Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Faking It: Michael Jackson’ on Discovery+, Where Experts Troll For Truths In What MJ’s Not Saying

In the Discovery+ series Faking It, experts in linguistics, body language, and forensic psychology analyze the speech, mannerisms, and perceived mental state of individuals who might have something to hide. The concept and the experts themselves are on loan from Discovery’s UK side, but for this American version, Faking It is tackling sensational celebrity subjects like convicted sex offender R. Kelly and, here, Michael Jackson. 

FAKING IT: MICHAEL JACKSON: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “I find it quite incredible that a lot of people say ‘Michael Jackson can’t possibly have been a child abuser because I really loved ‘Billie Jean,’” says forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes. “Well, I loved “Billie Jean,” and we all loved “Thriller.” (Here, Daynes does a little “Thriller Dance” gesture with her hands.) “But somebody can make great music and they can be a fantastic artist, but it doesn’t mean they’re not capable of child abuse.”

The Gist: Faking It: Michael Jackson begins with the late singer’s 2003 interview with British journalist Martin Bashir, in which he was asked about sleeping in the same bed as children who were not his own. Daynes calls it “car-crash television,” not pulling any punches, while body language expert Dr. Cliff Lansley highlights Jackson’s statement that “when you say ‘bed,’ you’re thinking sexual – they make it sexual, it’s not sexual” as a moment of truth. According to Lansley, the singer’s body language is “indicating to us truthfully that he doesn’t see it as morally wrong.” And linguist Dawn Archer points out the speed and rhythm of Jackson’s speech, as well as his emphatic rejection of Bashir’s line of questioning. “That to me points to his different reality paradigm,” Archer says. “His different perspective.”

Faking It goes on to highlight Jackson’s 2003 arrest for child molestation and subsequent appearance in a Santa Monica court, charges for which he was acquitted, and fills in Jackson’s biographical information with contributions from author Steve Knopper, who wrote a book about him. As the youngest of Joe Jackson’s nine children, and somebody who was put to work as entertainer at a very young age, the Faking It crew sees the theft of a regular childhood from Jackson as a source of his eventual behavior as an adult, such as his professed Peter Pan fascination. (“I am Peter Pan,” Jackson tells Bashir in the 2003 interview.) Daynes says she doesn’t know if the singer’s thought process would qualify him as a pedophile. “But his way of viewing the world was highly inappropriate and distorted.”

Later, Faking It examines the infamous footage of Michael Jackson dangling his baby out of a hotel window in Berlin, as well as his pushback to Bashir regarding plastic surgery, a denial none of the experts believe. “He gives a quantifier and an excuse for having plastic surgery, which weakens his claim,” Lansley says, and highlights a single-sided shoulder shrug as a nonverbal cue of what he refers to as “leakage” – in other words, a “tell” for when people are being deceptive.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The documentary-style tone of Faking It is akin to Autopsy: The Last Hours of…, where a forensic pathologist analyzes autopsy reports to glean information about celebrity deaths. The American version of Last Hours is broadcast on Reelz, but just like Faking It, it originated as a UK production.

Our Take: On Faking It, the experts each deliver their takes from an individual layer. Linguist Dawn Archer sits before a bank of monitors and sound equipment, and can often be seen donning a pair of headphones to listen closely to a soundbite, while Lansley stands before a laptop workstation with a large projection screen visible behind him and Daynes delivers her analysis from some set decorator’s version of a psychologist’s office. The question is, why are they never together? It’s understandable that each would wish to offer their singular professional opinion untainted. But an additional segment where the three experts came together to share consensus and look for intersections in their analysis might make the three individual approaches more cohesive, and more effective toward the stated aims of the series. It would certainly give Faking It more original material to work with, so it wouldn’t have to pad its celebrity-focused episodes with talking head interviews imported from a generic true crime documentary. If the whole point of Faking It is for these experts to offer their specific insight, then there should be more of that. A lot more. Because as it stands now, the pacing and intent of this Michael Jackson episode, like its counterpart that focused on R. Kelly, feels like opportunistic sensationalism.

Sex and Skin: Nothing, other than the lurid air of the discussions about Jackson’s intentions with the children he spent time with, as well as allegations and court cases concerning child molestation and alleged payments of hush money. Faking It doesn’t offer enough new takes on Jackson’s behavior  to make dredging any of this up worthwhile.

Parting Shot: Daynes is offering her conclusions on Jackson’s behavior, in light of the allegations in Finding Neverland. “He spends hours on the phone to these boys. He spends months at a time with them, and he immerses himself very deeply in their lives, but when they get older, that all fizzles out. So you’ve got this special place in Michael Jackson’s life, but when you reach adolescence, you’re out the door. So, I don’t know whether any sexual misconduct has gone on. But this is emotional abuse of these children. They’ve been emotionally seduced by Jackson, if nothing else.”

Sleeper Star: It’s gotta be forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes summarizing and encompassing the entire  “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” dance sequence in the “Thriller” music video with three deft downwards and sidewards movements of her hands.

Most Pilot-y Line: For the experts of Faking It, Michael Jackson’s behavior as an adult – Daynes says psychologists call it “an emotional congruence to children” – is the direct result of his own childhood being robbed from him. “We’ve got someone here with arrested development,” Lansley says. “His childhood was stopped from the age of five when he started performing.”

Our Call: SKIP IT. The expert insights into his behavior that Faking It: Michael Jackson leans on aren’t enough to overcome the sense that it’s only throwing another layer of well-trodden dirt onto the surface of the true crime content farm.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges