Veronica Lodge

a child molesting man does not inspire me. at all. i don't care how many hits he's had, there's no way i could possibly ever admire somebody who has made such poor, f*cked up choices.

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- Veronica Lodge -


Yes, that IS what I said.

mjscarousal

Michael Jackson doesn't owe you anything. His just an entertainer. He was cleared of all charges in a court of law. So the reason to continue to bring it up doesn't mean anything and why would you judge a man you know nothing about?

His music is good. Thats the ONLY thing that matters period.

What he does in his private life or his character is NOT a reflection of that. Regardless of what has happened to him, his success and talent can never be taken away or downgrades it.

arX

how's it goin, girl.

it's always a tough crowd when discussing Michael Jackson without the masses indulging in tabloid perceptions and corny celeb-obsessed culture talk or even getting into irrational comparisons (see Prince vs. Jackson) all of which only proves further their music-dyslexia complex.

but it's an even tougher crowd when you do it in a joint where the Soul/Funk section constitutes less than 1% of the forum's discussion.

zegna

Wow. Okay, my thoughts.

I see that the Michael Jackson ("MJ") detractors in this thread have brought up essentially two issues: (1) the allegations in MJ (which they seem to place a lot of faith in) and (2) his legacy (which they seem to question).

I'm not going to write an essay but I'll just deal with the first point in this post and the second whenever I can be bothered to.

In respect of the allegations against MJ, the child abuse allegations have predictably been raised but there's also the alleged breach of contract claim.

With regard to the child sex abuse allegations, there were two instances. The first of these, which arose in the 1990's, was settled out of court. There seems to be some kind of misconception in this thread about what an out-of-court settlement actually means or why settlement is sought in the first place. First, it is often a standard term in such a settlement agreement that settlement be on the basis that there is no admission of liability. As far as I know, this was a feature of the settlement agreement. Secondly, settlement may be sought for several reasons. A party may not wish to go through a long and costly legal process, which takes up much time and energy which may be better spent elsewhere. Regardless of guilt, innocence or liability, one may not wish to put themselves unnecessarily in the public eye in high profile cases. One may have other business interests at stake in the meantime which they want to pursue and not put at risk. It's not always about "I wanna get out of this because I'm guilty as hell!". Quite conceivably, MJ had business interests which he did not want to put on the line by having such allegations played out by the media. It wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to say that his record sales would most likely slump had he instructed his lawyers to fight the trial. Thus, the gameplan may well have been "let's get this out of the way and move on". Let's remember that he was still on a high after releasing the "Dangerous" album.

That said, it turned out to be a mistake, given the irresistable inference which was suggested by the media and lapped up by a public which (let's face it) loves scandals of any kind. In hindsight, this was always going to happen given the height of his stardom. He is no ordinary business man who just goes for a quick settlement so the share price in respect of his publicly listed company will not tumble. I would guess that MJ's lawyers, familiar with how settlements, even in respect of huge companies, do not remain newsworthy for long at all, advised him that a settlement would not be a bad option to take.

For those who still think that he may have settled to hush the other side, it bears mention that the case was vigorously pursued by the "aggrieved" party in the civil, as distinct from criminal, sphere. They had expressly decided to do so. Ask yourselves why? Here's a scenario: if your daughter was raped, you should be outraged at the act. Would you want the maximum criminal penalty to be imposed or would you just decide to enter settlement talks with the rapist and agree to a payout? Even if we assume that MJ is guilty as sin, the "aggrieved" party in the MJ case, by analogy, only took the latter option. Ask yourselves why. But here's the real kicker: the Prosecution is not a party to the settlement agreement. As such, they could have and wanted to prosecute the case irregardless. Even though the boy in question had refused to testify, the Prosecution could have served a subpoena on him and cross-examined him and others to reveal the truth. But they didn't. The case was dropped for that reason as well as the fact that there was insufficient evidence. Prosecutor Tom Sneddon had also attempted to find others to corroborate the boy's evidence but failed to.

Then we come to the second set of allegations in the 2000's. Let me keep it short. By unanimous jury decision, MJ was found not guilty. Of course, that's not the same as saying he is innocent. But it doesn't mean he was guilty, as some are suggesting for some reason. There was a clear lack of evidence coupled with the mother's testimony that the jury just could not buy. One issue was why the mother, after claiming to have known of the abuse, would have brought her child back to the MJ home. Further, it was revealed that, in the late 90's, the mother sued J.C Penney, on the basis that her children were beaten and that she had been sexually assaulted by security guards. This reportedly occurred after she had been confronted about stealing goods from the store. The case was settled out of court and it was reported that the mother had prepared and provided her children with scripts to "help" them testify. I wonder how much that says for the credibility of the Prosecution witnesses.

Okay, so those are the two instances and I don't see anything which could convince anyone that MJ has abused children. What we have are allegations which couldn't hold up in court (demonstratively). Anyone can allege anything. Unless they can prove those allegations, they mean nothing. Some people seem to forget that basic concept.

Of course, someone mentioned the admission that MJ has slept in the same room as children. But that isn't indecent or sexual abuse in itself. There must be an indecent intention, or at least the act itself must be of an indecent nature that would impute such an intention to the accused person. Had MJ slept naked right next to the kid, that would be a different story. But there was no such finding.

The question is then this: what causes so many people to make the leap of logic to assume that MJ is a child abuser when it has been shown that he has at the most slept in the same room as a child. His appearance? His weird behaviour? Is that really enough?

It wasn't enough for the West Memphis 3 (that was a horrendous conviction based on negligible evidence after a botched investigation), and neither should it be enough here.

Let's compare MJ to another suspected paedophile, Pete Townshend of the Who (please note that I'm not saying he's guilty). Pete actually registered his credit card on a child porn website. Upon his arrest, he said it was for a book on child sex abuse which was in the works (but which apparently isn't coming out for some reason). Now, let's note that there was nothing contemporaneous to support his claim that he was innocent. You would expect him to at least have made a couple of notes since he was writing a book. But there was nothing.

In MJ's case, however, you have his whole life. Sheltered as a Jehovah's Witness and sheltered as a child music star, he didn't interact with anyone. Yes, this is the "lost childhood" point. I even recall an interview during the filming of the "Beat It" video where he was asked who his best friends were...and he said "Diana Ross". I also remember an interview at home during the "Thriller" era where he was with Janet and he came across as being a huge Disney fan (which is corroborated elsewhere). So it was quite conceivable given the circumstances that he hung out with children just because he liked to (in an innocent way). Were he a paedophile, I'm sure he could just get kids over to his place like certain celebrities can get girls. Was it really necessary to get Bubbles, a snake, a llama and build f**king Neverland to achieve that purpose? Of course not. That should actually say something about how he genuinely likes being a kid himself. There are other examples, but I'll leave it there.

The point is that it's much easier for MJ to explain why kids are over at his place or in the same room than it is for Townshend to explain why he was on a child porn website. Yet you can see the direction the angry mob headed in and continues to head in. However, I'm not in the least surprised by why the public would take the irrational approach believe in what has not been proven and disregard certain facts which show other than what they would like to believe. In my view, it's a simple case of "the bigger they are, the better it is when they're shot down" which seems to appeal to a lot of people for some reason.

That's all for now.

Urban Hat€monger ?

3 His material isn't very good anymore.

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zegna

That's a matter of opinion and his most recent material (i.e. the "Invincible" album) isn't what I wanted to post about anyway (even though its lack of commercial success may be explained in another way).

But while I'm on about musical influences and since I mentioned Faith No More...I'm convinced that Mike Patton is influenced by MJ to an extent. First, it's clear that he's influenced (to an extent) by pop music. This is evident from his singing style in the later Mr Bungle demos, "The Real Thing" and other Faith No More albums, Peeping Tom and the pop covers performed in concert with his various groups, amongst other things. Now, before anyone says it's entirely in jest, I would argue that this isn't true, because he ventures to sing a lot of these songs largely in a serious way. It's different when you can tell that he's aping someone (as you can with his Hetfield impression when he did "Enter Sandman" in a medley with "Zombie" by the Cranberries. That and the fact that the setlist title of the song "She Loves Me Not" from Faith No More's "Album of the Year" was "Michael Jackson", which is sung tongue in cheek but with honesty all at once (well, that's Patton for you). So there's some trivia right there.

Urban Hat€monger ?

No it's not what you wanted to post about but it's been said in this thread countless times and yet all Jackson fans want to go on about is how he got off in his trial and that's why he's not popular anymore. Read the posts in this thread. Many people think his recent material isn't up to much regardless of anything else.

And of course it's opinion , that's why the forum exists.

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Urban Hat€monger ?

I noticed you never answered the question I posed a while back

Would YOU allow your kids to sleep in his bed.

What's that got to do with anything. It's not like we're discussing some obscure soul/funk act here.

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arX

you're discussing a popular and versatile soul/funk artist.

and ironically, the overwhelming majority of the discussion isn't even about the music.

Urban Hat€monger ?

So ?

You don't need to be a fan of any genre to comment on one artist , you just have to have listened of the artist being discussed.
Which , let's face it isn't difficult when it's Micheal Jackson considering every song he puts out gets wall to wall coverage

Well whose fault is that?
If you act like a total oddball people will comment on it regardless of what music you put out.

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