When you said the only negative tale included financials, my first thought was Friend/Flower. laughs. Needless to say, I do not agree with your assessment that it boosted Michael's masculinity. That tale is more conflicting than the phone tale.
Well thats a differing of opinion again.
Like I said in my initial review, the way the Friend/Flower incidents were written didn't come across as negative whatsoever, unlike what the media tried to portray. To me, Michael was simply DATING. I consider that a positive. Something that most NORMAL people do. I have no idea what was so negative about that. Actually I thought it was pretty sweet the things he did for Friend especially (imagine going on a late night date to have a Washington DC tour with Michael freakin Jackson, I'd die! Better than any fan fiction lol) . And yes, it was conflicting and incomplete, cuz again, they gave MJ his privacy and didn't know the whole tale of his relationship with those girls, how they met, what he felt about them, if he'd see them again, etc. No you don't have that info because they didn't have that info. This effectively debunks all rumors that he was asexual or homosexual (not that there was anything wrong with those two identifications, but MJ constantly tried to tell people throughout his life that those rumors were not true, and there you have it, accounts about it being not true).
Yes i don't deny that financial wealth feeds a man's ego, as does having sexual partners, as does having a deep voice, as does having muscles and being strong, as does a lot of things lol. But to me thats not even the point. Yes MJ had financial troubles, yes if he were alive it probably would have cut into his ego and hurt his feelings like ANYTHING else that would have been written about him that didn't feed into the image that he WANTED portrayed in public if he were alive. Like they already admitted, if he was alive, you wouldn't be reading a book like that. But since he was now gone and could not combat all the other LIES that people maliciously throw out there about his private life, they decided to use what they knew to tell what they believe is the truth about him. And to me, like i said, the only negative thing was his financial situation and that wasn't even portrayed as his fault but the unfortunate result of being let down by people he trusted and being broken by the trials he just came out of. Not a new concept. Not a concept that's far fetched. At all. And his rough financial situation was also not a new concept either, we already knew about it - like I said. So them talking about it to me makes even more sense because its not like they're saying something we don't already know.
Him having money problems is not the worst thing in the world to me, I'm sorry, especially everything that he went through. He was not superman. I knew he wouldn't come out of that whole situation completely unscathed - emotionally OR financially. Its definitely not the worst thing in the world they could have said about him. If you believe MJ making out with women is a negative thing - then I guess that's your opinion. But I think people are simply reading into things that don't fit into the ideal image of Michael Jackson as "negative." Or just buying into the media's spin of it. I too didn't like the tale of Flower and Friend the way it was portrayed, until I actually read the book. LOL
But I think showing this state he was in shows just how...and I said this in my initial review....BIG of an impact that trial had on him. If they didn't include these stories, then I don't think that would have gotten across as effectively in my end. And if they didn't get that point across effectively, then they wouldn't have gotten their MAIN point across effectively - the one that they brought on home at the end. Thousands of people at his funeral - where were they when he needed them? It brings home the isolation of his world (which MJ often talked about himself) and puts it in perspective. Its different hearing someone talking about it than it is 'experiencing' it from an inside perspective.
Now I'm not saying that I'm 100% convinced about these guys' intentions either. But I choose to think that they did a good job not dragging MJ's name through the mud with their efforts and giving him a sympathetic, humanized perspective - no matter what their intentions. They could have said they found million dollar checks to pay off little kids (
like latoya did in her book ?- again, maybe we're not thinking of the same book lol) if they wanted to lie and make a few extra, but they didn't.