Michael Jackson, Donald Trump and Morally Blind Fascination |
CounterPunch Exclusives
CounterPunch Exclusives
Michael Jackson, Donald Trump and Morally Blind Fascination
Photograph Source: Daniele Dalledonne – CC BY-SA 2.0
Michael Jackson’s biopic Michael is a box-office phenomenon. It earned $217 million worldwide on opening weekend, the biggest debut ever for a biographical film. But the movie has almost nothing to say about multiple allegations of Jackson’s child sexual abuse. Donald Trump commands a similar public fascination. The civil finding that he sexually abused E. Jean Carroll, along with controversies such as Todd Blanche’s approval of Trump’s $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” are part of a broader swirl of legal and ethical questions surrounding his presidency. Even so, they barely interrupt the spectacle around him. Jackson and Trump are different men in different worlds, but they reveal the same ugly truth: when fascination takes hold, morality becomes negotiable. Why are charisma, celebrity, and power so effective at blinding people to obvious wrongdoing?
Fascination explains how audiences can remain deeply attached to figures like Michael Jackson and Donald Trump. The argument isn’t just that people ignore moral issues, but that fascination actively turns scandal into narrative, controversy into spectacle, and moral judgment into something secondary to emotional attachment.
I have not seen the Jackson movie, but I am intrigued by his fans’ reactions. Many reports of fans’ responses confirm that his relationships with young boys did not hinder fandom’s loyalty. Numerous reports testify that fans emerged from theaters euphoric, as though Jackson’s singing and dance moves had granted him absolution. One moviegoer reportedly declared, “When he’s on that stage, you forget everything else — you just love him again.”
Where was the morality? What “else” was forgotten? The allegations against Jackson were not obscure or trivial. He was accused of repeatedly sharing his bed........