Very late in this series, about 15 minutes to be exact, before it’s finally over, something like life still flashes – energy, height of fall, almost a kind of fresh dramaturgy. The grandiose singer Janelle Monáe, born 1985, soul miracle, Prince-Protegé, herself on the way to becoming the voice of the generation, has her stake there and she now takes on what was somehow forgotten in the almost four hours before: she explains the importance of Janet Jackson. For you, Monáe, but also for pretty much every other female (or maybe even not overly male) pop star, singer, dancer, woman who has ever picked up an instrument.
So Monáe says, “She has been the DNA for music.” Jackson was the fundamental hereditary information of the music. Especially for black women in the music industry. Addition: “Black women, who want to be free as f***!”
They actually bleep the “fuck”. Which at least saves the impression across the finish line that you have just watched a four-episode family documentary for the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida that waddles the brain with backlighting and plush filters. Awful.
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And too bad. It’s a crazy topic, that Janet Jacksonwho treated series. big chance. Janet Jackson, the artist with well over 100 million albums, the wife, the sister, the daughter (very exciting in that order), would offer so much. If they were finally taken seriously in this order. But you don’t.
Instead, Jackson’s life is mainly told: along men. To the brothers. at the father. To the husbands – the singer James DeBarge, the director René Elizondo. And her longtime boyfriend, producer Jermaine Dupri. A few of those: really upliftingly plain sausages. Which makes the whole thing latently insane, but above all brutally boring. You all know the stories. The strict father Joe Jackson, a former crane operator for US Steel Corp., driven by his own musical ambitions that have failed. The brothers he as Jackson Five flogged to success – very literally too. And of course the super brother. Michael Jackson. MJ Jacko. king of pop The eternal giant shadow – first commercially, then because of the allegations of abuse that became louder and louder against him.
A great story about misogyny and bigotry could have been told. Would have
Allegations of abuse, which Janet, who is also listed as the series’ producer, brushes aside very nonchalantly. Her brother wasn’t like that. He wouldn’t have had that in himself. So easy.
And in between all this: Janet Jackson in archive recordings of varying degrees of intimacy, which nevertheless never feel close. Only as a child. Then as a teenager. Then as a woman and artist who signs a contract with Virgin Records estimated at almost 50 million dollars, plays sold-out world tours and still mainly talks about her family, her types, her insecurities. Who, at least at times, becomes the biggest pop star in the world, but ends up blacklisted for baring her chest during her Superbowl halftime show.
As a result, your videos were no longer played on important channels. The Grammys uninvited her. Justin Timberlake, who was at least as involved in the Superbowl show, therefore appeared alone. Another chance to tell a great story. One that deals with the misogyny of an industry – and the bigotry of an entire country.
The series instead stars Jermaine Dupri for several minutes. He had missed larger parts of the nipple show at the time, but is now on record how much he was annoyed by dealing with his ex-girlfriend at the time. How good that that is clarified.
Janet Jackson on March 11 and 18 from 8:15 p.m. in double episodes on Sky Documentaries.
