|
Post by SmoothGangsta on Oct 5, 2022 13:57:50 GMT
Ah yes, I see now. Hopefully he's had a bit of a change of heart. I certainly wouldn't be making a positive documentary about someone if I thought they were a child abuser. He's been making comments as late as last year so I very much doubt he's suddenly had a change of heart.
|
|
|
Post by SmoothGangsta on Oct 5, 2022 14:00:16 GMT
Apparently Nelson George was on Surviving R. Kelly as well and in comments I've seen from him re. Kelly he argues for "separating the art from artist". I guess that's what he thinks of MJ as well. My impression is that he believes him to be an abuser but "separates art from artist". While everyone is entitled to his opinion, but I don't think the Estate should be so desperate that they hire people like NG to contribute to major MJ projects. NG is definitely not the only film maker in the world who can make such a documentary, so I don't understand the compromises the Estate makes there. This is worse than the Nottage case. Nottage had already been hired when she made those comments about LN. But NG didn't have to be hired for this job in the first place. I guess this doc still can turn out to be good in itself as it focuses on an era where NG still liked MJ. But to me NG seems like the typical bandwagon jumping journalist and fairweather fan who just went with whatever the popular opinion was about MJ in any given era while filling his articles with the usual navel gazing cliches about him. I think there would have been more deserving people to make this documentary about the crown jewel of MJ's career. Yeah, I'm really struggling to understand why a lot of fans seem to be acting like they needed to hire him after seeing his 30 years of slander. Fact is they hired him knowing this and were obviously very cool with all the stuff he's said.
|
|
|
Post by WildStyle on Oct 5, 2022 14:02:35 GMT
Apparently Nelson George was on Surviving R. Kelly as well and in comments I've seen from him re. Kelly he argues for "separating the art from artist". I guess that's what he thinks of MJ as well. My impression is that he believes him to be an abuser but "separates art from artist". While everyone is entitled to his opinion, but I don't think the Estate should be so desperate that they hire people like NG to contribute to major MJ projects. NG is definitely not the only film maker in the world who can make such a documentary, so I don't understand the compromises the Estate makes there. This is worse than the Nottage case. Nottage had already been hired when she made those comments about LN. But NG didn't have to be hired for this job in the first place. I guess this doc still can turn out to be good in itself as it focuses on an era where NG still liked MJ. But to me NG seems like the typical bandwagon jumping journalist and fairweather fan who just went with whatever the popular opinion was about MJ in any given era while filling his articles with the usual navel gazing cliches about him. I think there would have been more deserving people to make this documentary about the crown jewel of MJ's career. Certainly it's not ideal, but unfortunately the allegations complicate things when it comes to MJ. Most people who don't have strong feelings for MJ will always be open to the possibility that something untoward might have happened, even if they dig deep into it and see it as a small chance "we can never really know 100%" type of thing. That's just the nature of these kinds of allegations. To eliminate every good director that maybe questions it is probably culling the heard quite a bit. Not ideal, but if the documentary is good fans probably won't give it another thought. I for one am at least glad they're moving away from Spike Lee. He's had his chance and produced 2 pretty average documentaries.
|
|
|
Post by SmoothGangsta on Oct 5, 2022 14:19:32 GMT
^ I think you're really just downplaying things here. Nelson George is not someone who is "questioning" anything. He thinks MJ raped kids, has been saying it publicly for years, along with many other ludicrous insults over 30 years, and the estate hired him anyway being fully aware of this. Let's not act like they needed to hire him at all. Plenty of much more deserving people who could have helmed this project.
|
|
|
Post by WildStyle on Oct 5, 2022 14:40:15 GMT
^ I think you're really just downplaying things here. Nelson George is not someone who is "questioning" anything. He thinks MJ raped kids, has been saying it publicly for years, along with many other ludicrous insults over 30 years, and the estate hired him anyway being fully aware of this. Let's not act like they needed to hire him at all. Plenty of much more deserving people who could have helmed this project. Maybe. I'm trying to think of other potential directors and Questlove comes to mind, although I did think his Summer of Soul film was quite overrated and fairly boring. I think after the Spike Lee documentaries I'm prioritising the end product rather than having the perfect person to do it. Put it this way, if a great documentary comes from this I'll be able to separate the art from the artist (George.)
|
|
|
Post by SoCav on Oct 5, 2022 14:40:37 GMT
Certainly it's not ideal, but unfortunately the allegations complicate things when it comes to MJ. Most people who don't have strong feelings for MJ will always be open to the possibility that something untoward might have happened, even if they dig deep into it and see it as a small chance "we can never really know 100%" type of thing. That's just the nature of these kinds of allegations. To eliminate every good director that maybe questions it is probably culling the heard quite a bit. Not ideal, but if the documentary is good fans probably won't give it another thought. I for one am at least glad they're moving away from Spike Lee. He's had his chance and produced 2 pretty average documentaries. But it's not like this is a major get for the Estate. It'd be one thing to consider setting principle aside if Nelson George was a one-of-a-kind director with a dazzling resume of music documentaries (and even then I would say the choice would be uncomfortable at the very least), but he's not. And if they wanted to move away from the Spike Lee model and focus a bit more on presenting the creative process in an interesting light, rather than talking heads going on about its impact, then why hire a pop culture writer who is likely to focus exactly on the latter? I hope it turns out well, but to me this screams of the Estate just being lazy and incompetent again, rather than them making a difficult but well-considered choice.
|
|
|
Post by WildStyle on Oct 5, 2022 14:49:13 GMT
Certainly it's not ideal, but unfortunately the allegations complicate things when it comes to MJ. Most people who don't have strong feelings for MJ will always be open to the possibility that something untoward might have happened, even if they dig deep into it and see it as a small chance "we can never really know 100%" type of thing. That's just the nature of these kinds of allegations. To eliminate every good director that maybe questions it is probably culling the heard quite a bit. Not ideal, but if the documentary is good fans probably won't give it another thought. I for one am at least glad they're moving away from Spike Lee. He's had his chance and produced 2 pretty average documentaries. But it's not like this is a major get for the Estate. It'd be one thing to consider setting principle aside if Nelson George was a one-of-a-kind director with a dazzling resume of music documentaries (and even then I would say the choice would be uncomfortable at the very least), but he's not. And if they wanted to move away from the Spike Lee model and focus a bit more on presenting the creative process in an interesting light, rather than talking heads going on about its impact, then why hire a pop culture writer who is likely to focus exactly on the latter? Possibly. I'll have to check out some of his documentaries to get a better feel. I was impressed by his recent comments on Elvis in relation to research he had done and consulting on the Elvis movie for Baz Luhrmann.
|
|
|
Post by pg13 on Oct 5, 2022 15:04:13 GMT
^ I think you're really just downplaying things here. Nelson George is not someone who is "questioning" anything. He thinks MJ raped kids, has been saying it publicly for years, along with many other ludicrous insults over 30 years, and the estate hired him anyway being fully aware of this. Let's not act like they needed to hire him at all. Plenty of much more deserving people who could have helmed this project. I don't think it necessarily follows that the Estate Executors knew about those comments in opinion pieces from Nelson George. As a huge fan of over 30 years, I hadn't known about the ones in screenshots until seeing them here. I think it's best to assume they didn't know unless you have actual evidence they knew beforehand? The Estate tend not to go to people they knew had those views. Nottage and Wheeldon made their views known AFTER they'd been hired and not before, IIRC.
|
|
|
Post by SmoothGangsta on Oct 5, 2022 15:12:27 GMT
^ I think you're really just downplaying things here. Nelson George is not someone who is "questioning" anything. He thinks MJ raped kids, has been saying it publicly for years, along with many other ludicrous insults over 30 years, and the estate hired him anyway being fully aware of this. Let's not act like they needed to hire him at all. Plenty of much more deserving people who could have helmed this project. I don't think it necessarily follows that the Estate Executors knew about those comments in opinion pieces from Nelson George. As a huge fan of over 30 years, I hadn't known about the ones in screenshots until seeing them here. I think it's best to assume they didn't know unless you have actual evidence they knew beforehand? The Estate tend not to go to people they knew had those views. Nottage and Wheeldon made their views known AFTER they'd been hired and not before, IIRC. I do not find them being lazy and not bothering to research who they are hiring as any better than knowing. I do find it hard to believe they didn't know, though. He has been saying stuff like this for 30 years very publicly and it legit takes 5 seconds to find him doing so. Anyway, either way, massive L for the estate and incredibly disrespectful to MJ.
|
|
|
Post by pg13 on Oct 5, 2022 15:38:21 GMT
I don't think it necessarily follows that the Estate Executors knew about those comments in opinion pieces from Nelson George. As a huge fan of over 30 years, I hadn't known about the ones in screenshots until seeing them here. I think it's best to assume they didn't know unless you have actual evidence they knew beforehand? The Estate tend not to go to people they knew had those views. Nottage and Wheeldon made their views known AFTER they'd been hired and not before, IIRC. I do not find them being lazy and not bothering to research who they are hiring as any better than knowing. I do find it hard to believe they didn't know, though. He has been saying stuff like this for 30 years very publicly and it legit takes 5 seconds to find him doing so. Anyway, either way, massive L for the estate and incredibly disrespectful to MJ. Well, did I actually argue them not knowing was better? No which makes that a Strawman Argument. My point was that it's unreasonable to assume they knew unless you have evidence they did know beforehand. You say it takes 5 seconds to look for this stuff, but logically neither I nor they would think of doing so since I/they didn't have reason to in the first place! So, that doesn't necessarily follow either. But I think you likely want the fans AND Estate to presume anyone thinking of being connected with an MJ project from now on should be vetted as though they already have said certain things. Would that be fair to say? Certainly, it would be unfair to expect fans to be sceptical of literally everyone even when there's no reasonable reason to. But it's probably reasonable to think the Estate could vet everyone before approving them for use beforehand. Remember, the documentary is actually a Sony one. It looks like the Estate had no reason to think Sony couldn't handle hiring personnel. Consider also how far you want to take the logic.....suppose a camera operator believes MJ was a paedophile. Should they be prohibited? Assistants? Or what?
|
|
|
Post by respect77 on Oct 5, 2022 16:01:40 GMT
Consider also how far you want to take the logic.....suppose a camera operator believes MJ was a paedophile. Should they be prohibited? Assistants? Or what? I don't think anyone argued that every single person, no matter in how small role, should be vetted for beliefs about MJ and the allegations. NG himself was in Bad 25 before as a talking head and fans didn't have an uproar about that. However a director is not like a cameraman or the cleaning lady on the set.
|
|
|
Post by respect77 on Oct 5, 2022 16:03:35 GMT
Certainly it's not ideal, but unfortunately the allegations complicate things when it comes to MJ. Most people who don't have strong feelings for MJ will always be open to the possibility that something untoward might have happened, even if they dig deep into it and see it as a small chance "we can never really know 100%" type of thing. That's just the nature of these kinds of allegations. To eliminate every good director that maybe questions it is probably culling the heard quite a bit. Not ideal, but if the documentary is good fans probably won't give it another thought.Β I for one am at least glad they're moving away from Spike Lee. He's had his chance and produced 2 pretty average documentaries.Β But it's not like this is a major get for the Estate. It'd be one thing to consider setting principle aside if Nelson George was a one-of-a-kind director with a dazzling resume of music documentaries (and even then I would say the choice would be uncomfortable at the very least), but he's not. And if they wanted to move away from the Spike Lee model and focus a bit more on presenting the creative process in an interesting light, rather than talking heads going on about its impact, then why hire a pop culture writer who is likely to focus exactly on the latter? I hope it turns out well, but to me this screams of the Estate just being lazy and incompetent again, rather than them making a difficult but well-considered choice. Yeah, I wanted to ask what's this guy's resume as a documentary maker that the Estate should so desperately cling on his services? I looked up his Wikipedia page but to be honest none of his films ring a bell. His journalism is very cliche to me when it comes to MJ. It's basically just: follow whatever the popular opinion about MJ is in any given era.
|
|
|
Post by pg13 on Oct 5, 2022 18:01:07 GMT
Consider also how far you want to take the logic.....suppose a camera operator believes MJ was a paedophile. Should they be prohibited? Assistants? Or what? I don't think anyone argued that every single person, no matter in how small role, should be vetted for beliefs about MJ and the allegations. NG himself was in Bad 25 before as a talking head and fans didn't have an uproar about that. However a director is not like a cameraman or the cleaning lady on the set. The beginning of the logic with the fans is and has always been that those who believe Michael was a paedophile should not be involved in any projects. Hence the threads about those who've had such views over the years in list format. It's not a stretch that they collectively don't want anyone believing that benefiting from the projects, big or small. That Nelson George was in Bad 25 suggests a couple of things: 1) fans didn't know about his views at the time 2) they knew and didn't care I think 1 is rather more likely and it wasn't until somebody went looking for Nelson George articles out of interest that they found them. And want him off this one. As I said, I'm not the first or last or last long term fan who didn't know about them. It would certainly explain the different reactions which isn't related to him being a guest speaker on one project and a director of another. Their status of employment isn't the point. Their views is the entire point. The fans themselves have never liked anyone having such views and being part of MJ projects, prolific or otherwise. It would be disingenuous for anyone to claim otherwise. Remember those lists of people to hate on various forums the last 20 years!
|
|
|
Post by respect77 on Oct 6, 2022 2:13:39 GMT
I don't think anyone argued that every single person, no matter in how small role, should be vetted for beliefs about MJ and the allegations. NG himself was in Bad 25 before as a talking head and fans didn't have an uproar about that. However a director is not like a cameraman or the cleaning lady on the set. The beginning of the logic with the fans is and has always been that those who believe Michael was a paedophile should not be involved in any projects. Hence the threads about those who've had such views over the years in list format. It's not a stretch that they collectively don't want anyone believing that benefiting from the projects, big or small. That Nelson George was in Bad 25 suggests a couple of things: 1) fans didn't know about his views at the time 2) they knew and didn't care I think 1 is rather more likely and it wasn't until somebody went looking for Nelson George articles out of interest that they found them. And want him off this one. As I said, I'm not the first or last or last long term fan who didn't know about them. It would certainly explain the different reactions which isn't related to him being a guest speaker on one project and a director of another. Their status of employment isn't the point. Their views is the entire point. The fans themselves have never liked anyone having such views and being part of MJ projects, prolific or otherwise. It would be disingenuous for anyone to claim otherwise. Remember those lists of people to hate on various forums the last 20 years! This is a lot of assumption and speculation. I, for one, knew about Nelson George's past during Bad 25. Especially that R. Kelly vs. MJ article from 2005 I have always found disgusting on more than one level. One is, of course, his attitude towards MJ. The other is that he seemed to suggest that being accused of molesting girls isn't such a big deal which makes Kelly socially more acceptable. I side-eyed the Estate's decision to include him in Bad 25, but because his role was so minor and insignificant I gave it a pass and didn't let it ruin Bad 25 for me. Making him a director, however is a different level. What I find disingenuous is to pretend that there's no difference between a cameraman, cleaning lady whatever on a project and the director.I detect a bit of a "slippery slope" fallacy here on your part: "if we are going to require directors on MJ projects not to believe that MJ was a child molester, where are we going to stop: are we going to require that from the cameraman and everyone else on the set too?" We are not taking issues with a choice of a cameraman here, we are taking issues with the choice of a director for a documentary about MJ's crown jewel album. Let's stick to that topic instead of making up hypothetical situations about cameramen.
|
|
|
Post by pg13 on Oct 6, 2022 7:13:17 GMT
The beginning of the logic with the fans is and has always been that those who believe Michael was a paedophile should not be involved in any projects. Hence the threads about those who've had such views over the years in list format. It's not a stretch that they collectively don't want anyone believing that benefiting from the projects, big or small. That Nelson George was in Bad 25 suggests a couple of things: 1) fans didn't know about his views at the time 2) they knew and didn't care I think 1 is rather more likely and it wasn't until somebody went looking for Nelson George articles out of interest that they found them. And want him off this one. As I said, I'm not the first or last or last long term fan who didn't know about them. It would certainly explain the different reactions which isn't related to him being a guest speaker on one project and a director of another. Their status of employment isn't the point. Their views is the entire point. The fans themselves have never liked anyone having such views and being part of MJ projects, prolific or otherwise. It would be disingenuous for anyone to claim otherwise. Remember those lists of people to hate on various forums the last 20 years! This is a lot of assumption and speculation. I, for one, knew about Nelson George's past during Bad 25. Especially that R. Kelly vs. MJ article from 2005 I have always found disgusting on more than one level. One is, of course, his attitude towards MJ. The other is that he seemed to suggest that being accused of molesting girls isn't such a big deal which makes Kelly socially more acceptable. I side-eyed the Estate's decision to include him in Bad 25, but because his role was so minor and insignificant I gave it a pass and didn't let it ruin Bad 25 for me. Making him a director, however is a different level. What I find disingenuous is to pretend that there's no difference between a cameraman, cleaning lady whatever on a project and the director.I detect a bit of a "slippery slope" fallacy here on your part: "if we are going to require directors on MJ projects not to believe that MJ was a child molester, where are we going to stop: are we going to require that from the cameraman and everyone else on the set too?" We are not taking issues with a choice of a cameraman here, we are taking issues with the choice of a director for a documentary about MJ's crown jewel album. Let's stick to that topic instead of making up hypothetical situations about cameramen. You're missing the point in respect to your statement the fans didn't seem to have a problem with Nelson George being in Bad 25. You know as well as I do they absolutely would have had a problem with it had most of them known back in 2012. Most fans did not know then. Which explains why they do now that someone has dug it up again post-LN. There is no real difference between Nelson George being a talking head, director or whatever in any MJ project whilst having particular views about him. It amounts to the same thing - making x amount of money as a result of involvement to y degree. Most fans logically didn't know before. Otherwise that would lead to selective cherry picking. To be fair, cherry picking wouldn't be new either as shown before. The denial fans have never called for various people to be blacklisted doesn't surprise me here. Personally, I don't agree with blacklisting people in various roles, but there are plenty in the fan community who do. I'm not advocating that, but merely showing the outworking of the common fan logic. It is this common fan logic I'm suggesting is a slippery slope fallacy just like all the other attempts at blacklisting people. Hence why I said, "Consider also how far you want to take the logic". And that makes it very clear it is the common fan logic that's being questioned.
|
|