Michael Jackson's legacy is fighting for survival as we speak. Damning allegations of improper sexual relations with children threaten to take down the most powerful cultural icon yet.
Radio stations are expunging Michael Jackson content from their libraries. The Simpsons have pulled an episode from future re-airings because it featured Michael Jackson's voice.
Is it no longer acceptable to eat the sausage once we learned what had gone into it?
This kind of thing has been going on for a long time, but has drawn a lot of attention because of the sheer magnitude of the creative identities getting caught up. I grew up liking The Cosby Show, but after Bill Cosby's rape conviction , I'm not comfortable supporting the show anymore.
Then of course there's Harvey Weinstein, and Kevin Spacey, and recently I just learned of Pixar co-founder John Lasseter leaving Disney after being stood down for sexual harassment and after being parachuted into Skydance to head its animation division. This triggered actor Emma Thompson's resignation from a Skydance production which she explains in an open letter.
As much as I agree with Thompson's views on how it's hard to award trust back to people who have been perpetrators, I feel that is a concern for today and how we as a society conduct ourselves in the future. However, I'm troubled with re-examining or re-evaluating past achievements under the glare of the #metoo floodlights.
For years we have been enjoying Michael Jackson songs, videos, and performances. This have gone on and arguably influenced thousands of other artists and significantly, our popular culture. Same goes for those Weinstein and Pixar movies.
After we have been enjoying eating the delicious sausages for decades, we find that the sausage makers hands are dirty. Are those sausages now impossible to enjoy?
What about if the sausage makers promised to wash their hands for all future sausages? do we give them a chance and taste the new sausages?
For me personally, I think that everyone deserves a chance to reform, but reform must be accompanied by justice. Justice means to correct the wrongs that have been committed, and especially if it's really not possible to roll back the clock, then there must be a reasonable period of contrition and penance.
I believe that the works of individuals, -and all of us are flawed, should not be discarded. No one man has created those pop songs and movies. Hundreds and thousands of innocent creators, musicians, producers, performers and technicians have poured their labour and talents into those projects and do not deserve to lose their work because their boss was a dick.
Michael Jackson's legacy should be judged separately from his human failings. I should still be able to enjoy Toy Story and appreciate all the artists and workers who put it together even if their work environment at the time was a cesspit of sexism and misogyny.
It may take time, maybe for now we are just too close to the trauma. Beyond close, we are still living in it and working to heal the hurt. We are working to change things so that everyone accepts that abuse of women and children is not okay particularly if we hold a position of power.
Perhaps in a hundred year's time, future generations will rediscover all these cultural artifacts that we are trying to disown today. Perhaps by then, people would look back at our time and think to themselves, "Those times were terrible for women and children, I'm so glad we are no longer like that. Yet they still managed to make great music and movies."
