u/15millionschmeckles

Other than the obvious, another sick part of his children obsession was even the ‘innocent’ way he described his love for them.

Look at clips of Mr.Rogers, another adult man famous for his self-professed love of children. Listen to the way he speaks about them and describes them. They are individuals to him. They are humans with autonomy and inner-worlds. They aren’t separate entities from adults, but what an adult is before all the lessons of life make sense to them.

MJ describes children like one describes animals or even worse, how one describes food. They are all ‘innocent’. They all ‘refresh’ and revitalise him in the same way. They are a monolith that all do the same thing for him no matter who they are. A faceless resource for his consumption. His compulsion for covering his walls with random images of them is a microcosm of this. Like someone who really likes cars.

As much as the bleaching and the surgery made him look more like a monster while also on trial for being a monster, I think there are ways they helped with his image:

1. They made it easier for the public to dissociate
I think a big reason people are able to still hold onto their adoration for him so dearly is because the MJ they fell for was a handsome, young black man. Even now, my brain struggles to fully understand that the Disney prince lookalike in the music video for Beat It is the same one with a nude painting of them surrounded by cherubs in their giant pedophile mansion. His pedophile persona gets its own silo while keeping so much of his legacy in tact. I can still watch the Motown performance and not link it at all to Leaving Neverland. It still gives me all the endorphins it always did unfortunately. When you watch a Kevin Spacey movie or the Cosby show, it’s impossible not to see the men they ended up being.

2. He didn’t look fully human
The surgeries made him look like an ageless being from another world. It’s hard to even picture him as a person let alone a grown man. It allowed people to hold him to standards they would never hold a normal 40 something year old rich guy. The whole ‘I love children…I’m just like them… I don’t think about things the way the rest of society does’ is easier to believe from the weirdest looking person on Earth. E.T was an adult who hung out with kids all day but because he doesn’t register as a man, it’s easier to bestow innocence on him.

3. He looked more feminine
He was always a pretty boy, but post surgery he really looked quite feminine. Watch the Diane Sawyer interview; he looks downright beautiful. Not to make a connection between predation and androgyny but between his way of speaking and his looks, there was something almost motherly about him. He didn’t talk about kids like a horny man, but like a doting woman and a degree of femininity bolstered the innocence of his behaviour imo. If he was a normal looking 40 year old black man, I don’t think his tonality alone would’ve cut it

Growing up I always had the classic RS-Pseud dream of being a creative, specifically a filmmaker or actor. I was always prepared to not achieve that dream and even to give up on it. What I didn't prepare for was the industry and the world changing so much that I wouldn't want to do it at all. I see the people in the field that I used to look up to, online panhandling or doing Tubi movies. I see some of the greatest writers and directors of all time struggling to get their films green-lit. Talented young actors who would've been in multiple Oscar-worthy films by now even 20 years ago having to spruik Cheez-its. I wouldn't want to enter the industry even if a genie could make it so.

Is this the case for anyone else?