How we remember people does not fit easily into a therapeutic framework of suffering, confession and healing.

This week’s release of Netflix’s new documentary Michael Jackson: The Verdict and the extraordinary box-office success of the recent biopic Michael have reignited debates about how Jackson should be remembered. Yet watching the biopic shortly before attending the funeral of a close friend has led me to question whether a human life can ever be reduced to a single authentic self.

Critics were not enamoured with the biopic Michael. Its Rotten Tomatoes critic score currently sits at just 39 per cent, compared to 97 per cent from viewers, an extraordinary disparity. The reviews I read were scathing. The film was described as “deceitful”, “superficial”, “over-simplified” and “sanitised”. The controversies surrounding Jackson’s life and child molestation allegations clearly contribute to this reaction and will again return to public attention in Netflix’s documentary.

Yet I suspect some of the hostility toward the film reflects a broader cultural shift. Since the early 1980s, when Jackson rose to global fame, we have increasingly come to expect life stories to be narrated through therapeutic frameworks of suffering, confession and healing. The enormous influence of figures like Oprah Winfrey helped normalise a language in which personal identity is understood through trauma, emotional disclosure and psychological........

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