We have collectively forgiven Michael Jackson

I got in a cheeky movie yesterday in a break between action at the baseball tournament. If the meaning of "cheeky" isn't obvious in this context, Australians use it to suggest doing something when you really shouldn't be doing something. In this case, it wasn't actually cheeky as I have had plenty of time to socialize with the dozen guys staying in our Air BnB, and had plenty more after the movie, and will continue to have plenty over the remainder of the weekend. 

At the cinema in Ballarat, where I saw (and enjoyed) Kirill Sokolov's They Will Kill You, I was reminded by a poster that there is a Michael Jackson biopic coming out next month called Michael. This on top of the hit musical MJ the Musical that recently had a long and successful run in Melbourne. 

Now I'm wondering: Are we -- not me, but the collective we -- more inclined to forgive pedophiles?

Despite Trump's MAGA base trying to get the Epstein files disclosed, likely because they thought the files would disproportionately damn Democrats, when it actually comes to it, many of them don't seem interested in holding Trump to account for his own apparent pedophilia. Being a pedophile is bad if it helps advance your political goals, not so much of it goes against them. 

I had kind of figured that Michael Jackson was cancelled. Any time Jackson comes up for any sort of discussion, I can see my wife stiffening. There's a music podcast I listen to that essentially issues a trigger warning every time they have to talk about him, and they basically won't play his music, even though song snippets are the bread and butter of this podcast's production values. 

But if looking only at Michael and MJ the Musical, I'd have to say that commercially, he is not cancelled. In fact, anything but.

There may just be some people who are such a part of the fabric of our culture that we refuse to give them up. Michael Jackson may be one of those. Also, I think we are able to somewhat reasonably question exactly how much he "did" with the children who stayed with him at the Neverland Ranch. I haven't pored through that particular set of files, but I don't recall how definitive any of it was, or how graphic. 

Then there's the fact that he's dead. Will we show slightly more generosity toward other cancelled figures, like Bill Cosby, once they're gone?

I don't know, but I do sometimes wonder about it. It was especially the case when I'd receive these promotional emails about MJ -- "final weeks!" I was thinking "Um, no thank you, why would I go see a musical that celebrates a pedophile?"

But I myself am unwilling to cancel Jackson in terms of his music. When a Michael Jackson song comes on the radio, I turn it up rather than turning it off. When my younger son had a Michael Jackson phase a few years I go, I felt charmed by it, by any interest in music before his era. Obviously neither my wife nor I dreamed of bringing up the subject of Jackson's disgrace with a kid who was ten at the time -- just the sort of cute kid who would have interested Jackson. 

I can, however, see myself skipping this movie. I don't take a huge amount of stands in the movies I watch. I may even watch the Melanie documentary eventually, if only to (hopefully) send it to the bottom of my rankings for the year. But a biopic, already one of the least good genres of movies, about a person who doesn't meet the minimum standards of morality for the sort of film that will likely lionize him at least a little bit? Yeah, I might just skip that.

And then if people tell me it's good ... well, I do really like the music.