“Janet Jackson” on Canal + Docs, a fluid documentary that avoids sensitive topics

As the release of a new album approaches, the ’80s star is the subject of a documentary, the first two parts of which are broadcast tonight on Canal + Docs. But the hot topics remain skimmed.

From the beautiful weird 2015 album (Unbreakable) where she started singing like her brother Michael, we have almost no news of Janet Jackson, the Beyoncé of the 80s. Produced and channeled by the star herself, the four-part documentary Janet Jackson, trying to unearth it before the release of a new album, it is only for those that this long eclipse will have plunged into an intolerable state of longing.

After the (light) thrill of a trip with the star in the suburbs of Detroit, to visit the childhood home where he took his first steps when the brothers burned the televisions, revelations are rare, history and confessions, carefully calibrated. For fans, Janet Jackson is retracing her path to a golden age when she, like Madonna, invented herself as a power woman and crazy dancer in an industry locked down by men, but remains on the edge of the hottest topics. . .

The tyrannical nature of the entrepreneur father is evacuated in a nutshell (“He was tough, but I owe him my career”), just like the dizzying disorder sown by Michael, which she defends in words. It wasn’t until episode four of her that she conjured up the scandal caused by sneaking bare breasts during the 2004 Superbowl show, which was enough to disrupt her career. No analysis of the absurdity of what happened at a time when her young competitors compete for obscenities, the simple regret of having agreed to an apology under the pressure of time and we move on. There remain some personal archives, family films and behind the scenes that give a little spice to this very quiet biographical saga.

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