On the talk show, After Neverland , which followed a screening of Dan Reed’s documentary, Leaving Neverland , for an audience of child abuse survivors, host Oprah Winfrey said that ‘this moment transcends Michael Jackson’.
You can always trust Oprah to hit the nail on the head. The documentary — which left the 100-odd audience members on the talk show (as well as millions who have watched it since its première) numb and shocked with disbelief — is an account of Wade Robson and James Safechuck, two 30-something men who relive the trauma of being sexually assaulted by Michael Jackson when they were kids.
But as Oprah rightly said, the documentary isn’t really about Jackson at all. In fact, Reed made no effort to even get the other side of the story — what Jackson’s inner circle feels about the allegations is immaterial, he believes. It’s something that has set social media on fire since the documentary landed, with Jackson supporters rallying together to question the veracity of the two men’s accounts, which according to them, are ‘one-sided’. Die-hard fans are upset that the music icon can’t defend himself from ‘beyond the grave’.
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Whichever side of the argument you may support,
Laudably, the documentary never falls prey to sensationalism. At a time when true crime documentaries are a rage, Reed stays away from all the obvious tropes of contemporary non-fiction filmmaking. The use of photographs and video footage is only to establish Jackson’s relationship with the two boys, the background score remains effectively solemn throughout, and there’s no dramatisation of events. Reed and his team were always walking on thin ice, not only because they were taking on one of the biggest superstars the world has ever seen, but also needed to be mindful of how they communicate details of the abuse, and they do so with remarkable sensitivity.
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Whether Jackson’s legacy will be destroyed as the discourse against survivors and abuse picks up steam remains to be seen. But as Oprah so succinctly put it, Leaving Neverland isn’t about one man; instead it blows the lid off child abuse in a way few films have in the past. Mandatory viewing.
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