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John Landis says Michael Jackson was too ‘grotesque’ to film

I was really mad when I read this. I've thought for a long time now that Michael didn't change his face that much. So I did a quick Photoshop of a photo from 2009, changed the color of his skin, and then only changed his eyebrows and hair. Even I was surprised by how different that made him look. Here he really just looks like an older version of Thriller Michael.

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mthalen said:
I don't think he says anything too strange (I think a lot of people actually would agree with MJ not looking at his best in the last years of his life), but as the things he said aren't nice he could've just kept his mouth shut :)
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But what do you think make him not look his best in the last years? It was not surgery, but the toil of persecution and abuse. You can see that very clearly in the eyes and shallowness of his skin and has nothing to do with surgery. Michael was not having surgery all over the face.

I am going to say something which I hope will not offend

I know people like to insist that Michel looked best prior to Thriller. Behind that is a racist belief from both "White" and "Black" people. For some, they want to stress that when he was darker he looked better. For the others, they equate the lightness with their own "white" race, so how dare Michael look "white." That means anyone can be white and we will not have that hold on whiteness any more, so our best course of action is to start attacking his whiteness and insist his surgery is to make him look more white.

To me, Blacks like to say that he looked his best prior to Thriller too. I think they say that to imply that when he was darker and before the nose job he was better looking because 1) they do not want people to feel beauty only lies in the White race, and 2) they think Michel made himself look "White" so if they say he looked more beautiful, then it will show they are denying the beauty of being "Black."

Some people genuinely feel he looked better prior to Thriller, but I think these genuine people are few.

I am going to be honest here and say, to me, Michael looked the best after Thriller, and I saw this guy since the late 70's. To me it has nothing to do with the color of his skin, but the proportions in his features. I am pretending that I flew down to earth and came upon some faces and I am going to see which face has things on it that looks as though the proportions are likable to me. In the 70's there was an original face which I thought was not exciting, but the hair was out of this world. Through the years I saw certain things that created a more balanced look. I refuse to pretend that what we are born with is the best, so I am not going to insist that he was a gorgeous man in Off The Wall and looked bad after that. To me he looked ok before, but did certain things that showed an improvement.

Even children have ideas of what is beautiful to them. I am going to be honest and tell you that I have short cut hair & work in homes and the first time I go in with a longer bleached wig, the little boys who are 2 years old, smile at me more. They peek at me and turn their heads away shyly. I wear pants more, so when I wear a skirt they touch my legs & look at me up and down. So to me it is natural for humans to see certain aspects about the body as attractive or just ok, so why would all these White men, especially, and Black people be insisting that Michael looked better before the surgery when what many see as attractive and beautiful varies? I think the reason for this is racial.
 
Petra, I will have to agree with you here. I know MANY people that say that. LOTS.

I, if I am completely objective, think that he looked (judging his proportions) the best in the 80s, so after thriller!

Back to the topic: I know this is a touchy subject and I do understand why fans find what John said offensive. I agree that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder but even if John really thought he looked grotesque it is distasteful how he expressed it! I don't like his tone at all! :angry:
 
To me Michael looked the best ever in the music video for The Way You Make Me Feel!

So during BAD era is my favorite MJ look. :)
 
I don't care, what John said wasn't just offensive and distasteful, it was wrong. I don't see how anyone can find any reasoning in his statements, it was just hurtful, and wrong.


And I always felt Michael looked his best post era, I don't have a specific time period, I liked how he looked from BAD all the way to TII, since we're talking post Thriller days. Heck, I'm sure I'm one of the handful of people who believe that he looked absolutely fantastic in the Invincible time period.
 
Ok the bottom line is that what Landis said was extremely offensive, really.

It's strange how he said those ugly things and then added 'but I liked him then' or 'I had fun with him'.. like he wanted to make it sound funny or sth... :busted:
 
This is what I said on the fb group lol, Quincy Jones' badmouthing was also brought up...

"I mean SO many people came outta the woodwork post-2009 pretending to be Michael's best bud and confidante when they'd all but abandoned him during his life. On the flipside of the same coin, the same "friends" and former collaborators that posed in pictures with him, praised his creative spirit and heart did an about-face to only, post-2009, (for lack of better phrasing) start talking some MAJOR sh-t. Its equally amusing how all of these people now have once-iconic-now-dwindling careers. These types of people always end up looking the most tasteless and out of line. Obviously hurtful and disappointing to hear about, but sadly not surprising.

Also, there could honestly be some left-over career envy. I kind of wonder if they foresaw Michael's star accelerating at the rate that it did. I'm sure on some level John and Quincy both saw this Motown kid in his transitional phase, and thought it might be a fun project to contribute to, but never imagined that Thriller (both short film and album) would be the game-changer that it was/is, and actually end up eclipsing the careers of any major player that Michael ever worked with. Maybe still a lil pucker-faced from those sour grapes lol??? That's between them, Michael and God I guess.

The long and short of it, John's AND Quincy's comments were tacky. You can have conflicting opinions and constructive criticism of someone you worked with, but that doesn't mean you have to be cruel and belittling about it. They were tasteless, unnecessary, and spiteful comments and only served to put the man down. Plain ol' low blows."

Moral of the story: Bad form John, bad form. :no:
 
ThrillerZombie said:
I was really mad when I read this. I've thought for a long time now that Michael didn't change his face that much. So I did a quick Photoshop of a photo from 2009, changed the color of his skin, and then only changed his eyebrows and hair. Even I was surprised by how different that made him look. Here he really just looks like an older version of Thriller Michael.

hx9l.jpg
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Funny that you brought this up, I used to say this allllllll the time too. I never got the "ohh he messed up his face with the 28,000 nosejobs" malarchy that people would always say. I mean for what it's worth, I read somewhere that he had some cartilage degradation as a result of a healing complication with his nosejob which made it a little pointier (of course this is a COMPLETE speculation), but it's honestly been the same-looking nose for the past 25 years lol. The SAME FACE for that matter, sheesh lol.

The one thing I did notice though, was that his cheeks started to look less full which is a natural part of the aging process. Everyone looses most if not all of the baby fat in their cheeks as they get into their middle aged years. Just look at Brooke Shields, she looks different because she's aged (skin's not as smooth, cheeks aren't as full anymore, etc.) but still like herself...

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Outside of the full-blown vitiligo and different hair styles, he looks just like himself. All it takes is a simple picture comparison to see that lol; not much if anything has changed. But people love to run with surface-level observations rather than take another 2 seconds to truly understand something.... :smilerolleyes:
 
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I'm just gonna say one thing on his looks. I've been schooling my 3 and 5 year old niece and nephew on everything Michael Jackson (they're now obsessed :)) and I've played them everything. They watched thriller next to Bad next to Earth Song and they didn't notice his changes at all. Not once have they ever questioned or mentioned why he looked different, not even his skin colour.

THAT is the reason he loved children. They don't care about that shit. They see a human being who can dance awesome and that's all they care about :)
 
mthalen said:
I don't think he says anything too strange (I think a lot of people actually would agree with MJ not looking at his best in the last years of his life), but as the things he said aren't nice he could've just kept his mouth shut :)
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I disagree. MJ looked awesome in This Is It. Infact i think it was the best he's looked in years
 
“I went and met with him, and he asked me if I would do another film with him and he was so disfigured by then, it was so grotesque what he had done to himself,” Landis said from Los Angeles.

“He had no nose! It was like the Phantom of the Opera! He wore a little (nose) piece. I was so horrified.
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His comments about Michael's appearance were rude, mean spirited and inappropriate. Plus in 2007 when he said this discussion took place, Michael looked beautiful as always. He did 2 Magazine covers for Ebony and Vogue. Was earlier at diamond awards and Legend awards in Japan and looked beautiful on film. I don't get where he is coming from with his disfigured, grotesque and horrified statements. In other interviews he seems to have a genuine respect and caring for Michael but states he was somewhat weird at times or over the top, (fair) but nothing like the above. That was wrong and uncalled for and he should be called out for it.
 
Whatever. Eddie Murphy exposed his hating a$$ long time ago so it's all good. He helped to produce the Thriller and Black or White videos and did Animal House, Trading Day and the Blues Brothers. That's as far as the respect I'll give to him but whatever.
 
Yeah right, how "ugly" and "deformed" he looked in 2007! :doh:

April and May from that year... WTF was he talking about? Michael looks stunning in these pictures! :in_love:

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PurdyYungThang84 said:
This is what I said on the fb group lol, Quincy Jones' badmouthing was also brought up...

"I mean SO many people came outta the woodwork post-2009 pretending to be Michael's best bud and confidante when they'd all but abandoned him during his life. On the flipside of the same coin, the same "friends" and former collaborators that posed in pictures with him, praised his creative spirit and heart did an about-face to only, post-2009, (for lack of better phrasing) start talking some MAJOR sh-t. Its equally amusing how all of these people now have once-iconic-now-dwindling careers. These types of people always end up looking the most tasteless and out of line. Obviously hurtful and disappointing to hear about, but sadly not surprising.

Also, there could honestly be some left-over career envy. I kind of wonder if they foresaw Michael's star accelerating at the rate that it did. I'm sure on some level John and Quincy both saw this Motown kid in his transitional phase, and thought it might be a fun project to contribute to, but never imagined that Thriller (both short film and album) would be the game-changer that it was/is, and actually end up eclipsing the careers of any major player that Michael ever worked with. Maybe still a lil pucker-faced from those sour grapes lol??? That's between them, Michael and God I guess.

The long and short of it, John's AND Quincy's comments were tacky. You can have conflicting opinions and constructive criticism of someone you worked with, but that doesn't mean you have to be cruel and belittling about it. They were tasteless, unnecessary, and spiteful comments and only served to put the man down. Plain ol' low blows."

Moral of the story: Bad form John, bad form. :no:
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You can add to the dwindling career list Anka with his comments in his last book.
 
Its like theres some type of Michael Jackson syndrome when peoples common courtesy just goes out the window when talking about him. As they say beauty is in the eyes of the beholder so John can feel whatever way he wants to but for him to blatantly say Michael was grotesque is just distasteful and disrespectful. The only reason I know about John is because of Thriller, hes probably salty that his own professional success isn't as acknowledged when in comparison to Thriller. That's just my opinion :beach:
 
Only heard of him through Thriller, probably annoyed we aren't JLC - John Landis Community.
 
analogue said:
I disagree. MJ looked awesome in This Is It. In fact i think it was the best he's looked in years
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That I don't agree with, he looked happy to be working again but he was WAAAAAY too thin.... :unsure:
 
Michael was photoshopped to make him look thinner on TII. In the autpsy said he was healthy for his age, the never mentioned he had an wasting disorder, so I don't care what people who criticized him for looking "thin" think.
 
Snow White luvs Peter Pan said:
Michael was photoshopped to make him look thinner on TII. In the autpsy said he was healthy for his age, the never mentioned he had an wasting disorder, so I don't care what people who criticized him for looking "thin" think.
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Why would they do this? If anything I've heard they made him less thin in photos.
 
I dont think AEG would want to Edit to make MJ appear thinner in TII. I never heard anything about that. But I know fans tried to doctor photos to suit thier agenda of making his appear thinner or compare them to when MJJ was his heaviest. But John wasn't even discussing MJ from TII . It was from 2007 when he look just fine and I do mean "FINE":wub:.
 
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