[TW] All those weird jokes about male child abuse victims
With the resurgence of interest in Michael Jackson, thanks to the new movie, I thought I'd address something that always bothered me. In the mid-2000s, when Jackson was facing time in court for child abuse allegations, the media was having a field day making fun of this. Specifically, young boys being targeted. Like on *Family Guy*, a boy in the audience gets snatched away by him during a 3-D screening; *Scary Movie* has MJ disguising himself as the daughter saying suggestive lines to the dad, and then saying he wouldn't touch her because "she's a girl," followed by *Date Movie* having a whole background scene of a mom beating him up for getting close to her child, ending with him saying, "It's just some Jesus Juice!" (a reference to when he allegedly served wine to the kids).
I understand that there's always been this double standard when depicting abuse in media. If it's a woman abusing her husband/boyfriend, it's seen as funny. Likewise, people found it easier to laugh at grown men grooming little boys than if they were girls. But me, knowing that sexual abuse is still abuse, always found it weird and uncomfortable.