On Not Believing<em> Leaving Neverland</em>
When Leaving Neverland premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, it was greeted with trepidation, fanfare, and also bomb-sniffing dogs. The festival’s organizers were worried that fans of Michael Jackson—not the people who had posters of him in their room growing up, or those who have warm memories of dancing to “Smooth Criminal” at their cousin’s wedding, but those who feel personally protective of Jackson’s legacy—would reject physically what they had already rejected epistemically: the director Dan Reed’s four-hour-long documentary telling the stories of Jimmy Safechuck and Wade Robson, both of whom have accused Jackson of molesting them when they were boys.
The precautions of Park City were overreactions, it would turn out, but they neatly presaged what would take place on Sunday evening, as the first installment of aired on HBO: The emerged, this time in ethereal form. The hashtag trended on Twitter. Jackson’s estate—which has steadfastly the men’s allegations, and which has for $100 million for airing the documentary— of Jackson in concert. The footage, a vaguely grainy reminder of Jackson the performer at his most dynamic and compelling and ingenious, is, in all, two hours long, the of ’s first episode. The estate’s implication is clear: Michael Jackson was a superstar, and superstardom is its own defense.
