It’s fitting that the day another person facing allegations related to child sexual abuse becomes a trillionaire, Michael would find itself in rarefied air. But the news does lead us to recall the assessment of Leaving Neverland director Dan Reed, whose film is no longer available due to a “patently ridiculous” 30-year-old non-disparagement clause between HBO and Jackson and a massive push to rehabilitate the late pop star’s image. What does it mean that Jackson is still such a reliable moneymaker? “It says that people don’t care that he was a child molester. Literally, people just don’t care,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in April. “I think a lot of people just love his music and turn a deaf ear. And short of having actual video evidence of Michael Jackson engaged in sexual intercourse with a 7-year-old child, I don’t know what would be sufficient to change these people’s minds.
After seeing the movie, Reed became more convinced that the movie reinforced this angelic, childlike persona for Jackson that goes uninvestigated and taken for granted. That’s what audiences want. “To the culture, Jackson is like a religion. So, what I’ve done is essentially blasphemy, and this biopic reinstates the myth,” he said following the film’s release. “As absurd as any religion, people have to believe in the miracle of Jackson being this asexual, pure being who only wished good for little children and helped them.”
