In Asia, Michael Jackson never really lost his reputation like he did in the US. Here, he is apparently remembered as the King of Pop, and that’s it.
With the release of the 2026 biopic, which involved the cooperation of family members, the yuckiness surrounding his image seemed to recede substantially, returning his status to that of a fantastically successful and exceptionally gifted, if strange, artistic performer. In fact, my impression of him based on the movie (I didn’t know anything about his family life previously) is that he was for many years a pitiable victim of his father’s controlling tendencies.
Movies that are based on a true story tend to fail on one or both of two counts: they simplify, exaggerate, embellish, or otherwise bend history too much for the sake of manufacturing an engaging drama, or they keep too closely to the facts and wind up being boringly sequential—but I imagine that actually this latter happens seldom because it too obviously spells financial doom. In any case, the point is, real life doesn’t have plot; it doesn’t naturally supply one particular antagonist or challenge for a person to overcome. Life is messy. A film can’t afford to be, even though the process of making one, as in this case, is often anything but straightforward.
The recurring theme in Michael is the singer’s conflict with his father over artistic independence; the movie ends (somewhat abruptly) after a scene where MJ announces on stage that he is leaving the family band to perform on his own. Then we see one last song performance, from his solo tour, and the credits. If I were writing the story, he’d have confronted his father directly after that last family performance; but he doesn’t. Because he didn’t, I suppose. Oh well. The abruptness seems to be a result of extensive rewrites during production; the remaining character arc holds up surprisingly well, given how much chaos the project reportedly suffered from.
Another plot-like expectation I had was that we’d hear “Heal the World.” There’s some dialog where MJ talks about wanting to give back or accomplish something, I guess when he was recovering in the hospital and donated the lawsuit money to the burn unit, and entertained the kids there. Some online digging indicates that the song was filmed, and is likely to be in the sequel (which has apparently been greenlit as of August 2026), which covers the relevant time period. I’m glad there will be another movie; the end of the 2026 movie said something like “His story continues,” which would have been annoying in the absence of a sequel, despite being technically true regardless.
Reportedly, the sequel will contain material about the 1990s child sexual abuse allegations that was cut from the first version of the movie. I don’t really know if there’s any way a regular member of the music-consuming public like me can ever sort out the fact from the fiction. If the media went too far in the accusatory direction in the 90s, surely the current film enterprise, supported by MJ’s family, is likely to go too far the other way…. Was MJ really an awful criminal, or just a really weird but fundamentally innocent guy whose life was destroyed by a media frenzy? Is there any way to factually resolve the he-said/she-said-ness of that mess, or do you just, like, intuitively pick whose story you prefer to believe?
Meanwhile, the internet claims that MJ was inspired by (or appropriated) Bob Fosse’s snake dance in a performance of The Little Prince. That’s more credible than this bear’s viral moonwalk, but it’s less of a gotcha than, just, like, an example of the way artists are normally inspired by other artists rather than, I dunno, the void of space or wherever people think inspiration ought to come from. One thing I came away from the film with, actually, is a deep respect for artists who can dedicate their lives to inventing stuff, whether it’s music or dance moves, and then, just, rabidly insist on sharing that stuff is with as many people as they can attract the attention of. I mean, that’s what writers do, share their creative output, but they mainly don’t share themselves corporeally; they share reified text, sometimes not even with their own real name or photo attached to it. I am so not a performer that it boggles my mind how anyone else can be one! But I could say the same thing about surgeons. It truly takes all kinds. (Some people juggle geese.)
