The director of Michael Jackson documentary Leaving Neverland has criticised the making of a brand new biopic in regards to the singer’s life.
Final month, it was confirmed {that a} new movie referred to as Michael was within the works, with Antoine Fuqua set to direct and Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson forged because the late singer. The movie can be produced by Bohemian Rhapsody‘s Graham King, and is co-produced by the co-executors of Jackson’s property, John Branca and John McClain.
Dan Reed directed the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland, which explored youngster intercourse abuse allegations in opposition to Jackson, and has written in a brand new piece for The Guardian that the biopic “will glorify a person who raped kids”.
The director notes the “light elevating of eyebrows” by the press of their response to the biopic, with The Hollywood Reporter‘s authentic report claiming that it’s “unclear how the movie will deal with the various controversies involving the late music icon, on condition that the movie is made along side his property, which has defended him in opposition to accusations of sexually abusing kids”.
“In an period when full-throated outrage accompanies something that smells of delegitimisation or insensitivity in opposition to a weak group, it quantities to a deafening silence,” he says. “Nobody is speaking about ‘cancelling’ this film, which is able to glorify a person who raped kids.”
“What the whole absence of shock accompanying the announcement of this film tells us is that Jackson’s seduction continues to be a residing pressure, working from past the grave,” he continues.
“It appears that evidently the press, his followers and the huge older demographic who grew up loving Jackson are keen to put aside his unhealthy relationship with kids and simply go together with the music.
“To them I say this: even when you don’t imagine a phrase of what his many accusers have mentioned; even in case you are not involved by the police investigations and the huge payouts to halt authorized proceedings, how do you clarify the fully uncontested undeniable fact that for years Jackson spent innumerable nights alone in mattress with younger boys? What was he doing with them, alone in his Neverland bed room, with alarm bells within the hall? That can’t be acceptable by any measure.”
Reed concludes: “To the film-makers, I say: how will you symbolize the second when Jackson, a grown man in his 30s, takes a baby by the hand and leads him into that bed room? How will you depict what occurs subsequent?
“By sidestepping the query of Jackson’s predilection for sleeping with younger boys, you might be broadcasting a message to tens of millions of survivors of kid sexual abuse. That message is: if a paedophile is wealthy and common sufficient, society will forgive him.”
Leaving Neverland, which was broadcast in 2019 on HBO, centered on interviews with Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who alleged that they have been sexually abused as kids by Jackson.
NME has reached out to Antoine Fuqua and Lionsgate for response on Reed’s op-ed.
