The release of the harrowing HBO documentary Leaving Neverland has sparked an ongoing public conversation about Michael Jackson, and how individuals, and the culture at large, is responding to James Safechuck and Wade Robson’s accusations that the superstar molested them for years when they were children. As Wesley Morris wrote, “If we believe the accusers (and I believe Wade and James), what do we do with the art? With Jackson, what can we do?”
It’s a question that thinkpiece writers around the country have been wrestling with in recent weeks—just yesterday, The Atlantic’s Caitlin Flanagan argued for the importance of Jackson’s musical gifts, saying, “Art isn’t something mere; it doesn’t exist as the moral bona fides of the person who made it.” And then there’s the more practical matter of how one avoids music, particularly music that is as omnipresent as the air we breath: “It’s easier not to go to a movie than to shut out all of the great Motown stuff [Jackson] was associated with,” Vanity Fair reporter Maureen Orth said in an interview with The Ringer.
And it’s true that Jackson’s music is so ubiquitous, it goes beyond sonic wallpaper—he’s influenced multiple generations of musicians, who have either tried to mimic his sound (like Justin Timberlake) or literally sampled his songs (like Kanye West). Even Robson said this week he isn’t sure whether individuals should stop listening to songs, saying, “If I have any hope it’s just that we’re questioning who we’re worshipping and why.”
But while it may be up to each individual to decide whether or not to continue listening to him in private, there is also the matter of what happens in public spaces. Do restaurants and bars continue to play “PYT” in the background? Do DJs at clubs and weddings still break-out “Billie Jean” to get people on the dance floor? As Slate’s Carl Wilson noted, “Music often invades our ears in public, uninvited. In the near future, Jackson’s songs shouldn’t be played on the radio or in any other way that might cause people who’ve been abused to encounter his music against their will.”
And should we still have “Thriller” flashmobs during the Halloween Parade? What about the MJ jukebox musical that is still scheduled to come to Broadway in 2020? And what of the vast number of artwork and tributes scattered across the globe—specifically, what about the giant mural of Jackson’s face in the East Village?
(Scott Lynch/Gothamist)
That striking mural of Jackson, which depicts Jackson as both the young boy who fronted the Jackson 5 and the adult who radically altered his face with plastic surgery, has been located on 11th Street and First Avenue since last July. Street artist Eduardo Kobra was asked by Time Out New York whether he thought the mural should be taken down in light of the documentary. Here’s why he doesn’t want to take it down despite the accusations:
I decided to keep the mural on, for a few reasons:
First, because the mural itself is not a simple tribute to MJ. My entire idea was to show the transformations he went through during his entire life: from black to white, kid to adult, from natural to unnatural. The whole project that I did in NYC last year was about peace, and in that mural in particular I was trying to describe that people sometimes have to go through so much to be able to reach their own peace of mind.. and even then, sometimes doesn’t matter what people do, they can never reach that peace.
In the second place, I believe MJ is part of American History, and also part of the world’s music history. You can catalog music Before and After MJ, so much was his influence. He still is the biggest pop star that has ever lived, and that we have ever seen, and I believe we are never going to see another pop star like him again. Therefore, we can’t just erase him from history. These new allegations can be true or not. It is not up to me to judge if MJ is guilty or not—and now, since he is dead, he won’t be judged by justice anymore. So I really hope that mural can do it’s [sic] part and bring us to think about it all and how we, as persons and as a community, will deal with this new fact concerning MJ’s life. Hopefully this discussion leads us all to the desire to be a better person everyday.
Kobra views his mural in a larger context about identity, but the historical angle is a slippery slope. Jackson wouldn’t be erased from history if we took down a mural or stopped effusively praising him in public monuments and displays, any more than Christopher Columbus would be erased from history if we stopped celebrating him with an extra day off in October. And it isn’t like Jackson’s music, his most enduring legacy, seems to be going anywhere right now—his songs are still on streaming services, with radio play only down slightly.
O.J. Simpson’s likeness in the old Potrero Hill mural was just slowly defaced until it eventually disappeared. I seem to recall devil horns; it was interesting. This was, of course, before people made insanely large, hideous murals for people to Instagram. https://t.co/9olAbKuqqu
— willy 💧♍ (@willystaley) March 21, 2019
By leaving the mural up, is NYC celebrating a man accused (but not convicted of) heinous crimes? Or can the mural be seen strictly as a celebration of the artist, not the man? This is a debate that is bound to come up again when/if Spike Lee decides to throw his annual celebration of all things MJ with his Michael Jackson Block Party this summer, as he has for the previous eight years.
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