'Michael' Movie Quick to Forgive Gary, Indiana

After opening last weekend to an astonishing $219M at the box office, the Michael movie, which recounts the life and struggle of pop star Michael Jackson, has garnered praise and criticism alike. While some commend the film’s performance and production value, many more seem to be criticizing Michael's complete disregard for the many controversies in which the King of Pop became embroiled throughout his tumultuous life. However, as I trod home after seeing the controversial picture, one single, burning question lingered in my mind: When did we, as a society, decide to forgive Gary, Indiana?

In Michael’s opening minutes, the movie introduces viewers, rather abruptly, to the town of Gary, Indiana. As the creators of Michael would have us believe, Gary is your average working-class midwestern town, inhabited by the Jacksons and, we assume, other similarly dysfunctional American families. What Michael does not tell us about Gary, Indiana, however, is any semblance of the truth.

In reality, Gary, Indiana is, unfortunately, a sad, cynical town whose main exports include misery and regret. For decades now, the town of Gary has been severely neglected and looked down upon by an apathetic world. This lack of general care has transformed Gary into a spiteful corner of the midwest, feeding on the immense disdain cast upon it, a picture that Michael dreadfully fails to paint.

While many critics of Gary are quick to point to factors like the city’s crime rates and inability to maintain infrastructure (find me a city that doesn’t suffer from these issues and I’ll say, “Okay but find one in the US”), what I find to be the most egregious of Gary’s offenses are its repeated attempts to grasp wildly at any meaningless claim to fame. Visit Gary and you’ll find fun, family-centered tourist attractions like the childhood home of Michael Jackson, where you can take cute vacation photos with the very belt Joseph Jackson used to keep his family in a constant state of fear. Ask people what you should see in Gary, and you’ll get answers like “the train to Chicago”, or “the bus to the dunes.”

All in all, Michael presents to us an irresponsibly forgiving, false depiction of Gary, Indiana, though this may not have been the original intention. According to many sources involved in Michael’s production, the film originally featured almost 90 minutes of additional, more controversial scenes that were allegedly cut at the behest of lawyers for the Jackson estate. I can only assume that that additional screentime would have shown the unadulterated truth about the many misdoings of the town of Gary, Indiana. Why did the Jackson estate feel such a dire need to cover up this imperative truth about Gary? That, it seems, we may never know.