0065 | April 1, 2019

Michael Jackson:
Predator, Performer, King of Pop

Even though he died in 2009 Michael Jackson is still the most famous person in the world. With the release of Leaving Neverland his legacy has been once again called into question. Why is his life and art so meaningful to us? Join us as we try to unravel this history.

C.T. WEBB: 00:19	[music] Good afternoon, good morning, or good evening and welcome to The American Age podcast. This is C. Travis Webb, editor of The American Age, and I am speaking to you from Southern California.
S. RODNEY: 00:28	And I’m Seph Rodney. I am an editor at Hyperallergic and part of the part-time faculty at Parsons at the new school, and I’m speaking to you from the South Bronx.
S. FULLWOOD: 00:40	And finally, I’m Steven G. Fullwood. I’m one of the co-founders of the Nomadic Archivists Project, and I am speaking to you from Harlem. It’s quite beautiful here and I can’t wait to get back out and run around the city [laughter].
S. RODNEY: 00:55	Nice one.
C.T. WEBB: 00:55	This is to remind our listeners that we practice a form of what we like to call intellectual intimacy, which is giving each other the space and time to figure out things out loud and together. Last series of podcasts was on white supremacy, which we re-named white misanthropy, and we’re going to talk today and for the next few weeks, until we decide to transition, about Michael Jackson, the King of Pop. So there’s obviously–
S. FULLWOOD: 01:25	Goddam [laughter].
S. RODNEY: 01:30	[inaudible] [laughter]. This is Jackson, baby [laughter].
C.T. WEBB: 01:31	–he’s very much– even though now deceased several years, he’s still very much in the news because of a recent HBO documentary, Finding Neverland? Is that what it is?
S. RODNEY: 01:45	I think it’s Leaving– isn’t it Leaving [crosstalk]–?
S. RODNEY: 01:46	Leaving.
S. FULLWOOD: 01:47	Oh, wow.
C.T. WEBB: 01:47	Thank you. Leaving Neverland.
S. FULLWOOD: 01:49	Wow. Uh-huh.
S. RODNEY: 01:51	Because you want to get the fuck out [laughter].
S. FULLWOOD: 01:53	But do you ever leave Neverland? We’re going to discuss that.
C.T. WEBB: 01:55	Barbra Streisand thought it wasn’t so bad for them, so [crosstalk]–
S. RODNEY: 02:00	Oh, my God.
C.T. WEBB: 02:00	–if you guys heard this, but–
S. RODNEY: 02:02	What is it with people not thinking before they say things publicly? Honestly, and she should be smarter. I mean, honestly, you are going to say to a wide audience, “They were thrilled to see him and spend time with him, and it wasn’t so bad for them”? Let me just say this out loud, because– and I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this and I don’t want to hijack it, but I do want to let listeners know that I was molested as a child, okay? I went through that. So part of me is–
C.T. WEBB: 02:37	Man, way to front-load the conversation.
S. FULLWOOD: 02:39	Yeah.
S. RODNEY: 02:39	Well.
C.T. WEBB: 02:40	How the fuck am I supposed to segue away from that?
S. RODNEY: 02:42	Well.
C.T. WEBB: 02:43	[laughter] That’s a joke. I’m just kidding.
S. RODNEY: 02:43	I do think that–
S. FULLWOOD: 02:45	And this is the work.
S. RODNEY: 02:46	Right. Exactly. Exactly. This is the work made.
S. FULLWOOD: 02:48	[crosstalk].
S. RODNEY: 02:49	I’m not particularly emotional about it because I’ve worked this through, through therapy, and I know the ways that molestation has shaped and conditioned the ways that I think about my bodily autonomy like what the borders are for me and how they can sometimes be rather porous, especially in terms of like having a handle on my own sex drive and my sense of what people want from me. That was a difficult one, figuring out when people liked me, what they wanted from me because they liked [me?].
S. RODNEY: 03:28	So I just am sensitive to people’s stories of being, essentially, seduced– I mean, one of them, I think it’s– is it Falchuk or was it– what’s the other? Safechuck. Safechuck, or the other person whose name’s slipping my mind now, talked about being seven years– it was the other guy, actually. And he talked about being seven years old and basically being groomed into the sexual relationship with Michael. Mind you, I also have to say that I’m not entirely sure that what all they say is true. I can’t know that, but I am definitely, very, very much so, on the side of people who report this even if it’s 20 or 30 years after the fact. Because that kind of story is always difficult and you’re always putting yourself at risk and in harm’s way to tell it. So I don’t think there’s a lot of upside for making stuff up. So people essentially, like Barbra Streisand, being glib about this doesn’t make any sense to me.
S. FULLWOOD: 04:46	I–
C.T. WEBB: 04:47	No, no. Actually, go ahead, Steven, please.
S. FULLWOOD: 04:48	Oh. Just going to say, so you saw Leaving Neverland. You told me before the podcast that you saw half of it.
S. RODNEY: 04:53	I saw the first— yeah, the first half. Yeah.
S. FULLWOOD: 04:56	And so the reason why you told the audience that you were molested is to sort of situate the way you were thinking about it but also–?
S. RODNEY: 05:02	Exactly. Exactly.
S. FULLWOOD: 05:04	Okay. I just wanted to [crosstalk]–
S. RODNEY: 05:05	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I wasn’t just confessing it just to confess or because as if– and what I remember having a conversation with my father one time about this, and he said, “Oh, yeah. Well, why would you tell other people that?” I’m like, “Well, it’s where I’m coming from. This is part of who I am,” and that is a very salient part of how I approach these stories.
S. FULLWOOD: 05:25	Okay.
C.T. WEBB: 05:26	So the only one thing to toss in is– and we’ll certainly get into this in one of the podcasts, I think. So having experiences like that, where you have been victimized, right? And I know, because I know Seph very well, stuff does not– the narrative of yourself to yourself is not of a being a victim, but clearly–
S. RODNEY: 05:53	Not at all.
C.T. WEBB: 05:53	–at that age, that’s what you were, a victim.
S. FULLWOOD: 05:56	Victimized. Yeah.
C.T. WEBB: 05:57	Right. And so when that happens to us as humans, we become pretty sensitive to that type of victimization. And that sensitivity is a double-edged sword because it calibrates us to be a pretty delicate instrument for detecting that same victimization in others, but it sometimes gives false positives, right?
S. RODNEY: 06:28	Yeah.
C.T. WEBB: 06:28	So we see things because of the ways that we– because of our past experiences in the ways that we’ve been victimized.
S. RODNEY: 06:35	Precisely.
C.T. WEBB: 06:35	So it doesn’t always make us– and this isn’t directed to Seph, which I know he understands– this doesn’t always make us reliable investigators. It doesn’t make us reliable in the sense of objectivity.
S. RODNEY: 06:51	I’ve–
C.T. WEBB: 06:51	It doesn’t make us reliable. I’m sorry.
S. RODNEY: 06:53	I fully concur. And I want to say that out loud because I think it’s really important that we not do the thing– and by we, I mean Steven, Travis, and I– not do the thing of– and I know that we don’t. I know that we don’t do this. I know that we tend to be skeptical and rigorously curious in the best way. But I don’t want to forever fall into the trap of– you’ve been in these conversations where somebody stands up and they say, “Well, as a victim, I know that blah, blah, blah must have–” And then you’re like, “No. No. That– no.”
C.T. WEBB: 07:39	I’m just, “[inaudible].”
S. FULLWOOD: 07:41	It is as ridiculous as the Jackson family saying, “It didn’t happen–“
S. RODNEY: 07:47	Right.
C.T. WEBB: 07:48	That’s right, [Stephen?].
S. FULLWOOD: 07:48	–because you weren’t there.
S. RODNEY: 07:50	RIght. Right.
S. FULLWOOD: 07:51	You were not there. “My brother would never do this.” Your brother is a human.
S. RODNEY: 07:55	Right. So your brother could very well do this?
S. FULLWOOD: 07:58	It’s well within the possibility. Yes.
C.T. WEBB: 08:00	Yeah. Yeah, except–
S. RODNEY: 08:00	Right. Yeah. They’re both forms of nonsense. Go ahead, Trevor. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
C.T. WEBB: 08:04	Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. I was going to say– so, yeah. So I think there’s a lot of good stuff. Not good. It’s the worst adjective I could’ve used. There’s a lot to mine here in the Michael Jackson thing, and I actually– I mean, obviously, I knew that about Seph’s history, but I appreciate you leading off with that, actually, because we all bring something into this, right, when we– I mean, like Michael Jackson in our off-the-air conversation, we had talked about sort of his status as a totem. So we map– and upon reflection, I don’t think it’s a great analogy for a number of reasons that we don’t have to get into, but meaning that he’s just a powerful symbol that we map a lot onto. Right, all of us.
S. RODNEY: 08:52	Yes. Yes. Yes.
S. FULLWOOD: 08:52	Absolutely. No, well said. I agree.
C.T. WEBB: 08:54	And so with that, Seph, if you have anything to say, I was going to kind of let Stephen sort of move us into maybe just a brief recap of kind of where these allegations were born out of and where they stand because we probably have listeners that haven’t made it through these six hours or five hours or whatever it is for this.
S. FULLWOOD: 09:16	Four hours.
C.T. WEBB: 09:17	Four hours? Okay, it just–
S. RODNEY: 09:18	Well, before we do that–
C.T. WEBB: 09:21	Please.
S. RODNEY: 09:21	And I think Steven is well prepared to–
C.T. WEBB: 09:23	[laughter] I love this. He’s getting prepared.
S. RODNEY: 09:25	–to sort of lay out the case. I just think that you, Stephen, understand it better than either Travis or I do.
C.T. WEBB: 09:33	Certainly, yeah.
S. RODNEY: 09:34	What I want to question is, and I welcome the opportunity to work this out in Lifetime Live on air is how we want to proceed with this conversation about Michael because, given his totemic status, we can spend a long time talking about his sexuality and or the kinds of probably illegal things that he’s done with boys given his life, and what the allegations are, and how they’ve been working their way through various legal and procedural apparatuses. We can also talk about Michael Jackson in terms of race, in terms of his transformation over the years from a black man to– I’m not sure what he passed away as. Like a hybrid kind of person. Well, we can get into that.
C.T. WEBB: 10:32	Well, he–
S. FULLWOOD: 10:33	Yeah, we can get into that. That’s fine, so.
S. RODNEY: 10:35	Yeah, yeah. We can talk about that. We can talk about Michael Jackson as a kind of maybe the first real megastar, the person who sort of set the bar for having that kind of lifestyle where he had separate residences that were all kind of enclosed camps. And literally everywhere he went in the world, there were thousands of people trying to get close enough to touch him. I mean that’s happened before then. Clearly, he wasn’t the first, but he was one of the first people who made that sort of visible to us. This is what a megastar looks like. We can talk about his own abuse at the hands of his father, and his whole family dynamic. What else?
C.T. WEBB: 11:25	Well, I mean one of the things that occurred to me about Michael Jackson– was kind of trying to familiarize myself with sort of his more details of his story– is how accurately he represents the problems and possibilities of capital because he essentially made every genre and theme fungible, right. I mean, from horror to criminality to sexuality to race, essentially he was able to transform all of those genres and those themes into glitzy, glossy, saleable pop.
S. FULLWOOD: 12:13	Yeah. No, it was legible.
S. RODNEY: 12:14	Interesting.
S. FULLWOOD: 12:15	It was legible in so many different ways. I agree [with you?]. Yep. Mm-hmm. No absolutely.
S. RODNEY: 12:20	That’s fascinating. So where do we start?
S. FULLWOOD: 12:24	Let’s start with, “Michael Jackson is still the most famous person in the world.”
S. RODNEY: 12:28	Goddam.
C.T. WEBB: 12:28	Okay.
S. FULLWOOD: 12:29	He’s been dead for a decade.
S. RODNEY: 12:30	Wow.
S. FULLWOOD: 12:31	Think about that. I agree with Travis. I still feel very much that we’re dealing with Michael as, “This is the most famous person in the world who will never be created again.” So he was a star as a child and he became a megastar in his 20s. It’s the Eagles album, The Greatest Hits, and Thriller. And it continued to trade spots on the best-selling album of all time.
S. RODNEY: 12:58	Wow. Wow.
S. FULLWOOD: 12:59	Yes. Yes. And so those–
S. RODNEY: 13:00	I didn’t know that.
S. FULLWOOD: 13:02	Sorry, I just wanted to–
C.T. WEBB: 13:03	Is it by a wide margin, Stephen? I mean, the number one spot?
S. FULLWOOD: 13:06	Not since I’ve checked. It really kind of depends on the whims. There might be a Michael Jackson movie that’s more in his favor, more positive look at him, and then his ratings go up. And then the Eagles come and they do whatever and vice versa, so. But it is interesting because, for example, for a point of reference, when R. Kelly’s Surviving R. Kelly– that on-telly series came out, he got a boost in sales.
S. RODNEY: 13:33	God. Jesus.
C.T. WEBB: 13:33	That’s surprising.
S. FULLWOOD: 13:35	To me, I framed it this way. It’s like I’m looking at a story where this man is being accused of abusing young girls, and I go, “You know what. I love that song [laughter].” [This is like?]–
S. RODNEY: 13:45	Right. Right.
S. FULLWOOD: 13:46	No. No. No.
S. RODNEY: 13:49	Well, can I just–
S. FULLWOOD: 13:52	Sure.
S. RODNEY: 13:52	–interject and say– one of the things that annoys me to no end about that situation with R. Kelly is having Erykah Badu go on Twitter or one of the social media platforms and talk about how she loves him unconditionally… Again, I’m flabbergasted by the choices people make about what they say with regards to people who are not merely controversial but at the very least problematic, how they come to their defense, and the kinds of things that they say in their defense. I just don’t understand that. Why would you say that?
S. FULLWOOD: 14:37	So I want to say this before I go into Leaving Neverland, very briefly. I’ve always gotten the impression, by the way, we respond to people who make accusations, women, children, what have you, that somehow they deserved it.
C.T. WEBB: 14:55	Yeah. So one, I want to go into that. I think that it’s a good– the only thing I want to say is to extend some empathy to someone like maybe Barbra Streisand, is– I mean, she was actually friends with him.
S. RODNEY: 15:08	I know that.
C.T. WEBB: 15:08	So if there were these crazy accusations that came out about one of you, particularly Seph, because I’ve known him for decades– Steven, I love you, but we haven’t known each other quite as long.
S. RODNEY: 15:22	He could do it. Yeah, Stephen could have done it.
S. FULLWOOD: 15:24	That’s right [laughter].
C.T. WEBB: 15:24	[I would?] [crosstalk]. Here’s the thing. I would defend you and the people that I’m very close to on [crosstalk].
S. FULLWOOD: 15:31	But how would you defend me though?
C.T. WEBB: 15:32	Well, I mean–
S. FULLWOOD: 15:34	Or any either one of us, really.
C.T. WEBB: 15:35	–this is fair. I’m not advocating her strategy, but the impulse to defend I also think that therefore makes me an unreliable arbiter of justice, right. I mean, I should not be called to a jury trial for you or Seph. That shouldn’t happen. I would not be a reliable person to do that.
S. FULLWOOD: 15:56	No. Your chips are over here.
C.T. WEBB: 15:58	That’s right. Right. Right. So I’m invested in something else. I would give somewhat– I don’t know Erykah Badu. If she has a relationship with R. Kelly, I don’t know what that is for her, but–
S. RODNEY: 16:10	Neither do I.
C.T. WEBB: 16:11	But Streisand, it was a stupid thing to say, but I mean they were friends friends, and so, you know? Anyway, so I’m sorry.
S. FULLWOOD: 16:20	No, that’s [crosstalk].
C.T. WEBB: 16:20	Well, then we blame them. I’m with Stephen. You were saying that part of us blames them.
S. FULLWOOD: 16:24	Well, I’ll say that that seems to be the perception I get when I’d watch people who come– it happened during the Weinstein [conflum?], what happened during the Me Too, what was she doing there? What did she expect? With kids, they’re kind of like– because we already have a really kind of sort of weird relationship with children that we own them and they should do the things we tell them to do. And so where I see more sensitivity coming into a public conversation about people who’ve been victimized, I still feel like the way that even the R. Kelly series– that we’re still like, “What are these girls doing? Why? She’s so fast,” that kind of thing. And then I would hear these things but also watch it play out with people who even have sympathy for that person, do you know? So it’s a weird–
C.T. WEBB: 17:13	I do.
S. FULLWOOD: 17:14	–feeling. It’s a weird feeling.
C.T. WEBB: 17:15	I do and I have felt that. I mean, so I’m going to own that. Actually, I think I have felt that, and unjustly sometimes, and I would maybe say, in certain circumstances, justly. I mean, but yeah, you’re right. And it is a difficult thing to parse, and I know for me, it’s probably pretty intimately connected to my own mythology of how human society works. And I say mythology intentionally because I’m pretty invested in a story of agency, right, and that it has some affect on the quantum spin of events in the human world, right.
C.T. WEBB: 18:02	It may not be the determining factor. It may not be gravity or something like that, but that we can nudge things through our choices. And so around the Weinstein thing is a good example. I don’t know. You didn’t have to suck his dick. I kind of feel that way about it. I mean, he’s a predator. He’s an awful human being. I think he should go to jail where he has broken laws. I think he’s a disgusting pig. And I also feel at the same time that these women are not across-the-board, hapless victims in those circumstances.
S. RODNEY: 18:44	So I want to use an anecdote. I’m sorry. Let me just jump in with an anecdote that a friend of mine, Leonard [Neyland, once?] told me. I think he was reading– is it Martin Amis? Kingsley Amis had a son, Martin Amis. I think it was Martin Amis who said this. So if I misquote this, please forgive. He said something like, “You can say no before. You can say no during a sexual assault. You just can’t say no after.”
S. FULLWOOD: 19:15	I have a problem with that.
S. RODNEY: 19:16	Right. Okay.
S. FULLWOOD: 19:17	I understand it. I understand it, but I do have a problem with that.
S. RODNEY: 19:20	Right. Right, now let me just clarify. Vis-a-vis Harvey Weinstein, I echo all the things that Travis just said about him. I think he’s revolting. I think he should be under the jail [laughter]. And when I read–
S. FULLWOOD: 19:34	Okay, black man [laughter].
S. RODNEY: 19:36	–Laura Dern’s testimony, and it wasn’t really testimony. I think she was telling a story to a particular news outlet about how Harvey Weinstein was banging on her door one night to try to get her alone, basically invented some party that was supposedly downstairs in a hotel. She was staying at a hotel. He was staying at the same one. I think it was in Cannes or something, and he invented this party. She got dressed, went down. No one’s there. Basically, came back to her room, and the only reason she said that she got him to leave when she opened the door was that she was with a guy, I think her makeup artist or a friend. I just got the feeling. The way she described him, I thought he was a gay man who happened to be a friend, but he could have been like a [inaudible], so whatever.
S. RODNEY: 20:23	But the way she described it– he was barely held in check by the presence of another man. Barely. He was basically a wolf at the door, and she was just fighting out off Weinstein. And then, of course, when she refused him, asked him to leave, got him to finally get out of her hotel room, closed– bolted the door, the next day she said everything was canceled. The hotel, the trip. This man is a monster.
S. FULLWOOD: 20:58	Yeah, absolutely. So the before, during, and after? No? Because what we’re talking about here is– the assumption is that people have more agency than they claim or that they actually have. And I say it’s different for every group of person. So I think it’s different from an adult woman or adult white woman, adult black woman, and then children. So if we bring children into it–
S. RODNEY: 21:19	Right.
C.T. WEBB: 21:21	Yeah, I agree.
S. FULLWOOD: 21:21	So that’s a very different [crosstalk]. We’re talking about innocents.
S. RODNEY: 21:23	I agree. I agree because I think at five years old, at seven years old, what’s your ability to say no?
C.T. WEBB: 21:30	Yeah, you are unarmored. Yeah.
S. RODNEY: 21:30	You didn’t even know what– right.
S. FULLWOOD: 21:32	You are constantly being told what to do all the time–
C.T. WEBB: 21:34	I agree.
S. FULLWOOD: 21:34	–where to be and all of that. And so–
C.T. WEBB: 21:35	I agree. And I thank you for– that’s exactly what I meant– is that I do feel like we have to parse some of how we talk about victims. And I agree with you. I mean, as a child you are– I don’t remember who said that. Maybe actually Joseph Campbell in some book– observation about children.
S. FULLWOOD: 21:59	[The Power of the Myth, or something?].
C.T. WEBB: 22:00	Yeah, that– I mean, you’re unarmored as a child, right. So the process of becoming an adult is armoring yourself for the social world, right. And certainly, at five, you’re a bug on its belly, right. I mean, you are absolutely fully exposed–
S. RODNEY: 22:20	Yeah. Absolutely.
S. FULLWOOD: 22:23	Vulnerable.
C.T. WEBB: 22:23	–and fully vulnerable. And so, I do have– no, I’m not at all interested in– maybe in some sort of sense of curiosity, but as a defense or as a qualification, what gymnastics the kids did at that age to feel okay about that experience or being in the room during that experience. I don’t really feel like that is a valuable part of the story as far as how we should come to terms with someone who appears to have been a predator.
S. FULLWOOD: 23:09	But I definitely feel that people have questioned children and continue to–
C.T. WEBB: 23:13	Yeah, you’re right. Yeah, you’re right.
S. FULLWOOD: 23:14	–in so many ways about that. And that’s just like on documentaries. I think I was telling you guys about Abducted in Plain Sight. It was a really good documentary that really almost– it’s Leaving Neverland in its disturbance. Abducted in Plain Sight is even more disturbing because of all the different contexts in which it was created. One of them is the sexual abuse of a child. And so what I kind of want to do because are we– I think we’re running close to–
C.T. WEBB: 23:43	We’ve got five minutes.
S. FULLWOOD: 23:45	We’ve got five minutes?
C.T. WEBB: 23:45	We were good. Yeah.
S. FULLWOOD: 23:46	So I wanted to just kind of open it up by saying that for those of listeners who haven’t seen Leaving Neverland, you probably should if that’s in your interest. Because it’s an interesting documentary that puts on the table how, if you’re a Michael Jackson fan or even if you’re not– where to place him because of the accusations of these two boys. And it came out in 2019. I think it premiered on HBO, March 3rd and 4th, and–
C.T. WEBB: 24:15	This is right.
S. FULLWOOD: 24:15	–the focus was on two men: Wade Robson and James Safechuck. And they alleged that they were sexually abused by Michael Jackson for years. And they talk about the effect it has on their families, their moms, or sisters, brothers, father, and as a result of this being the documentary, which premiered in two days for two hours on each, people are now– what do you call it? The after-effect has been very interesting. A lot of think pieces about a lot of people asking, “Do you believe it? Do you not believe it? Why didn’t these boys come? Why didn’t they come–?” What do you call it?
S. RODNEY: 24:53	Forward. Right.
S. FULLWOOD: 24:53	“–come out with these accusations earlier and come forward with the accusations earlier? Why they support Michael Jackson through two trials: 1993 and 2005? Why did they support him?” But when you sit down– I’ve seen both. I stopped watching it because I was going to sleep, and I didn’t want all that pain and hurt in my head before I went to sleep because it was very disturbing, so I watched it in daytime. But I sat there going– so Wesley Morris from the New York Times really encapsulated what I was thinking. I didn’t want to hear this, but I wanted to hear this because now I have to decide– because there’s no easy way to do this kind of work, this emotional work. Michael Jackson. I grew up with Michael Jackson. I grew up listening to his music, the Jacksons, all of the Jacksons, and the different points in my life were, of course, before I went to school, I wanted to do the Thriller, watch Thriller on television [laughter], and would be late going to school and then going to school and dancing the Thriller to his.
S. FULLWOOD: 25:53	And so, like a lot of people who’d watch Michael Jackson’s change and wonder, “Why are you hanging out with little boys? Why are you doing this?” And that’s my heterosexism going, “Where’s your girlfriend?” or “Where’s your wife?” and that kind of thing. But, “Oh, Michael Jackson!” There was a moment where people just constantly made excuses for his behavior. “Michael Jackson’s a genius. He was abused as a kid. It seriously was sad.” And people gave him platforms to talk about it. Oprah did. The guy, the Martin Bashir interview. He had [crosstalk] once or twice. Michael’s in the video saying, “There’s nothing wrong with sleeping with children.” And I remember sitting there going, kind of what Chris Rock said. Chris Rock said it. Never scared, he goes, “We forgave you for one kid. Now you got another kid? Goddam, Michael! [laughter]” So go ahead, please.
S. RODNEY: 26:48	Can I tell you, Stephen? One of–
S. FULLWOOD: 26:50	Please.
S. RODNEY: 26:50	–the things that is most convincing to me about that Leaving Neverland film– again, I’ve only seen the first half. One of the pieces of evidence that is most convincing to me, that is sort of presented as a piece of evidence but also leaves it up to me to make that determination, is the number of faxes he sent either Robson or Safechuck. And the way the parents talked about how the boy would come home– either boy would come– no, I think it was Robson–
S. FULLWOOD: 27:25	I think it’s Wade.
C.T. WEBB: 27:26	It’s Wade.
S. RODNEY: 27:26	Yeah. Wade Robson would come home, and he would be on the phone with Michael Jackson for hours.
S. FULLWOOD: 27:31	For hours.
S. RODNEY: 27:33	Six or seven hours, and then–
C.T. WEBB: 27:34	What the fuck?
S. RODNEY: 27:35	–on top of that, you get reams of faxes, and they showed the different– with the same kinds of messages but worded slightly differently from day to day. “I miss you. Love you. Hope you’re doing well. Can’t wait to see you.” These are missives from a lover, not a grown man–
S. FULLWOOD: 27:55	A 30-plus-year-old.
S. RODNEY: 27:57	–who has, right, a friendship with a seven-year-old. No, no, the fuck no.
S. FULLWOOD: 28:03	No, the fuck no.
S. RODNEY: 28:04	So, and just that evidence is just damning in and of itself for me.
C.T. WEBB: 28:09	Yeah. Well, the thing–
S. FULLWOOD: 28:10	Well, it’s–
C.T. WEBB: 28:11	No, no, please go ahead, Stephen.
S. FULLWOOD: 28:12	Very briefly is that the way these men talk about Michael Jackson as if they were still in love with Michael Jackson really is– it’s like sexual abuse one oh one. Pay attention to the way– these men aren’t going, “You know he abused me,” and they’re crying or whatever. They’re like in this really liminal space where they’re still seven, and then there’s the adults. And so they travel in and out of these stories. If you’re watching closely, and if you know anyone who’s been abused, why they keep it inside, so. I’m sorry. Go ahead, Trevor.
C.T. WEBB: 28:50	No, no, I was going to say that– what Seph said is [heck?] one of the things that I had thought about it, which was the fact that they spent every night in Michael Jackson’s bedroom. I don’t want to spend every– I mean, I barely want to sleep with my wife every single night. I mean, I’m just kidding. I love my wife. But–
S. FULLWOOD: 29:11	She’s great.
C.T. WEBB: 29:12	Yeah. No, no, but I’m saying that that is an intimate relationship. I mean, there is no other human that I would want to be that close to that often than my intimate.
S. FULLWOOD: 29:24	No doubt. No doubt.
C.T. WEBB: 29:25	I mean it doesn’t matter who it is. My son. I would just– it just doesn’t matter. And then the other thing that I thought when you were describing the situation, Seph and then Steven also, was that as far as– we have a really hard time with pleasure and morality. So, undoubtedly, these boys experienced– so brackets around what I’m saying anyone out there that is like easily offended. Undoubtedly, these boys experienced pleasure in their interactions.
S. RODNEY: 30:01	Yeah. And they say they did. Yeah.
S. FULLWOOD: 30:04	Yes. No, absolutely. That’s part of the craziness of it.
C.T. WEBB: 30:05	And people may experience pleasure, may feel bodily sensations of pleasure, psychological sensations of pleasure, and that should be siloed from the morality and the ethics of what is done to that person.
S. RODNEY: 30:29	Agreed.
C.T. WEBB: 30:30	So these things are not related, right? So it doesn’t matter. Let’s say, if I stab you in the gut and you have a rush of endorphins and feel a sense of whatever weird pleasure might be associated with that, it does not, in any way shape or form, obviate the stabbing in the gut [crosstalk].
S. FULLWOOD: 30:57	Absolutely. Absolutely.
S. RODNEY: 30:57	Can I give a slightly better anecdote as–?
C.T. WEBB: 31:01	Oh, if you just say so [crosstalk] [laughter].
S. FULLWOOD: 31:03	I mean if you think it’s better, sure [laughter].
S. RODNEY: 31:06	I know, and as the words were tumbling out of my mouth, I thought, “Oh, yeah, well, maybe I can reel that back. Nope. Too late [laughter].”
S. FULLWOOD: 31:12	It’s too late.
S. RODNEY: 31:12	A certain significant percentage of women orgasm during rape.
C.T. WEBB: 31:19	Oh, yeah. Yeah, I wasn’t actually– that was the example I had in my head that I wasn’t going to use so that now you’ve– okay.
S. RODNEY: 31:26	No, [inaudible]. I mean, and we have a difficult time within that, and you know?
C.T. WEBB: 31:29	I know.
S. RODNEY: 31:30	But we’re adults and this is the work, right? As Steven said, this is the work.
S. FULLWOOD: 31:33	Right, this is the work.
S. RODNEY: 31:35	That happens. And I’ve had women I know, who are close friends say to me, not necessarily in situations of sexual assault but in situations where they’ve had sex with their partner at the time, and they thought, “I didn’t really want to do that.” And one friend actually said to me, “I felt my body had betrayed me.”
S. FULLWOOD: 31:57	I just wrote that for us down. “By betraying you.” Yes.
S. RODNEY: 32:00	Yes. Yes. So that happens and I think that one of the ways that we need to come to terms with sexual assault is precisely that. I like the way you said it, Travis, is to silo off or to bracket off the notion of pleasure, of the person being exploited, being victimized, having pleasure from the situation of exploitation and or assault.
C.T. WEBB: 32:26	Yeah. Wow. All right. So that was a lot. That’s Michael Jackson, everybody [laughter].
S. RODNEY: 32:32	Yeah.
S. FULLWOOD: 32:32	That’s all he is. We’ll be back in a few weeks.
C.T. WEBB: 32:34	So our next topic– I mean, why don’t we zero in on something. Steven or Seph, do you have something that you want to open with as far as exploring Michael Jackson this week?
S. RODNEY: 32:45	Well, I think we need to all just finish Leaving Neverland and finish the pieces that Steven has suggested we read: one by Wesley Morris, I think, and another by someone else. I forget who.
S. FULLWOOD: 32:59	Her name is [Karen Amayo?].
S. RODNEY: 33:01	Thank you. I think we just need to round out this conversation by watching those things and reading those things and seeing where we end up.
S. FULLWOOD: 33:10	Okay. That’s good.
C.T. WEBB: 33:11	Okay. That works. A footnote to the conversation since my son listens to the podcast. Stephen had said we have a weird relationship with our children and we think that they should do what we tell them. You should do what I tell you, so [laughter].
S. FULLWOOD: 33:26	And if my kid, who’s thirty-four, hears this, yes, you should do what I tell you to do, Andre, as well [laughter].
C.T. WEBB: 33:34	So, thanks very much for the conversation. I’ll talk to you guys next week.
S. FULLWOOD: 33:37	[All right?].
S. RODNEY: 33:37	Thank you. [Yeah, sure?].
C.T. WEBB: 33:38	See you next week. [music]

References

First referenced at 01:31

Leaving Neverland

“Leaving Neverland is a two-part documentary exploring the separate but parallel experiences of two young boys, James Safechuck, at age 10, and Wade Robson, at age 7, both of whom were befriended by Michael Jackson.” HBO.com

First referenced at 21:35

Joseph Campbell

“Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) was an American author and teacher best known for his work in the field of comparative mythology.” Amazon

First referenced at 23:14

Abducted in Plain Sight (Netflix Documentary)

“In 1974, 12-year-old Jan Broberg is abducted from a small church-going community in Idaho by a trusted neighbour and close family friend.” Netflix

Michael Jackson: Predator, Performer, King of Pop

0065 | April 1, 2019

Michael Jackson:
Predator, Performer, King of Pop

References

Get Involved

About Us

Sections

Follow Us