Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is The Guardian.
Chapter 2: What is the significance of the new Michael Jackson biopic?
Today, the new Michael Jackson biopic. Why now?
So these are limited edition fedoras. And you can only get them in selected cinemas, but they were sold out of this one. So if you can get down fast enough, get your fedora.
It's Wednesday morning outside the BFI IMAX Theatre in central London. Michael Jackson fans are out in full force to watch the first screening of Michael. This is the blockbuster biopic hoping to break records and make a billion dollars worldwide. I've been waiting for this day since I was about 80 years old. So I had to come as soon as the early preview started.
We've both seen the movie in Berlin. It's actually our second time getting to see it.
Chapter 3: Why is the release of the biopic happening now?
But it's just a powerful film and a great movie for all ages, for kids, for the elderly, everyone, all different races.
Despite a string of one-star reviews, there is excitement, anticipation.
Just have all these songs in my head.
Just gotta get him out. Ready whenever you are, Michael.
Woo! If it's a big year for Michael Jackson fans, it is a mammoth one for his estate.
We need to capitalize on Michael's success. Because a Jackson fan is the brand. That's our Coca-Cola.
This canny operation has turned the half a billion dollar debt owed by Jackson when he was alive into a business generating hundreds of millions of dollars in his death. The jukebox musical, the Cirque du Soleil extravaganza. And alongside it, dozens of themed events, shows, autumn-less brunches, memorializing him as the greatest star ever to be born.
I knew you were different the moment you were born.
You let your light shine into the world.
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Chapter 4: What challenges did the production of the biopic face?
And, you know, the kind of knowledge that you would only know one way, right? These drawings were put in a sealed envelope and simultaneously Jackson was submitted to a strip search at the Neverland Rant. to take those intimate pictures. And this is well documented. This is a fact, is that the pictures matched up. And this is confirmed by multiple detectives from the LAPD at the time.
Jackson called the experience the most humiliating ordeal of his life. And he always forcefully denied the allegations.
He also settled out of court for $25 million with the Chandler family.
He did, yeah. And that came in the week or two after this strip search session. So this was something that Jackson wanted to be resolved very quickly. And critics have commented that perhaps the amount of money was too much for anyone to say no to, especially for not a rich family. So Jackson didn't have to submit to a criminal trial in that case.
It's sort of mind-boggling reading that stuff back as an adult. I mean, there was this total suspension of belief, I guess. I mean, looking back at it now. And of course, there were then other accusations. You know, there was even a trial. Owen, can you briefly run me through a timeline of the allegations made against Michael Jackson?
So after the Jordan Chandler trial in 1993 is the Martin Bashir documentary, which was in 2003.
I love climbing trees. I think it's my favourite thing. Having water balloon fights and climbing trees. I think those two are my favourite.
That raised a lot more questions about Jackson again because it really showed Jackson at the Neverland Ranch with children, including a young boy whose name is Gavin. When Gavin was there, he talked about the fact that he shares your bedroom. Yes. Can you understand why people would worry about that? Because they're ignorant.
Saying that the most loving thing you can do is share a bed with children. That's a beautiful thing. That's not a worrying thing? Why should they be worrying? Who's the criminal? Who's Jack the Ripper in the room? Neverland had a petting zoo, it had a fairground, it had popcorn machines. Jackson loved to be surrounded by children.
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Chapter 5: How does Michael Jackson's estate influence the biopic's narrative?
Jackson had a bedroom with a hallway leading up to it that was covered with cameras. It was booby-trapped with alarms so that an alarm would sound if anyone approaches. So his bedroom was completely private and sealed off. In Jackson's bedroom, there were suitcases of erotic material. Forensic investigators subsequently found fingerprints of the boys on such materials.
The Robson and Safechuck case is actually yet to go to trial. It's scheduled for later this year. Then just this February, new allegations broke by four siblings, the Casio siblings. I spoke with their lawyer, Howard King, who represents them, and told me all about how they allege a decade of sustained abuse. They allege child trafficking, they allege assault, and they allege grooming in...
A level of detail which is really shocking and harrowing to read, to review those reports. That case will likely be going to trial next year. But in the meantime, the estate would very much like you to focus on the biopic and celebration of his life. So we have these sort of dueling parallel narratives at the moment.
Coming up, why fans still can't get enough of Michael Jackson. Lanre, it's deeply complicated, isn't it?
Because reading Margot Jefferson and Wesley Morris on Michael Jackson, you know, titans of cultural criticism, even they admit to a level of denial about who he really was, perhaps because of this kind of defensive crouch of wanting to believe in black artists and wanting to protect them from the worst of how the industry treats them, you know, building them up, profiting from them, and then pulling them down and spitting them out.
What's your take?
So I think that's true, and I think there is a protective instinct, especially from a lot of black cultural critics, to protect black artists because of the way that black people in general have been treated historically, especially in America. But I think with Michael Jackson, there's something else going on. And it's his biography, it's his story, right?
So he emerges as a five-year-old who's pushed to the front of this group by his father, Joe Jackson, who's a failed musician himself. from Gary, Indiana, this kind of place in the, basically the middle of nowhere, very industrial. And Joe Jackson's this kind of like centrifugal force in the middle of the family, which drives his children to become these, these child stars.
I saw the talent there, but when Michael got involved, I really saw the real talent there because he was doing things, spinning and dancing and all that stuff.
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