Quote:
Originally Posted by corporatejay
Given what we know about his childhood, the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father and the fact he basically entered a state of arrested development AND the fact that the people around him protected him, over and over again and he was never told to stop, how much of this tragedy should lay at the feet of those around him?
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A lot.
There are two stages of culpability.
The first is his family, especially has father, for exploiting him as a child. Take a precocious child, raise him in a strict religion, literally beat him into becoming a top performer, and take him on tour into all sorts of unsavoury environments (including sharing hotel rooms with much older brothers while they romp with groupies). Make him the centre of attention for thousands of adoring fans. Spoil him with money and everything it can buy, while making it clear to this child that he's the meal ticket for the entire family, and they all rely on his ability to charm an audience on stage. Hand him off to ghastly divas like Diana Ross as mother figures. Then mock and torment him about his looks in adolescence as his child star cuteness fades. It would be a miracle if someone raised in that environment didn't turn out messed up.
Then there are the people in his camp who looked the other way and covered up Jackson's predation of children once his derangement was manifest. This is a higher order of guilt. They knew what he had become. And the serial nature of his abuse make it even worse, as stopping Jackson as the outset would have saved other children..
Show business must be the most difficult environment to diagnose, let alone address, mental illness. So many of the artists involved are narcissistic and unstable to begin with, while most everyone else around them are greedy parasites.
And to think there are still parents grooming their young children to be the next stars. It's despicable.