Is it still okay to enjoy Michael Jackson’s music?
The answer is obviously “no”. Enjoy the music of an alleged paedophile? What a terrible thing to suggest…
Except, of course, few things in life are that simple. Music doesn’t enter the ear and then pass through some morality filter before we decide if we like it or not. Listen to the opening bars of “Billy Jean” and you’ll still tap your foot up to the point when you decide you better not. Not now. Not given what we now know or think we know.
That’s why art must be filtered through morality long before our brain has a chance to digest it. The filter comes in the form of you not adding Jackson to your playlists. It comes in the form of TV burying him deep in their archives in the same way that the BBC did of Jimmy Savile. The filtering comes, now, in the form of radio stations banning Jackson’s music given the revelations of a new Netflix documentary, Leaving Neverland.
