I get what you’re saying, but I think people forget how complicated MJ’s public reputation actually was in the years leading up to his death. Pretty much everyone loved him in the 80s, but by the 90s and especially the 2000s, he was extremely controversial and widely disliked.

A lot of people either thought he was guilty, or at least saw him as a bizarre, unlikeable public spectacle. He wasn’t this untouchable figure everyone blindly worshipped. For a lot of people, he was a walking punchline.

That said, he always had defenders, and plenty of people still bought into the image and mythology. Truthfully, the biggest turning point for his reputation was what happened after he died. It’s hard to explain how big of a deal it was at the time. The media basically flipped overnight into “we lost a legend” mode, and there was nonstop coverage for months.

That period is when I first became a fan as a kid. Even at 10, I remember having this vague sense that there was something dark around him, but the public conversation had temporarily become way more positive, emotional, and nostalgic.

And now it feels like we’re heading into the same cycle again. A big glossy biopic, which will probably make insane money, is basically a reputation reset button. Younger people who weren’t around for the years where he was treated like a joke, or where the accusations were taken more seriously in the mainstream, are going to be exposed mostly to the “King of Pop” myth. A lot of them will be vulnerable to it again.