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Michael Isn't a Biopic, It's an Advertisement | The Backdrop (Patreon)

Published:
2026-04-28 15:04:31
Imported:
2026-04

Content

A new episode of The Backdrop is now available!

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Michael Isn't a Biopic, It's an Advertisement | The Backdrop

Modern biopics are more of an advertisement these days. Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SecondWindGroup Second Wind Merch: https://shop.secondwindgroup.com/

Comments

Taylor

A guy who spent his life being belittled, slandered, and harassed despite being the greatest thing to ever happen to pop music deserves to have a biopic that finally celebrates him.

Apothecary2

Sounds like every music biopic

Aaron Von Seggern

I'll assume my check is in the mail, otherwise I can post my direct deposit information here

Darren Mooney

We do talk about that. There is a definite shift. This is not "Amadeus." It's not even "What's Love Got to Do With It?", it's "Bohemian Rhapsody", which released less than a decade ago.

Darren Mooney

I also enjoy "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story."

Aaron Von Seggern

BR is so strange in that any person with a critical eye can easily appraise its glaring flaws, but the general audience treats it as the gold standard.

Dread Pirate Mittens

Who makes up the Second Wind legal team exactly? Great video as usual.

Tim Wilson

I always thought this film was going to be… problematic but even just watching a critical essay on it makes me feel dirty. Truly ghoulish, but thank you for the perspective on the genre as a whole Darren.

DocXoxxo

Yes, it is the greatest (nearly) true story ever.

Davsau

Kinda have me wondering who owns Wembley Stadium, and whether they’re getting a cut.

Ando

+1 for Widows. Rocketman and Elvis aside, the musical biopic genre has done nothing but disappoint me over the past decade. It's weird for me, because the only brand of biography I like to read tends to be music-related, but the movies just always feel naff and made to invite no deeper criticism than "x-star sounded/looked the part". I was never going to watch the MJ puff-piece anyway, but at least I now feel doubly validated in that decision. This Mooney production was entertainment enough to tide me over for now.

Darren Mooney

The paradox of it is that these Wembley stuff seems to be part people love. And I was dazzled by it at the time, in much the same I was dazzled by CGI Cushing at the time, even if I am skeptical of what it wrought. But, if you love the Wembley stuff, do see “EPiC”, not “Michael.”

Darren Mooney

Thank you. And “Widows” rules.

Bj Last

Widows is awesome, and it seems like it doesn't get the love it deserves

Brian S

An excellent video as always. I would never see this throne sniffing slop, even if you praised it to the heavens, as the thought of putting money in his estate's pocket makes me ill. I'll even go so far as to say that if I had to chose between seeing this flick and never seeing another movie again, then I would never watch another movie.

Ryallen

I want to preface this comment by saying that I more or less agree with the point made in the video. Honestly representing the subject of a biopic does more for art and history than scrubbing it clean for monetization. You'd really think that the Jackson estate would have enough money that they wouldn't care if people knew Michael molested children but I guess it's too much to resist. But the thing I want to examine is the comparison to Amadeus, and its accuracy as a biopic. Whether or not you consider Salieri to be the focus of the biopic, the film drastically misrepresents his real life character. For one, him and Mozart were very close friends. Salieri taught Mozart's children music. They were frequent collaborators. Second, Salieri was, in fact, married with children and was even a known womanizer. He was not the chaste God fearing man that the film claimed him to be. Third, Salieri wasn't even in the same country as Mozart when he was writing the opera that would lead to his death. He was in London at the time. There's something to be said that maybe Salieri is withholding certain facts for his story in the film for one reason or another but it's also possible (and very likely) that the play that the film was based on just wasn't trying to be accurate to Mozart or Salieri and just wanted to tell a compelling story. The play, after all, ends with Salieri admitting that he never actually killed Mozart. But this part is left out of the film so it's not entirely relevant. My point is that Amadeus is a masterful character study of one of my favorite characters in cinema poised as something like a biopic but is completely inaccurate to reality. There might be value in remixing a person's history for artistic effect but it'd have to be obvious upon the slightest examination that it's not true

Swift Justice

The trick is a lot of these are barely trying to be movies more than they are being nostalgia bombs. Same reason why Reader Player One got so well received at first, just going straight to the 'I remember Thing!' part of the brain bypassing everything else. At least it tends to be a one-time high.

Stormy K.

Morbidly fascinated to see if this mystical sequel ever appears and, if so, what it could possibly be. The standard defense of MJ ("he was a broken man who reverted to childhood and never would have harmed a fly") would make a terrible movie and also not really jive with the hagiographic tone of this first one.

Darren Mooney

To be fair, I think they announced it has the greenlight - or at least it has been reported that these decisions have been made internally. But I don't envy them.

Justin Buergi

best bet would be to change the pov to those around him and their experiences with neverland and the accusations, leaving the truth as ambiguous as possible

T N

There's something kind of icky to me about estates finding ways to milk money out of the memory of the person/people who actually did the work and had the talent

bluemage27034

Really good video, Darren! I like the juxtaposition of the Jackson estate bemoaning others trying to have an easy payday.

Darren Mooney

I was worried that was low-hanging fruit. But I think it's fair.

bluemage27034

I think its fair. At least the queen members and Elton john did the work, made the art. The Jackson estate just got lucky genetically.

Riemann Euler

This proselytizing of producer as elite seems endemic now. As an example, I used to listen to "Fresh Air" on NPR (the whole station I find unlistenable these days) but I can do so no longer. I often relished the varied interviews that included science, technology and education topics but something changed around 2023, and the focus became sharply media centric and seems to fit a constant template now discarding its previous (fun) eclectic meandering. Since then it feels like a relentless endless parade of Atlanta and Hollywood film and N.Y. theater producers, actors, script writers, book writers, musicians (often Jazz) and the occasional female athlete. I feel it elsewhere and everywhere too. and I feel the machinery of venerating consumerism as "art" has extended to all corners of our lives. I wonder among readers who you would these days most consider your role model and what you consider the metric for success? Also, does anyone else see the intrusion of media tropes in the thinking of our political leaders with their thinking revealed by their choice of meme usage and spoken statements in political proceedings. I wonder, is this a good trend or a bad one?

Flintenstein

Who'd want to watch a biopic about a washed-up, dead pedophile anyway?