I won’t be the first person to tell you that a new four-hour documentary on Michael Jackson and child abuse, Leaving Neverland, has recently been released. The film’s director, Dan Reed, has made his case. The interviews and evidence have been set out. They are certainly compelling, though we await the verdict from the court of public opinion. The fallout and the impact the film will have on our opinion of Michael Jackson, his legacy, where we reevaluate the lines for identifying child abuse and what constitutes appropriate adult behaviour with children are still being formed. Only a few days in, it’s too early to say where time’s judgement will fall on Michael Jackson.
What I’m interested in is understanding why, having developed our opinions in a pre-Leaving Neverland world, we respond the way we do to Michael Jackson’s situation and whether that changes when various aspects of that situation are set in context. Was Michael Jackson really as unique as he portrayed himself to be? Does that have any bearing on how we respond to him? Are the excuses which we, the public, make for Michael Jackson justified? How did we come to form this public opinion of him for such a long time and how does that hold up today?
- The phenomenon of doublethink: simultaneous contradictory opinions
The key thing to understand when considering the unique appearance of Michael Jackson’s life is that we are cognitively capable of entirely contradictory opinions. This is because whilst we do know all of that information, we do not actively make connections between every piece of information and every other. Instead, our opinions on the world are formed distinctly on each topic based on the demands of the situation at hand. If two separately formed opinions are never meaningfully connected, we can continue to hold these contradictory opinions without ever being aware that we hold them because we never think of them at the same time. It’s not remotely unusual to form these contradictory opinions entirely separately and remain unaware of them; such processing is often largely unwitting or based in differing social contexts on general and specific levels. When we are made aware, it’s our responsibility to acknowledge that dissonance and think about whether we should reconsider those perspectives in light of recognising that contradiction.
A common way this is expressed is that “it’s different in their case”: “yes I think equal opportunities in schooling are important, but it’s different for my child because I want them to have the best opportunities possible”; “yes most criminals should suffer appropriately for their crimes, but I want my loved one to come home”; “everyone should have these human rights, but it doesn’t have to be my country’s responsibility to look after everybody”. A particularly impactful phrase on this is that everyone is equal, but some people are more equal than others; another is the Orwellian concept of doublethink, which ascribes more active choice in the simultaneous expression of two contradictory opinions. In Michael Jackson’s case, is it justifiable to treat him differently than someone from a similar demographic, background or who exhibits similar behaviour? Is he really different? It’s certainly the case Michael Jackson made, very successfully, for many years.
Michael Jackson is a particularly interesting example of reconnecting contradictory opinions because of the strength of the personal connections he formed, the stresses they have withstood and the length of time they have remained strong. Though it may feel this way, Michael Jackson is not someone personally known to most of us, yet he succeeded in establishing and maintaining his image of innocence and goodwill for numerous decades as an adult with the power of a strongly personal bond. Even when taken to court twice, this defence of “it’s different in Michael Jackson’s case” held up. People still, rightly or wrongly, regularly excuse his differences because of the perception that he did not have a childhood. When he died, there was mass mourning. Viewing figures for his memorial service were on par with the funeral of Ronald Reagan and the inauguration of Barack Obama. Even today, after his death, his image of uniqueness and a special personal connection with his listeners and fans still holds strong.
We often form contradictory opinions in the case of someone we know personally, such as making an exception for a family member or loved one, but Michael Jackson was a public figure. What makes Michael Jackson’s case so unusual is that such people normally receive more scrutiny, not less. His image of uniqueness was so successful and so sustained in such unusual circumstances. With Michael Jackson, we have the opportunity and – given the abuse charges – a responsibility to reconsider, explore and understand the basis on which we have formed these opinions on such a large scale and for so long. In the face of such horrific charges, we need to ask: are the arguments we make for him even true? Is it really different for Michael Jackson?
- He’s Michael Jackson: brand management and perpetual childhood
If we’re going to evaluate the basis of our opinions on Michael Jackson as a man, the first thing we need to do is consider the impact of his name, and the brand that comes with it. It is only a name, but it is a name which carries more weight than most. The name has no power over his actions per se, but it does have an impact on our ability to evaluate them. Whilst it may feel like it, that name and its brand are not the man: they are the man as he came to be portrayed to the world. It’s easy to forget because he was so permanently in the limelight, but even though Michael Jackson was an unusual person, he was still a person. In fact, it was his fundamental connection to that formative phase of humanity, childhood, on which he made his identity and his legacy, for better and for worse.
Suffice to say, removing the name Michael Jackson from the situation makes things sound very seedy. An adult, 30 to ultimately 50 year old man with vast money, power and influence who justifies sleeping with children in his bed because he appreciates their innocence; someone who has installed children’s beds and a theme park at his house to encourage children to enjoy their time there; someone who regularly seeks out children, builds trust with their families and takes them with him to his house and as part of his entourage on the road; someone who experienced a significantly dysfunctional and unusual childhood and suffered child abuse themselves. That information on its own does not come across well. It sounds more like a powerful businessman, disturbed person or cases of famous actors or movie makers abusing their position; professions commonly more associated with sleaziness than passionate adoration.
Michael Jackson – or at least his brand – was not consumed by sleaze like some people in these professions. Even in the cases of Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey, these were people who were fairly slimey characters even when they remained above suspicion. Weinstein was known for his unsavoury use of power in Hollywood. Spacey made his name playing characters seductive in their criminality, most notably Frank Underwood (with the initials F.U.) in House of Cards, the shady criminal manipulator, Keyser Söze, in The Usual Suspects, a criminal boss taking advantage of an orphan in Baby Driver, a criminal man driving the ponzi scheme in Billionaire Boys Club or a married man romantically and sexually obsessed with his teenage daughter’s best friend in American Beauty. Frankly, it’s a wonder we didn’t see it coming. Perhaps we thought Spacey was such a good actor because we didn’t believe people were capable of such utter seediness and Spacey pulled it off those characters so believably. He was charming in his sleaze. In comparison, when you take the basic facts of Michael Jackson’s situation – his money, power, influence and sheer popular belief – he wasn’t so different from Kevin Spacey. In fact, he was much more wealthy, much more powerful, much more influential and, whether for good or ill, held the trust of millions of people.
The backlash against Jackson’s accusers is similarly reminiscent of that against female accusers of sexual assault, such as those in the Me Too movement. Opinions on guilt aside, the situations are remarkably similar: accusations that they are lying or in it for the money; the potential for severe public abuse should survivors come forward with their stories; a widespread compulsion to defend and believe the accused rather than the accuser despite any ultimate evidence either way. The similarities are certainly compelling. Additionally, because cases of sexual assault in particular are difficult to prove due to quickly declining evidence and lack of witnesses, our choice of sides also tells us a lot about our motivations in choosing who to believe: accuser, or accused. More than anything, we should question and consider why we feel the need to make these particular decisions, when ultimately we can’t really say. Why don’t we just say we don’t know? Why do we pick sides or resist playing devil’s advocate? We stand to learn a lot about ourselves and what motivates us to choose the answers we do from questions like these.
So what does the name Michael Jackson add to this which changes it? Because it does change things. The primary association of Michael Jackson’s name is not sleaze but Peter Pan syndrome: innocence, playfulness, imagination; that permanent connection with childhood. He even named his ranch Neverland, emblazoned in neatly cut vegetation in front of his house. He explained being constantly surrounded by children by embracing it. He explained embracing childhood as an adult with the argument that he never really had one; that he worked from a young age, similar to that of children when he met them. The author of Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie, held similar attitudes towards children. Most notably, an obsession with perpetual childhood, at a time when other authors were seeing unleashing boys’ rough-and-tumble playfulness as a prelude to proper manhood as an adult.
To what extent is this a healthy expression of appreciating childhood? In assessing Michael’s embrace of childhood, we should be able to identify what constitutes healthy and unhealthy presentations of such beliefs. Children’s authors and teachers are perhaps the best examples of supporting, valuing and encouraging childhood as an adult. Indeed, to become a children’s author, one needs to maintain an understanding of a child’s perspective in order to write appropriately for one’s readers. Similarly, teachers need to understand and value the psychology of their students in order to support them appropriately. These, along with parenthood, are the standard ways to love children and childhood as an adult. Michael Jackson’s situation asks: should embodying perpetual childhood and near-totally embracing their innocent perspectives also be considered a legitimate way of carrying out that love and support? When does such behaviour become concerning?
For Michael Jackson’s audience, he helped to connect us with our inner child by embodying that childhood as an adult. In embodying childhood, he made us feel like children ourselves. It’s a similar effect to that which sometimes happens when we visit our parents: we fall back into the routine of being children again, being looked after, and it’s comforting. Michael Jackson’s image is one more commonly associated with a children’s author than a pop star. Given Kevin Spacey’s case, could Michael Jackson also have hidden in plain sight, playing the child because the most convincing lies are those which are part truth? Does the argument of a lack of childhood really make it impossible for him to have physically carried out the grooming and abuse that he’s accused of? Or is it just that we believe his argument that he embraced childhood so completely that he became a perpetual child in our eyes – and children don’t commit child abuse?
The ultimate question with Michael Jackson is: at what point does he become responsible for his own actions as an adult? His unusual appearance, manner and, above all, his voice encouraged a public image of genuinely being a perpetual child. How could someone so innocent and kind-hearted want anything but the best for children? Why would he mistreat his own kind? Except when Michael Jackson died, he was a 50 year old man. He certainly experienced an unusual life and developed unusual perception because of it, but at what point does that cease to be an excuse due to adult responsibilities and awareness? With all such behaviour, there is a point at which an active choice is made for the first time to continue to pursue it in full awareness of the consequences. When was that point for Michael Jackson? It often seems that for the public, because he never truly grew up, that point never truly arrived.
- The child star: reclaiming childhood?
Michael Jackson was, more than anyone else, the perpetual child star – even aged 50. It’s easy to miss, primarily because he never really changed his voice, childlike attitude or even the childlike nature of his appearance. Due to plastic surgery, Michael Jackson’s skin when he died was just as smooth as when he was 17, showing none of the inevitable five decades of wear. He may have looked increasingly inhuman, but he never looked like an adult. Have we even considered that, as an adult man, he would have had facial hair? Jackson continued to move and dance like someone less than half his age. He always behaved as though his ultimate equals were not adults, but children, and that he was allowed this love of childhood on the idea that he never had one. This is compelling, romantic and compassionate – but is this true that this is a necessary or even normal response? Or is it just that he never had the positive childhood he idealised as an adult? How did his experiences when he was a child – because he was once truly a child – impact his psychological development?
Michael Jackson did, after all, spend the same amount of time as the rest of us with the physical development of a child and teenager; the same periods of impressionability and doing what adults wanted. He was a working child, but mentally and physically speaking he was a child, just as he later became an adult. A childhood can be seen in its external trappings – toys, free time, fun, playfulness, imagination – which could perhaps take place at other times in life, but it also has an unavoidable internal dimension in terms of a child’s cognitive and socio-emotional development. Michael Jackson had one of these, even if he did not necessarily have both. How did his childhood set up his socio-emotional norms for adult life? The most obvious responses are that his father’s childhood nickname of “big nose” led to a succession of nose jobs and plastic surgery, and suggestions that he developed a distrust of adults and an idealisation of children which wasn’t based on many real interactions with others his age. Jackson’s childhood may not have been the idealised one he designed as an adult, but it did set up his norms for how to view the world. How did this affect his choices and how does it compare to others who had a child star experience?
Where Michael Jackson did match the stereotype of a child star was that he was undoubtedly a troubled individual throughout his life. Subject to child abuse himself, he endured the pressures of lifelong fame, suffered serious burns during the filming of a 1984 Pepsi advert which resulted in painkiller dependence if not outright addiction and clearly suffered from severe body image problems, a situation not helped by his vitiligo, his father’s criticisms of his appearance or his perpetual life in the public eye. Famous from a young age, Michael Jackson was rarely if ever able to trust anybody around him, which will have had a distinct, lasting impact on his socio-emotional development. Whether or not this drove his idealisation of the innocence of childhood and regardless of whether this draws sympathy or pathology, there were clear indications that outside of his image as a kind-hearted, generous person who embraced the virtues and ideals of childhood, he suffered significant psychological damage. Part of why paedophilia seems so unlikely is the dissonance between the darkness of that stereotype with the idealised perpetual childhood of Michael Jackson. Does inclusion of these factors affect how we feel about these allegations?
The desire to reclaim childhood as a now-adult child star seems understandable and logical – perhaps even an inevitable response – until you remember that most other child stars do not take this route. It’s a romantic idea, but an unusual one. In fact, the experience of being a child star is remarkably common. Check out the career of many a famous actor or actress in their twenties or thirties and you’ll find that their first roles were almost universally in adverts or bit parts when they were five, although the degree of Jackson’s personal fame at that age is more infrequent. This is perhaps one of the biggest examples of “it’s different in Michael’s case”. The much more common direction taken by child stars as they enter adulthood is to try to leave behind the childhood which was imposed on them by others, usually by doing a very clearly adult project or, more recently, taking on ambassadorships or simply moving on in their career. It is hard to think of many other child stars who wanted to return to their childhood, rather than wanting to finally have control over their own lives as an adult.
Until recently, the fate of a child star seemed to be either burning out, simply leaving that career or undertaking an adult project. Lindsay Lohan, who began her career as a child model aged three, became a teen icon, took on more mature roles, then became a tabloid regular. A classic example of taking on a more adult role is Daniel Radcliffe’s performance in Equus, which required occasional nudity. Similar to this was Miley Cyrus’ video for Wrecking Ball. Zac Efron has gone from teen heartthrob to starring in Dirty Grandpa and a new Ted Bundy movie. Macaulay Culkin, who began acting in films at age four, sought a normal life as a teenager at a private high school and has famously struggled with depression and drug abuse as an adult. Culkin, who did experience similar levels of personal childhood fame, has never tried to reclaim his childhood in the way Michael Jackson did. Indeed, many of the child stars of this era seem to have had similarly diverse responses to adulthood as those outside the entertainment industry. The one common factor amongst all of them is they do it from the perspective of an adult. This was rarely the case for Michael Jackson.
In fact, an increasingly common response to being a child star is simply to be a self-aware, responsible and informed adult. Perhaps this is because of growing standards and awareness on mental health and child abuse, but stars like Kiernan Shipka (Sabrina Spellman), Ellen Page and Harry Potter actors including Emma Watson (now a UN ambassador) are all examples of people who have moved on healthily into adulthood – even taking on mature roles as ambassadors for human rights and social justice causes – without a need to rely on either an adult project or embracing a lost childhood. Elijah Wood, who became famous aged eight, has moved fairly straightforwardly into acting and producing as an adult. Indeed, Wood has highlighted the practising of organised paedophilia in Hollywood. Increasingly, child stars are using their fame as adults for good, as well as to direct their own lives.
This does not make Michael Jackson’s reaction to his childhood unreasonable, but it does strongly suggest that it is not a necessary or common one. The difference with Michael Jackson from all of these cases is that he chose to perpetuate his childhood into adulthood, making it a centrepiece of his career. More strikingly, it’s that he never really took an adult perspective, emphasising his emulation of childlike fun and imagination and embracing Peter Pan syndrome to the point of calling his isolated ranch “Neverland”. Did we take in details about Michael Jackson selectively? Did we know him as well as we thought? Was his response to a child star’s childhood as necessary, justifiable or inevitable as it seemed? Did his rejection of maturity ever become questionable or unhealthy? These are all important questions which arise from a child star comparison and must be answered when evaluating Michael Jackson’s embrace of childhood. It is, after all, effectively his moral and psychological alibi.
- Similar approaches to socially-sophisticated criminality: a unique appreciation of childhood?
Having put Michael Jackson’s childhood in context, we should now evaluate his behaviour as an adult. To what extent does the way Michael Jackson presented and conducted himself reflect other known cases of paedophiles or socially-sophisticated criminals? Here I think it’s best to point to an article published in the Independent by an expert on child sexual abuse, which addresses and explains these patterns in behaviour. The essence is that, although the abuse terminology, the morally monstrous nature of the act and the negative effect the abuse can have on survivors in adulthood can make it seem like the abuse would be obvious, the reality is that this is very much not the case. Particularly in the case of child sexual abuse, the grooming and trust often begins with the parents themselves: offers to babysit or praising and providing special support for their child. At some point, all parents need to identify others whom they can trust to be responsible for their child. This overwhelmingly positive effect on the family causes them to find it difficult to believe, as the public do in Michael Jackson’s case, that someone so wonderful could do something so awful.
Similarly, for the children who have no other experience of romantic or sexual attention or of how to judge their own attractiveness, this attention from the perpetrator is something they cannot evaluate for themselves as different from the norm. They experience the attention as love, not terror. Moreover, this is usually being expressed by an authority figure trusted by their parents. Children are taught to obey and believe trusted authority figures. In addition, their inability to judge their own attractiveness means that they take the abuser seriously when they say they are the only person who will ever see the child as attractive. Portrayals of the relationship as being secret friends play into childhood games and techniques used by other adults to control what children say more generally.
Michael Jackson was not the only adult to hold a sincere, deep-rooted idealisation of perpetual childhood or to surround himself so closely with children. Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie, whose fantastical Neverland was so popular with Jackson that it is associated with several Michael Jackson documentaries, also put himself in a position of trust in relation to children and their parents. He was closely associated enough with the Davies family to take guardianship of the children after their parents’ deaths by using his power as transcriber of their will to alter the name of the intended guardian. Writing at Refinery29, Mike Albo writes that:
‘In his biography J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys, Andrew Birkin stresses that, despite it all, he doesn’t believe Barrie was a sexual predator of children. Barrie, he says, was “a lover of childhood, but was not in any sexual sense the pedophile that some claim him to have been.” It’s a similar defence many provide for Michael Jackson: that his obsession with boys, deep-seated and obsessive as it was, had no physical aspect to it.’
In contrast to this, Albo quotes a letter written by Barrie on the eve of Michael Davies’ 8th birthday:
“I wish I could be with you and your candles. You can look on me as one of your candles, the one that burns badly — the greasy one that is bent in the middle. But still, hurray, I am Michael’s candle. I wish I could see you putting on the redskin’s clothes for the first time… Dear Michael, I am very fond of you, but don’t tell anybody.”
The birthday video recorded by Michael Jackson for Wade Robson, featured in Part 1 of Leaving Neverland, has a very similar feel, particularly in the intimate tone and expressions of fondness:
“Hello, Wade. Congratulations, little one. Today is your birthday. I don’t celebrate birthdays of course, but I thought I would take this moment to say congratulations on the day that you were born and in my opinion you should spend this day with your mother and your father who conceived you, and you should be giving them the presents, uh, and being thankful that they brought you into the world, and the future is yours and you can do whatever you want. Congratulations. I love you. Goodbye.”
Like Jackson, Barrie was never confirmed as a paedophile. These communications certainly don’t prove sexual activity, but they do suggest grooming behaviour. Both messages speak directly to the children, without regard for their parents as would normally be the case. Both suggest a specific, direct, personal connection with that child. Particularly in Barrie’s comment that “I am fond of you, but don’t tell anybody” and Jackson’s expression of “I love you” and his direct greeting of Wade. Nevertheless, the similarities between Jackson’s behaviour and style of speaking and that of Barrie are striking and pose significant questions.
Just as there are multiple approaches to other kinds of criminality, such as murder or theft, there are multiple approaches to paedophilia and child grooming. If you were to ask most British people today to name an example of a paedophile, particularly one who manipulated public opinion, they would say Jimmy Savile. Savile, who seems to have been significantly disturbed, was indeed confirmed to have abused underage children. Despite scattered rumours whilst he was alive, a full investigation emerged almost immediately following his death. This has largely been attributed to the BBC’s defense of a “national treasure” who had received both British and Papal knighthoods in 1990. However, his widespread abuse over many years comes from a very different mindset to those which seem to have been cultivated by Michael Jackson and J.M. Barrie. For Savile, his crimes appear significantly emotionless, more about quantity than quality and focused on a feeling of projecting anxiety and power. Hundreds of lines of enquiry were opened in the Savile investigation. His victims described feeling like objects and rarely experienced any period of grooming. His acts were often sudden, taking them unaware and putting them in a state of shock. This does not mean that people who do not take Savile’s approach do not count as paedophiles; just that one can be a successful paedophile without including a period of grooming. Savile took almost the opposite approach to Jackson and Barrie: instead of ultra-intense, overwhelming emotionality, there was an utter absence of emotional connection.
Where the two types are similar, however, is in their attitudes to the media: their abilities to consciously design their image so that they could be, simultaneously, both national treasures and paedophiles. Jimmy Savile, like Michael Jackson, surrounded himself with children very obviously, making a show of his supposed love for children. According to Mark Williams-Thomas, a former child protection officer who made the original ITV1 documentary on Savile’s abuse, “The classic examples are Top Of The Pops, Savile’s Travels, Jim’ll Fix It – all of them gave him access to young children. That’s why there were so many victims.” Media use of socially-sophisticated paedophilia can extend to grooming of adults: Michael Jackson called children’s parents personally to show interest in their lives and developed intensely strong connections with his audience; in Louis Theroux’s follow-up documentary, Louis Theroux: Savile, one victim asked whether Theroux felt groomed in the original 2000 film, When Louis met Jimmy. Indeed, the entire second film seems to exist for Theroux to ask that question of himself.
In an interview in that original documentary, Savile denied allegations of paedophilia. When asked why, despite hosting a children’s show, he hated youngsters so much, Savile replied:
“We live in a very funny world and it’s easier for me as a single man to say I don’t like children because that puts a lot of salacious tabloid people off the hunt.”
This attitude is significantly reminiscent of Barrie’s caution of “don’t tell anybody” and of the aim of the alternative technique of child grooming more generally: to prevent the connection being made that abuse is likely to have occurred. Paedophiles and socially-savvy criminals more generally seem unlikely suspects because they design themselves to seem unlikely. Where Jimmy Savile minimised any emotional connection with his victims and claimed to dislike children to put people off, grooming-based abusers build a bond of secrecy with the child and then use that against them so that the child will deny that abuse – to the extent they even understand it – ever occurred. Grooming-based abusers give the impression that they care for children so much that they couldn’t possibly ever hurt them. Savile took the opposite approach: he gave the impression of disliking children so much that he wouldn’t be associated with them personally.
Small children, having no other experience of sexual or romantic relationships, are highly susceptible to learning these rules from groomers. Wade Robson and James Safechuck have said that Michael Jackson told them “this is how we show our love”, setting his teachings as their norms. In other cases of paedophilia, offenders have warned their victims that nobody else will ever find them attractive. This implies both that being found attractive is important, and that they will never find that outside their relationship with the offender. Due to the formative timing of the offence, this approach is often highly effective. As children, we are taught to learn from and believe trusted authority figures. We are, consequently, highly susceptible to such conditioning. In interviews in Leaving Neverland, both Wade Robson and James Safechuck recall being strongly cautioned that if their acts with Michael Jackson were discovered, both them and him would go to jail. According to their accounts, Jackson used the strength of their connection against them, warning that if they told on him, they would never see him again. For Wade Robson in particular, who built his childhood dance career on highly proficient Michael Jackson dance impersonations, this was a terrifying prospect.
Beyond paedophilia and child grooming, other cases of comparable crimes pose similar difficulties in identifying the perpetrator due to their social standing. Perhaps the best example is that of organised serial killers. Whilst not all serial killers behave in this way, some have been known to hide their behaviour by becoming trusted authority figures in their community, often with wives and families. In the case of Dennis Rader, the BTK Strangler, he married Paula Dietz on May 22, 1971, and they had two children. He was a war veteran and gained an associate degree in electronics and a bachelor’s degree in the administration of justice. Rader was a cub scout leader and a member of Christ Lutheran Church, where he had been elected president of the church council. Similarly, in 2018 Joseph James DeAngelo was convicted as the East Area Rapist / Golden State Killer, active between 1974 and 1986. He was a police officer and family man, married for eighteen years from 1973 to 1991, with three daughters. DeAngelo was also a Vietnam war veteran and held a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. Similar to the media usage of Jackson and Savile, these offenders designed their image to make criminality an unlikely conclusion.
These cases of socially-sophisticated, organised serial killers are slightly different from cases of media-savvy paedophiles, but they do have two key similarities: first, that they take action to convince members of the community that they are an upstanding citizen who can be relied upon, indeed placed in positions of trust; second, that they are not clearly identifiable, by their characteristics, as the classic image of a monstrous killer or criminal and tick all the boxes for an educated family man. Furthermore, in terms of their developmental background, it is common in cases of serial killers for us to note the psychological progress through which the perpetrator formed an unusual perspective on their social world. Paedophiles also often have a pattern of development which ultimately culminates in their adult behaviour. Whilst this progression has its own internal logic, this does not excuse their behaviour in the eyes of society or the law.
Why does an unusual background of child abuse and altered perspective achieve this with Michael Jackson? Why are his uses of the media or direct child grooming to dissuade allegations of child abuse different from those of Jimmy Savile, or the use of marriage, family and community by Dennis Rader and Joseph DeAngelo? Why are his approaches to child grooming different from J.M. Barrie? These are all questions we should have answers to in assessing whether Michael truly was different.
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As is unfortunately the case in many sexual assault cases, only Michael Jackson, his accusers and those otherwise involved know the ultimate truth. As is also the case in these cases, this difficulty does not mean that we should not try – it means we should try harder. The very reason why child sexual abuse, child seduction and child grooming are so devastating is not because of the physicality of the acts themselves, which although profoundly abhorrent have short-term consequences. It’s because of the lasting psychological trauma and structural changes resulting from those acts: the child’s perception of the reasoning for them, what their relationship with that trusted adult means for their social place in the world and the inability of the child to properly understand and evaluate their emotions and reactions. The formative timing of this abuse is what makes its effects so permanent and long-lasting.
It’s the sense that something is wrong and you can’t explain why, the naive, overwhelming feeling of love and the terror of being found out which are baked into your formative psychological development to the point where you can’t even identify them because they are your norms. For Wade Robson and James Safechuck, that they were only able to fully form a new perspective on their experiences when they were parents of their own seven year old children makes sense, because it was only then that they had the direct opportunity to re-engage with that combination of child and adult; to compare their feelings and behaviour towards that child with that of Michael Jackson’s and to understand the consequences for a child’s socio-psychological development. The biggest consequence of child sexual abuse is that it takes place in such a formative period that it can form the basis of someone’s psyche for their entire lives. We should not let the additional difficulties that brings, the deep-rooted nature of the problem and how much longer it takes to see the situation clearly, get in the way of bringing those who do undertake such grooming and abuse to justice.
We must do our best with the available evidence. This means comparing the behaviour of Michael Jackson and his accusers against those of similar individuals and giving proper consideration to the strongly compelling circumstantial evidence; it means doing our due diligence to ask the hard questions of ourselves and how we function fundamentally as people; it means understanding the often complex psychological fallout of this type of abuse; it means, in Michael’s case but also in others involving trusted community members, recognising that these people can be both good and bad, and that sometimes the unique qualities, formative background and perception which lead to those good qualities can have negative consequences as well. Michael Jackson the beloved, world-changing pop star and Michael Jackson the child sexual abuser do not, as we have seen, have to be distinct people. Being one does not prevent him from also being the other; in fact, the skill sets of performance, playfulness and emotional intelligence, supported by his money, power and our unwavering belief in him, may have made it easier. It’s very easy to see the world in a good / bad dichotomy; it takes bravery to reconcile both in one person.
In Michael Jackson’s case and that of his accusers, once his star power is put to one side, there are significant questions to be asked. Perhaps above all else, we need to ask whether his situation was as unique as it seemed and where the threshold of responsibility comes for a figure like him. For his accusers, we need to see whether we can identify evidence in other ways, such as indications of lingering, damaging psychological fallout. We need to ask whether their psychological states and perhaps career and social progress today correlate with others who have suffered child sexual abuse who have now reached this stage of life. Having considered Michael Jackson and his accusers in the context of others in similar situations, we have a duty to see whether we can come to a more informed, accurate conclusion about both sides and to see what we can learn from this situation about ourselves and where our boundaries lie. Having broken down some of the boundaries between our own contradictory opinions, where will we choose to set the norms on how to judge appropriate behaviour around children and more accurately identifying these people within our communities?
Too often, our ability to ask hard questions of others in our social sphere relies on our ability to ask hard questions of ourselves. As ever, the issue with deciding sexual assault and abuse of any kind is that the evidence is rarely more than circumstantial. Often, the best we can do is confirm that those two people were in a room together. We then have to use our best judgement to identify whether the abuse is the most likely outcome of an interaction between the people involved and to identify who to believe: the accused, or the accuser. Such an estimation must always come down to what we think of those people and, inevitably, how that reflects on ourselves and those around us. Judging cases of abuse, therefore, relies on our fundamental beliefs about the rules, limitations and tendencies of human nature. Only when we are able to reflect honestly on the capabilities of people and what a human can be will we be able to honestly and frankly assess these difficult, complex and delicate social conundrums in the cold light of day.
Global Retrospective 
