LEAVING NEVERLAND (1 Viewer)

[cinemiracle]

I watched the tv documentary called LEAVING NEVERLAND It ran for about 3 hours and 50min. without any ads.It was much shorter than when shown on local TV (about 30 min.). I found it extremely hard to believe any of the accusations made against Michael Jackson. If Michael was said to have been abused by his father then he would have suffered a great deal as a result and would never do such a thing to someone else. He was probably unloved as a child and that is why he liked children so much. Nothing about that or his alleged abuse from his father ,were mentioned in the one-sided documentary. Why also did one person said to have been abused, still keep all the jewellery given to him by Michael as well as numerous photos and videos ? Why would he have wanted to be reminded of such an ordeal ,every time he looked at them? Why also did one alleged victim still say that he loved Michael ? It's been 10 years since Michael's death so why wait until now to make a claim of the alleged abuses? I guess it is the money that they were paid to be involved in the documentary.Money speaks louder than truth. For one person to have been abused from the age of 7 until he was 14,is truly unbelievable.

Whilst sexual abuse of children is truly an abomination of the worst kind, it is probably far more common for gay children to go looking for sex with an adult than people care to believe. Many children know that they have an attraction to the same sex when they are at an early age ( even less than 5 years old).I know of someone like this and who knew where to find gay sex before he was even a teenager (that was back in the 1950's). He had his first boyfriend when he was only 11 years old.His lover was a teenager and their secret affair lasted for several years.

Maybe the makers of LEAVING NEVERLAND should make a documentary about the real truth about Michael Jackson and not just some sensationalised and one-sided piece of garbage that had no proof in any of the claims made.I don't know of anyone who saw the documentary,who actually believed any of the alleged abuses by Michael.

 

[Simon Massey]

I thought about answering when I read your first paragraph about how you completely missed the point the documentary was trying to make about how some victims of child sexual abuse deal with it...and then I read the rest.

Seriously, WTF ???

And by the way I saw it and I do believe them. Or I certainly believe it’s more likely than not since we can never truly know.

 

[Simon Massey]

I’m sorry but I don’t know if your trolling but now I have reread this, your whole post is utterly enraging and you need to do some actual research about the trauma of child sexual abuse before posting things like this.

Even if the entire allegations were false which is highly unlikely, the fucked up way that this kind of abuse affects people is not!!!

 

[Simon Massey]

And please stop trying to imply some link between homosexuality and pedophilia.

 

[SamT]

I saw this last week and thought it was an incredible and important documentary. Highly recommended.

For further reading read 10 Undeniable Facts. There has been facts not since yesterday but since more than 20 years ago.
4. Michael Jackson suffered from the skin discoloration disease vitiligo. Jordie Chandler drew a picture of the markings ....

And some reviews from the Collider crew:

 

[Simon Massey]

It’s a shame that Michael Jackson’s guilt or innocence is relevant. Using him to frame the documentary gives it incredible reach in terms of impact but it also means some people will miss or ignore the important points of the film

1. Every parent should see it to understand how misguided you can be in assuming your children would tell you or even know if something was wrong.

2. Every survivor ( if they can watch it ) may benefit from understanding they are not alone and that the way they process it is not wrong or their fault.

3. If nothing else it illuminates the enormous power of celebrity and money and how EVERYONE can ignore allegations no matter how many there are. We ALL suspected or thought it possible at the time but his music was too good, his persona too huge that it couldn’t possibly be true... I both loathe and feel sorry for the two mothers in this

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

The accounts in the documentary were entirely believable. If you followed the previous lawsuits during the 90s, don't forget that one accuser settled out of court for $22 million. The father was a money grabber who should have let the case go to trial so the truth could come out and exonerate his son as well as potential other victims, but the payoff alone signaled the Jackson team wanted nothing to do with that potential truth coming out.

And for those who keep claiming Jackson was some innocent, non-sexual being, take another look at his concert performances which include excessive sexually suggestive behavior, including crotch grabbing, thrusting, dry-humping, etc. This is NOT a non-sexual or sexually clueless being.

 

[MartinP.]

My reaction to Michael Jackson even before he became a superstar was always that I thought he was strange. Weird. So I never really became a true fan of his music when he became a bonafide superstar, though I liked it, because there was always this weird vibe I got from him. It made it hard to embrace him and/or his talents.

Many years ago Law & Order: SVU did an episode featuring a character who was a hugely adored TV show performer loved by children and admired by adults. This episode used all of the then current hoopla around Michael Jackson as the basis for the facts against this character in the episode and it all was so obvious in this case that you couldn't see how anyone could think otherwise. But against Michael Jackson all reason seems largely to have gone out the window.

What I never could understand is that, even if you didn't believe for a second the accusations around him, that no one at least thought a lot of his behavior was distinctly weird. Not just in terms of his relationships with other people, but his interests as well. There was always an excuse for him.

I watched the documentary and there's a lot in it that is even weirder than I'd known. If anyone watching doesn't raise their eyebrows at certain times and think "What kind of person does this?" I don't see how anyone who sees this could not believe the truth of the matter. But there are millions of people who are blind and can't see the truth behind the current occupant of the White House, either.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I think Simon called out the most important things about the documentary, particularly this:

1. Every parent should see it to understand how misguided you can be in assuming your children would tell you or even know if something was wrong.

Between the documentary itself and the hour-long Oprah special that followed it on HBO, the part that really impacted me was when Oprah put voice to something that I hadn't been able to express properly myself - that children who are forced to go through experiences like this don't have the vocabulary, much less the emotional and intellectual awareness, to actually identify and express what they've been through. That's part of why the grooming is so insidious, because it works around and defeats any protections that parents would have instilled in their children.

As I was watching the documentary and seeing it describe the process of how predators groom children and their families, I couldn't help but feel that in some way, we were all being groomed by versions of the same tactics that were just being used on a much larger scale to the world at large. Just take only the behavior that Jackson himself admitted to openly and freely, and imagine someone else admitting to the same, and imagine what your response might be. Think about how you'd react if anyone else told you that they routinely liked to share their bed with ten year old children, and that the parents were not allowed to present. Jackson groomed the world to ignore the alarm bells that such a statement would ring with anyone else.

 

[MartinP.]

Think about how you'd react if anyone else told you that they routinely liked to share their bed with ten year old children, and that the parents were not allowed to be present. Jackson groomed the world to ignore the alarm bells that such a statement would ring with anyone else.

This is what I was trying to get across when I mentioned the Law & Order: SVU episode in my post. In the episode it seemed so obvious as to what was happening.

I didn't know about the HBO Oprah program. Oprah once also said on her show that one of the things about molestation is that despite it being molestation, it often feels good, and there's that great conflict in children about something being bad that also feels good, which goes to the quote you picked out from Simon.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

P.S.: In the quote I believe you meant "to ignore the alarm bells".

Thanks! Fixed!

 

[Patrick_S]

...If Michael was said to have been abused by his father then he would have suffered a great deal as a result and would never do such a thing to someone else...

I stopped reading your post after this line because you clearly have no clue what you are talking about. It is a fact that an abused child is statistically more likely to become an abuser themselves.

As for Jackson, he was a monster that abused children, the world is a better place without him.

 

[RobertR]

take only the behavior that Jackson himself admitted to openly and freely, and imagine someone else admitting to the same, and imagine what your response might be. Think about how you'd react if anyone else told you that they routinely liked to share their bed with ten year old children, and that the parents were not allowed to present. Jackson groomed the world to ignore the alarm bells that such a statement would ring with anyone else.

Agreed. Jackson admitted ON CAMERA that young boys shared his bed. Can anyone imagine any sane parent thinking it would be OK to do that with some guy in the neighborhood? Yet so many people give Jackson a pass because he was a celebrity. I just shake my head.

 

[John Dirk]

I watched the tv documentary called LEAVING NEVERLAND It ran for about 3 hours and 50min. without any ads.It was much shorter than when shown on local TV (about 30 min.). I found it extremely hard to believe any of the accusations made against Michael Jackson.

I'll just say this. We are all [humans] too quick to judge in today's world of media saturation. The absolute truth is simply, "we don't know." When one is inclined in a certain direction they tend to sway that way, even after disputable facts are presented.

Put simply. I don't have the answers but neither do you.

 

[RobertR]

I'll just say this. We are all [humans] too quick to judge in today's world of media saturation. The absolute truth is simply, "we don't know." When one is inclined in a certain direction they tend to sway that way, even after disputable facts are presented.

Put simply. I don't have the answers but neither do you.

Coming to a reasonable conclusion based on known facts does not require omniscience, or anything resembling it.

 

[John Dirk]

Coming to a reasonable conclusion based on known facts does not require omniscience, or anything resembling it.

I respect your perspective and did not mean to challenge it. My comment, however, was intended for @cinemiracle .

 

[John Dirk]

Just take only the behavior that Jackson himself admitted to openly and freely, and imagine someone else admitting to the same, and imagine what your response might be.

That's an excellent point. I hadn't thought of it that way in the past.

 

[Simon Massey]

Streisand’s recent comments just go to show that for many, child sexual abuse is violent, painful and the kind of thing that happens when someone is kidnapped or a parent is obviously hurting them. They cannot wrap their heads around the idea that a child doesn’t do anything about it at the time because many don’t necessarily suffer any violence or pain and someone they trust is telling them it’s ok - someone who in all likelihood is good to them in all other ways except this - and it’s only later that they will come to realise what has actually happened to them. It’s enormous psychological damage we are talking about here.

Anyway I hope the film will bring some comfort to the victims in that there are at least many who believe them and that it is at least making some think about how abuse can happen.