Why Michael Jackson Will Never Truly Get Canceled
After Dan Reed’s bombshell documentary Leaving Neverland about the sexual abuse allegations leveled against Michael Jackson premiered in 2019, it seemed as though public opinion on the pop superstar had been determined: He was unforgivable, case closed. And that did seem to be the guiding discourse… for a little while, at least.
“I remember thinking afterwards, that was a wrap. Based on talking to people in my social circle who all watched it or at least read about it, it really did feel like a turning point,” says Leon Neyfakh, co-host of the new podcast Think Twice: Michael Jackson. “But then you look around a couple of years later and it doesn’t really feel like it made that big of a dent. We were interested in why and how that works. How do we as a culture decide what to move on from and what not to move on from? How do people decide what they believe?”
Think Twice—a new podcast from Audible and Wondery, co-produced by Prologue Projects—attempts to answer those questions by investigating Jackson’s staying power as a pop culture icon who has faced horrifying allegations. For Neyfakh, it continues his run of deeply reported podcast endeavors, including Slow Burn, in which he told the stories of Watergate and the Clinton impeachment, and Fiasco, which has covered major historical events like the AIDS crisis and the Bush vs. Gore election. The Michael Jackson phenomenon, Neyfakh argues, is another such culture-shifting story.