The trailer has finally been released of the upcoming comedy series, Urban Myths. One of the myths featured in the series is a story about Michael Jackson, Marlon Brando, and Elizabeth Taylor taking a post-9/11 road trip. Though it’s supposed to by fictional (hence the title Urban Myths), Michael Jackson is being portrayed by a white man, actor Joseph Fiennes. Michael Jackson himself addressed rumors, in 1993, that he wanted a white child to play him in a commercial: “Why would I want a white child to play me? I’m a black American. I’m a black American. I’m proud to be a black American. I am proud of my race. I am proud of who I am. That’s like you [Oprah] wanting an oriental person to play you as a child. Does that make sense? Please people stop believing these horrifying stories”.
If that’s not bad enough, Paris Jackson, Michael Jackson’s daughter, has responded to the Urban Myths trailer, tweeting: “I’m so incredibly offended by it, as I’m sure plenty of people are as well, and it honestly makes me want to vomit”. Her cousin (Michael Jackson’s nephew), Taj Jackson, has also expressed his feelings about a white man playing Michael Jackson. He also tweeted: “Unfortunately this is what my family has to deal with. No words could express the blatant disrespect.”
Though his family has expressed their disappointment and anger about Joseph Fiennes being cast as Michael Jackson, Fiennes claims to have “wrangled with it”, saying “It doesn’t negate who he was”. He believes that “[Michael Jackson] was probably closer to my color than his original color“. Comments like these are an erasure of Michael Jackson’s blackness and his identity as an African-American man. Many rumors circled him throughout his lifetime, and even now, after his death, that he wanted to be white, and he tried many times to disprove these rumors. Michael Jackson considered himself a black man, and no amount of melanin, or lack thereof, could take him away from that.
There is also a petition underway to try to boycott the series. The petition is 5,000 signatures away from meeting its goal.
