Michael Jackson Biopic Season Is Here — Brace Yourself

Hollywood has officially entered Michael Jackson season, and the discourse is going to be exhausting for everyone regardless of where they stand.

"Michael," the long-gestating authorized biopic, is dropping this month with Jaafar Jackson — MJ's nephew — stepping into the role of the King of Pop. The casting choice is either inspired or deeply cynical depending on your read: inspired because the family resemblance is genuinely striking and Jaafar apparently has the moves; cynical because an authorized biopic with a family member in the lead role is structurally incapable of engaging honestly with the more complicated chapters of its subject's life.

The film is produced with the full cooperation of the Jackson estate, which tells you everything you need to know about what it will and won't cover. Expect moonwalks and stadium moments. Expect the childhood and Motown years. Expect Thriller. What you will not get — cannot get, given the production structure — is any serious reckoning with the abuse allegations that have followed his legacy since the 1990s and were re-ignited by the "Leaving Neverland" documentary in 2019.

This puts the film in an impossible position. The music is undeniable. The cultural impact is real. The art deserves examination. But a biography that treats its subject's most controversial chapters as either absent or context-free is not biography — it's hagiography with a soundtrack.

None of this is unique to this film. Biopics have always been promotional vehicles with a thin documentary coating. What's different here is the scale of what's being papered over, and the cultural moment in which it's arriving. Audiences are more skeptical than they used to be about authorized narratives. The social media backlash cycle for a film like this will be immediate and loud.

Whether the movie is actually good — and early word suggests Jaafar delivers a genuinely compelling performance — almost doesn't matter to the first two weeks of coverage. It will be consumed through the lens of everything that surrounds it before most people have seen a frame.

April is going to be a lot. Bring headphones and a high tolerance for hot takes.