A White Guy Playing Michael Jackson? Not Such A Crazy Idea

Note: This story originally appeared on March 2, 2016.

I admit that I haven’t been paying attention to the news all that much lately. A combination of a day job, the work of promoting my debut novel, spotty wi-fi access, and my pesky need for sleep, I haven’t had time to comb through media reports that often serve as fodder for this blog.

So imagine my surprise when I found out that Joseph Fiennes, star of 1998’s Shakespeare In Love (and Ralph’s much better-looking little brother), had been tapped to play Michael Jackson in a British television movie, Elizabeth, Michael, and Marlon.

I didn’t take the reports seriously at first. After all, the premise of the proposed film — Liz Taylor, Marlon Brando, and MJ make a cross-country road trip in the wake of the 9/11 attacks — was so laughable, I was halfway convinced that I was reading The Onion.

But, no. The film, which also stars Stockard Channing and Brian Cox, is being made in the United Kingdom and will premiere sometime next year. Needless to say, the social media outrage was intense and immediate.

Under most circumstances, I would agree with the Tweeters and bloggers who are excoriating the makers of the film. After all, the idea of “whitewashing” offends just about every political sensibility that I have, political sensibilities that led me to hurl a video cassette copy of the Christian Slater film, True Romance, across the room back in the 1990’s. (The film has none other than Gary Oldman wearing a dreadlock wig as he portrays an African-American pimp.)

However, this time, I feel that all the outrage surrounding this project is somehow misdirected.

The truth of the matter is that Joseph Fiennes hasn’t been cast to play Martin Luther King or Malcolm X or any other luminary of the black community. Instead, Fiennes is playing Michael Jackson, a pop star who spent much time and even more money trying to transcend his race. Through the use of cosmetic surgery, skin bleaching, and hair pieces, Michael Jackson gradually transmorgified into a pale noseless grotesquery whose effeminate voice and eccentric sartorial choices rendered him gender ambiguous as well. While Idris Elba would make a wonderful James Bond, all the CGI and makeup in the world wouldn’t make it possible for him to play a turn-of-the-twenty-first-century Michael Jackson.

And there is another reason why a black Michael Jackson wouldn’t work for this film. Despite the fact that Jackson (very occasionally) decried racism, his social circle, romantic partners, and aesthetics always indicated a certain remove from the larger African-American community. Michael Jackson didn’t even have black children, for Chrissake. Would MJ have wanted a black actor to play him in a film? Somehow I don’t think so.

Yes, Joseph Fiennes casting in this project does reflect the deeper problem of structural racism within the film industry and in society at large. And yes, people should loudly protest — and work to change — that reality. But raising those very salient points in conjunction with Elizabeth, Michael, and Marlon is making much ado about nothing.