Joseph Fiennes Regrets Playing Michael Jackson In Awful Series Episode
Joseph Fiennes regrets playing Michael Jackson in an episode of Urban Myths about a post-9/11 road trip.
In television and film, it’s not uncommon for an actor to receive backlash for taking on a controversial role. Variety reports that Joseph Fiennes (The Mother) has expressed regret for taking on the role of Michael Jackson in an episode of Sky Arts’ Urban Myths back in 2017, and asked the broadcaster to pull the episode from circulation.
Urban Myths is a comedy drama anthology series that loosely bases its episodes on real pop-culture figures, and the controversial episode in question involved a fictional account of Michael Jackson (Fiennes), Marlon Brando (Brian Cox), Elizabeth Taylor (Stockard Channing), and Carrie Fisher as herself taking a post-9/11 road trip across the country.
Whenever an actor takes on a questionable role, they are often faced with two choices after receiving public criticism: double down, or admit to making a mistake. In the case of Joseph Fiennes and his whitewashed depiction of pop icon Michael Jackson, the Escapist actor chose to do the latter. What’s more, he made it a point to be the voice for everybody behind the production knowing that he was the face behind the controversy even though other writers, producers, broadcasters, and directors were involved in the creative process.
In the canceled episode of Urban Myths, entitled “Elizabeth, Michael and Marlon,” Joseph Fiennes was made up with a lighter skin tone as well as a prosthetic nose to take on the look of Michael Jackson. Not only was there controversy surrounding a white actor portraying a black celebrity, but the use of a prosthetic nose could be seen as a jab at the extensive plastic surgery Michael Jackson had throughout his life. It has also been made clear that the road trip never happened, and the entire story was fabricated for entertainment value.
It’s one thing to put Twitter in an uproar (it’s easier than one would think) when questionable content is put out on the world stage, but this Urban Myths episode received negative reception from Michael Jackson’s own daughter Paris. In a Tweet that has since been deleted, Paris Jackson said that the Joseph Fiennes episode that pokes fun at her father makes her want to vomit. Though Joseph Fiennes originally thought that he was participating in a lighthearted fictional recounting of Michael Jackson’s life, he realized that he made a massive mistake when the backlash hit a critical mass.
Looking back at his decision to get the episode pulled, Joseph Fiennes doesn’t have any regrets. Though he didn’t mean to cause any offense to Michael Jackson’s family, it was quickly made apparent that’s exactly what he did. One could argue that the damage had already been done by producing the episode in the first place, but sometimes you simply have to take your lumps, apologize for your misguided attempts at comedy, and hope that you can save face.
When you’re working closely on a creative project, it’s sometimes difficult to tell whether it will be well-received or not. In hindsight, we can’t help but wonder how Joseph Fiennes thought it would be a good idea to portray Michael Jackson under such a ridiculous set of circumstances, but at least he was successful in getting the problematic episode removed from broadcast indefinitely.
