There’s a photo of me I’m almost certain was taken on my 8th birthday; I’m in PJs and cheesing a huge smile as I hold up the gift I was most excited for that year: Michael Jackson’s two-disc compilation album HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book 1. This would’ve been early 1996, when MJ’s star was on the wane thanks to a few factors: the 1993 lawsuit against him alleging child sex abuse (accusations he always denied); his strange and idiosyncratic behaviors and evolving appearance; the shifting pop music landscape. I was too young to be fully aware of any of those things, though I did understand that it was not “cool” to be an MJ fan — he was frequently the butt of my schoolmates’ jokes, who’d certainly overheard adults on TV and elsewhere making those same jabs at his expense.
Years later, however, when Jackson died in 2009, the world collectively mourned him and he was once again held up as a musical genius and a beloved icon. It was as if his legacy was rehabilitated. But then, a decade after that, HBO’s damning documentary Leaving Neverland arrived when the #MeToo era still had some cultural juice, and yet again the star’s brand was called into question. Today, Jackson’s back on the upswing, or so it seems. Michael, a new estate-approved biopic trotting out the well-known (and heavily sanitized) version of the Jackson lore opens this weekend, and is on track to be a huge blockbuster.
So what is up with MJ’s legacy? I’ve been wondering this while rubbing my neck, sore from all the whiplash. I attempted to get at some answers in a special Pop Culture Happy Hour episode looking back on how music videos and previous screen dramatizations helped shape his ever-evolving narrative. It seems like every few years Jackson’s appeal dims a little or reanimates fiercely, based on where the culture’s at or what the robust estate has planned. Michael is only the latest chapter in the ebb and flow of how the artist is remembered. — Aisha Harris
