danger, but as narrative convenience: Here is an antagonist that is inarguable, evil and galvanizes us to direct our pity for Michael into anger toward his father.
Meanwhile, Hollywood's plastic surgeons and music suits are fronted as quirky sidekicks in Michael's career. Throughout the film, the entertainment cabal acts as a passive ecology that hosts, rather than exploits, his creative endeavors.
Managers and executives are reduced to names that pad Michael's fame upon his request. John Branca, Michael's "Thriller"-era lawyer and self-appointed executive producer of the film, inserts himself in splendor in dialogue that would make a Marvel scriptwriter cringe.
When the Pepsi commercial director risks Michael's life with second-degree burns, we expend little vindication toward his pyrotechnical negligence, and instead are redirected to his father's exploitative parenting. As Joseph is planted as the root of Michael's woes, industry agents are subdued into indistinguishable yes-men.
And as soon as Michael escapes from Joseph's wrath once and for all, the movie ends — he embarks on tour, happy and fulfilled.
This conclusion illustrates a Hollywood narrative of plausible deniability — of an industry that does no wrong. The whimsy of "Michael" disaffirms the tension of his lifelong feuds with celebrity culture and media; of incessant reminders that "I'm not a Jacko, I'm Jackson."
When more difficult topics of his plastic surgeries and vitiligo emerge, the film expends mere seconds to acknowledge them before jumping to the next imitation from his fashion lookbook; worse yet, it cowers completely from mentions of his most obtrusive controversies of child sexual abuse allegations.
The film's limited merits owe their emotional integrity solely to Jaafar Jackson. Reenacting the iconic dance number from "Beat It," he offers a momentary glimpse into his uncle's soulful artistry, capturing an excellence and humanity that the film's other qualities lack.
This one scene, to me, defines the true essence of Michael's career and legacy. Bridging bonds between rival gangs through song and dance, the artist's work sought power through compassion and community.
It's unfortunate that the film pulled back from these subtle, yet intimate moments, and troubling that such negligence warranted a mythos that is marketable and profitable.
The phenomenon that is Michael Jackson remains as yet misstated by the very industry that ruined him with the same tactics that exploited him. "Michael" eradicates the mystical through poorly-veiled explanations, while leaving nothing of substance in its place.
In this self-conscious age of pop culture, we'd fare better to realize that we may never be able to make sense of the obscurity and intrigue of Michael Jackson. We should rather stick to re-consuming his 80's discography and grainy television interviews.
Rating: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
Editor's note: The opinions presented in this letter are the author's and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
Edited by Senna James, Jack McCarthy and Pippa Fung.
Reach the reporter at jkao5@asu.edu.
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