This was a little while ago, but in mid-June, around the time the movie was released in Japan, I finally watched the Michael Jackson film.
It had already opened in the United States at the end of April. A friend of mine saw it in the theater and told me,
“It was so good. You absolutely have to see it!”
Still, I never quite managed to go.
Eventually, my daughter said she wanted to watch it at home, so we rented it on Amazon Prime Video.
That actually worked well for me because I find English-language movies much easier to follow when I can turn on English subtitles.
When I was younger, I was never the kind of intensely devoted Michael Jackson fan who followed everything he did.
Even so, I always felt that he existed far beyond the category of an ordinary popular singer.
It was not simply that he could sing or dance exceptionally well. His entire presence felt like a finished work of art.
The clothes, the gestures, the voice, the way he stood onstage—everything came together to create the complete artistic creation known as “Michael Jackson.”
I was in a dance club when I was young, and I remember performing to several of his songs.
I also went to see him at Tokyo Dome with a few members of that dance club.
It was the 1992 Dangerous World Tour.
When I looked it up again, I realized the concert was in December. It is slightly alarming to think about how long ago that was.
We attended the first show.
Michael appeared from the back of the audience using a jetpack.
Later, I heard that the stunt had not been properly authorized and was removed from the following shows.
I have no idea whether that story is actually true.
There are so many myths and urban legends surrounding Michael Jackson that it is difficult to know what to believe.
What I do know is that I was there, and I saw him flying through the stadium.
He was incredibly cool.
I was not even a die-hard fan, but during the concert I suddenly felt as though an enormous amount of love was radiating from him.
I remember thinking,
“Marry me!”
Yes, really.
Looking back, I had clearly fallen under the spell of the performance.
But perhaps that is exactly what makes someone a true superstar.
He did not only captivate his established fans. He could pull in people who had arrived with only casual interest and completely win them over within minutes.
That level of charisma cannot be explained by talent and hard work alone.
There was something almost supernatural about it.
As for the movie, the young actor who played Michael as a child was excellent.
At the same time, many parts were painful to watch.
Michael spent nearly his entire childhood practicing, performing, and working like an adult.
It was not a simple story about a gifted child becoming successful.
At times, it felt as though one child’s entire life had been consumed in order to build the success of a whole family.
The scenes involving his father and the belt were especially disturbing.
Can we really dismiss that by saying, “That was just how things were back then”?
Because Michael eventually became one of the biggest stars in the world, the story is often framed as a harsh but necessary path to success.
But had he not succeeded, would his father simply have been remembered as a man who subjected his children to extreme treatment?
It also reminded me of something from my own childhood.
My brother used to snap a belt in the air as a joke.
He never hit me with it, of course.
Still, belts being used to frighten children seemed strangely common in older movies and television shows.
Looking back now, even the sound itself was intimidating.
Michael and his brothers became stars almost overnight.
On the surface, it was a dazzling success story.
Underneath it, however, there was something unsettling about watching an entire family grow larger and more powerful around Michael’s talent.
Because the movie was developed with involvement from his family, it naturally presents the story from their perspective.
It includes many private details, and there were several things I had never known before.
The film was certainly compelling.
I was relieved to see that Michael had someone like Bill, a man who seemed to become a second father figure to him.
With so many adults surrounding such a talented child, how many were truly thinking about Michael as a person?
Children with extraordinary talent are not always protected by the adults around them.
Sometimes they are simply used.
Later in Michael’s life, countless stories were written and broadcast about him.
Some may have been true. Some may have been exaggerated. Others may have been completely invented.
What does seem clear is that the media repeatedly focused on the strangest parts of his life and invited the public to treat him as entertainment.
His skin, his face, his voice, his home, his behavior—everything became material for public consumption.
He was often treated less like a human being and more like a spectacle.
At the time, famous television interviews were presented as though they were revealing how strange Michael Jackson truly was. and she was the most suspicious one (operah)
Looking back now, I wonder whether the interviewers and producers were also shaping the story in deliberately unkind ways.
There is something disturbing about people presenting themselves as seekers of truth while turning someone else’s life into a profitable product.
The entertainment industry and the media have their own darkness.
But once the public decides that a person is strange, almost any story about them becomes believable.
Meanwhile, their own explanations are no longer trusted.
That is frightening.
Michael reportedly kept giraffes, snakes, chimpanzees, and other animals.
By ordinary standards, it was certainly an unusual life.
But perhaps it was unreasonable to expect an ordinary adult to emerge from someone who never had an ordinary childhood, ordinary schooling, ordinary friendships, or ordinary freedom.
Whenever I used to drive through Malibu, someone would point to a large, castle-like house and say,
“That is supposed to be Michael Jackson’s house.”
I never found out whether it truly belonged to him.
With Michael, even the houses associated with him seemed to become part of the legend.
Watching this movie made me think that Michael Jackson was not only a man who achieved spectacular success.
He may also have been a man whose life was consumed by his own talent.
He was loved by millions, yet he often appeared profoundly lonely.
Did the people around him protect him, or did they use him?
Most likely, they did both.
He left behind unforgettable songs, dances, performances, and endless stories before becoming a star in the sky himself.
While watching the movie, I kept remembering the image of him flying into Tokyo Dome in 1992.
In that moment, he looked impossibly beautiful, powerful, and free.
Whether he was truly free in his actual life, I do not know.
Still, Michael Jackson was undeniably a real superstar.