How abominable is the crime of sexually molesting minors? In a certain light, portions of the Hollywood community appear divided on the answer.
In the view of celebrities who’d like to see convicted parent-killers Erik and Lyle Menendez released from jail, the sexual abuse of minors is so heinous that it’s a semi-justifiable thing for sexual predators to suffer violent death as punishment.
The basic rationale on the part of famous Menendez friendos (including Kim Kardashian, Sonny Hostin, Rosie O’Donnell, Gypsy Rose Blanchard, Cooper Koch) is that Erik and Lyle’e shotgun slaying of their late dad, music industry hotshot Jose Menendez and his wife Kitty, is semi-excusable because Jose repeatedly molested Erik, or so Erik has alleged.
At the very least the victims of such acts (Erik and Lyle) deserve a measure of leniency, the thinking goes, especially after having served almost 30 years in the slam.
Outgoing Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon: “I do believe that the brothers was subjected to a tremendous amount of dysfunction in the home and [from] molestation.”
On the other hand if we’re talking about a deceased child molester named Michael Jackson, a dynamic, iconic, hugely popular rock star who ruled during the ’80s and ’90s, perhaps diddling young boys wasn’t such a terrible thing. Or perhaps this alleged diddling might not have been as nakedly predatory or cut-and-dried as it seemed.
It was reported last March by Variety‘s Adam B. Vary that the makers of the biopic Michael (Lionsgate, 10.3.25) — principally director Antoine Fuqua, producer Graham King and screenwriter John Logan — are adopting a light-fingered, less-than-damning approach in the matter of multiple allegations that Jackson used his fame and power to groom prepubescent boys for sexual activity.
So which is it? An alleged sexual molester half-deserved to be shotgunned to death by his sons, or a world-famous sexual molester was such a great singer-dancer and pop-music God that a movie about his life can depict reported predatory behavior in a go-easy, turn-the-other-cheek, half-forgiving way?
