Michael Jackson Documentary Director: Biopic ‘Will Glorify A Man Who Raped Children’

The director who made a documentary about Michael Jackson’s alleged youngster sexual abuse warned Sunday {that a} new Lionsgate biopic in regards to the King of Pop “will glorify a man who raped children.”

It was introduced final week {that a} film dramatization of Jackson’s life, accepted by his property, is on the way in which and that Jackson will probably be performed by his nephew Jaafar Jackson.

“No one is talking about ‘canceling’ this movie, which will glorify a man who raped children,” “Leaving Neverland” director Dan Reed wrote in The Guardian.

“What the total absence of outrage accompanying the announcement of this movie tells us is that Jackson’s seduction is still a living force, operating from beyond the grave,” he continued. “It seems that the press, his fans and the vast older demographic who grew up loving Jackson are willing to set aside his unhealthy relationship with children and just go along with the music.”

Filming is scheduled to start this yr. Lionsgate mentioned the film will delve into many elements of the singer’s profession, “including his most iconic performances that led him to become the greatest entertainer of all time,” Variety reported.

Reed’s Emmy-winning 2019 documentary featured two males ― Wade Robson and James Safechuck ― detailing the sexual abuse they are saying Jackson inflicted on them as boys. Jackson’s property has denied the claims.

Jackson confronted a number of allegations of kid molestation. He was acquitted in a single case at a 2005 trial the place “140 witnesses … painted clashing portraits of the 46-year-old international pop star as either pedophile or Peter Pan,” The New York Times wrote.

In a warning to filmmakers, together with the venture’s slated director Antoine Fuqua, Reed concluded: “How will you represent the moment when Jackson, a grown man in his 30s, takes a child by the hand and leads him into that bedroom? How will you depict what happens next? By sidestepping the question of Jackson’s predilection for sleeping with young boys, you are broadcasting a message to millions of survivors of child sexual abuse. That message is: if a pedophile is rich and popular enough, society will forgive him.”

Jackson died in 2009 on the age of fifty.

Need assist? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s web site.