Is the box office explosion that is Michael really all that surprising? I mean, 1982's Thriller is still the highest-selling album of all time and that's a title that I don’t think will ever be dethroned, given that it’s sold over 60 million records.
As to what I thought of the film? Well, I thought it was flawed, but fun. It wasn't the in-depth biopic that I had hoped for, but it was enjoyable to see the making of “Thriller” and other key moments in Michael’s early career. However, while watching it, one thing that kept flicking me in the back of my mind was how much I’d like a Janet Jackson biopic.
Janet, as you likely know, isn't in Michael (by choice, of course), which just makes me desire a Janet Jackson biopic all the more so. Here are some other reasons why I’d like to see this.
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I’d REALLY Like To Know What Janet’s Relationship With Joe Jackson Was Like
Yes, everybody is talking about how good Jaafar Jackson is in Michael, and for good reason. At times, you actually forget that somebody is playing Michael Jackson, which makes sense, given the immediate connection between Jaafar and Michael. But, if there’s one other name that’s brought up when it comes to staggering depictions, it’s Colman Domingo’s portrayal of the patriarch, Joe Jackson.
He plays the antagonist of the film, and he’s often tyrannical when it comes to MJ’s career. Since we’re mainly seeing the film from Michael’s perspective, we get a very negative version of his father. However, what was Janet’s relationship with her dad like? Even prior to this movie, I knew that Joe Jackson was not a contender for Father of the Year.
Because Janet had a prodigious career in her own right, I’d love to know what HER relationship with her father was like. Was he just as hard on her as he was with Michael? I do know that she had her own branching off from the family moment with her third album, Control, but did Joe have a looser hand on her career than he did with his sons?
These are things that I would love to see in a biopic about Janet Jackson, especially since her presence isn’t in Michael at all.
It Would Be Fascinating To See Janet’s Rise Toward Rhythm Nation 1814, And Then Beyond It
Some people might not know this – and you definitely wouldn't know it from the movie – but Janet Jackson was actually in a variety show called The Jacksons along with her brothers, as well as her two sisters, Rebbie, and La Toya. In fact, much like Michael, Janet was extremely young when she got into show business, and her trajectory as an artist saw her having roles in TV shows like Good Times, A New Kind of Family, and Diff’rent Strokes while she was also putting out early records.
These early records is what I’d really love to see in a Janet Jackson biopic. Since I have the whole summer off (I'm a teacher outside of this website), one thing I do every year is pick out one artist and go through their entire discography. And, with a very manageable 11 albums, Janet is quite easy to get through her entire catalog.
Even so, her first two albums, 1982's Janet Jackson, and 1984's Dream Street, are kind of…meh. Not bad, per se, but just “meh.” Sophomoric might be the word I'd use. It’s actually not until 1986's Control that Jackson seemed to be really charting her own destiny. And then, the concept album, Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814, was a huge leap.
Much like how we got to see how Michael grew from his Jackson 5 days to a song like “Beat It,” I'd love to see a biopic that explores Janet's transformation that led to a groundbreaking album like Rhythm Nation. That would be peak cinema!
Janet And Michael Also Had A Unique Bond, And I'd Like To Know More About That, Too
An aspect I brought up earlier about the movie, Michael, is that Janet Jackson is nowhere to be seen, and again, that’s fine. It is Michael’s movie after all, and not Janet’s. That said, the two siblings ostensibly had a pretty close relationship, and I’m just wondering if, if we ever got a biopic for Janet, would we see Michael in it?
I think we probably would. It is Janet, after all, with whom Michael worked with on the epic 1995 song, “Scream,” which, in turn, was a commentary on the sexual allegations that Michael was going through at the time with the media. “Scream” aside, I’m sure that Janet certainly had feelings about her own career, which in a lot of ways coincided with her brother’s.
They weren’t rivals. They were contemporaries, and though I feel Janet’s career gets overshadowed by Michael’s nowadays, Janet’s contribution to music was just as seismic back then as her brother’s, and I would love to see how close - or how distant - they were in their own separate careers.
I think that’d be a fascinating watch, and something I kind of feel deprived of when it comes to Michael’s movie.
Also, That Soundtrack Would Be Incredible On The Big Screen
When it comes to Michael, there are a lot of complaints about how it's a surface-level film at best, and at worst, a film that scrubs Michael clean of any wrongdoings (like Disney scrubbed the Michael Jackson episode of The Simpsons off Disney+) that he may or may not have done, and yeah. I think those are both perfectly valid complaints. That said, it is important to note that a lot was taken out of this film, and the movie that we eventually got was far removed from the movie that it might have been.
However, if there’s one thing that can’t be denied about the film, it’s that the soundtrack is incredible. And, like, was it ever NOT going to be? When you have music from the Jackson 5 era, the Off the Wall period, Thriller, and a little bit of Bad, was there ever any universe where this soundtrack wasn’t going to be a 10 out of 10 experience? Well, I think if Janet ever also got her own biopic, then her soundtrack would be just as good (if not better, which I’ll get into next) than Michael’s.
It honestly would really depend on how far into her career a hypothetical movie would go. For instance, the deeper you go into Janet’s catalogue, the better the songs get. Tracks like “All for You,” “Runaway,” or “I Get Lonely” would sound marvelous on the big screen, just as “Bad” does for Michael.
Truthfully, I think I want this movie mostly for the soundtrack alone. It would be so good!
Lastly, I Think A Lot Of Young People Could Gain An Appreciation For Janet That They Might Not Have Had Before
Like a lot of people, I followed Michael Jackson’s career (both in song and in film) my entire life, so a Michael Jackson biopic, while fun, wasn’t revelatory or anything like that.
That said, it wasn’t until I went through Janet’s entire discography that I realized just how wonderful she was/is. Honestly - and this might be a hot take - but I think Janet Jackson had a better career than Michael. Maybe she doesn’t have a “Billie Jean” or a “Human Nature” in her entire catalogue, but Michael doesn't have a single album better than The Velvet Rope.
I think a biopic could make younger generations learn to love her just as I do.
How cool would that be? So, make it happen, Hollywood!
