"But for me, this is not entertainment; it’s extremely painful."

February 3, 2016 12:37 PM

Last night FX premiered their true crime adaptation of The People V. O.J. Simpson, based on the Jeffrey Toobin's book The Run of His Life. Marcia Clark, a prosecutor in the case, has given an interview to Vox on, "on What Episode One of The People v. O.J. Simpson Got Right and Wrong". Briefly, Clark covers how the prosecutorial team considered race, liberties the show takes, her perception in the media circus the trial would inspire, the aftermath of the case (including O.J.'s later incarceration), and the meaning of the trial in the present day.
posted by codacorolla (41 comments total)

"Praise Be: Kato Kaelin Live-Tweeted 'The People V. OJ Simpson"
posted by Lyme Drop at 12:48 PM on February 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

I know I came across as tough. I guess some would call it bitchy. And I have to say, I can't go into court wearing a pinafore and curtsy. I mean, I'm up there and it's a murder trial, and it's not a dinner party. At the end of the day, at the end of the trial, I was in a lose-lose position. If I go soft-voiced and, you know, very ladylike, they call me a cream puff and say, "She's not up to the task." I go in and I'm tough and I'm strong and I'm a bitch.

Well, it's a good thing it's no longer like this for women some 20 years later. I feel so bad for women of that generation.
posted by blurker at 12:54 PM on February 3, 2016 [19 favorites]

As someone who lived through this whole shitshow, I don't see the appeal of revisiting in any context, fictional or otherwise.
posted by dortmunder at 12:55 PM on February 3, 2016 [49 favorites]

But then they blew one of the greatest lines in the show. Detective Ron Phillips, wonderful guy, he was the one who called to notify Simpson in Chicago. What he actually told Simpson was, “Your wife is dead.” And Simpson's response was, “Who killed her?” Wait a minute, how about a car accident? How about an overdose?

I gasped aloud.
posted by purpleclover at 12:55 PM on February 3, 2016 [26 favorites]

Also, how did I go all these years and not know Marcia Clark's hair was a perm!?
posted by purpleclover at 12:56 PM on February 3, 2016

True, it was a shitshow, but I'm actually glad to see Marcia Clark's perspective on this now. Good post.
posted by blurker at 12:58 PM on February 3, 2016 [5 favorites]

As someone who lived through this whole shitshow, I don't see the appeal of revisiting in any context, fictional or otherwise.

I was in j-school at the time, and all I really remember is thinking all that courtroom needed was a big circus tent over it. No trial should ever be reduced fodder for gossip. I wonder how different things would have played out if there was Twitter back then...
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 1:03 PM on February 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

My first thought when I saw the ads for this show was that I'd seen it when it aired the first time. My second thought was that if it was nothing but several hours of a slowly fleeing Bronco, then I'd probably watch it.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:07 PM on February 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

I watched much of the trial at the time, and kept close tabs on it in general. I've read a few books about it. I thought Clark and Darden did a pretty poor job representing the government, but I'm in complete agreement with her that I cannot view this story as entertainment.

I can't help but wish that just once, someone was telling Nicole Brown Simpson's and Ron Goldman's stories instead.
posted by bearwife at 1:07 PM on February 3, 2016 [9 favorites]

Didn't Judge Lance Ito actually speculate to the press at one point about who he wanted to have play him in "the movie"?

I don't have any interest in this television drama. I lived through it the first time, and it was a shitshow even worse than the 13 months of reality television we are calling the current presidential campaign. But it has fascinated me how it played out on TV and how meta it was even while it was actually happening. That this series exists only metas the meta.
posted by hippybear at 1:07 PM on February 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

TAL on the OJ aftermath (@10m mark)
posted by kliuless at 1:11 PM on February 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

Not to get too much into Fanfare territory, but the show is pretty good so far. It's a Falchuck and Murphy joint, so you know (cheesy and over the top), but it's definitely got its own style, and I think most performances are very good (especially Paulson and Gooding Jr., and strangely Travolta).

I also lived through this, although as a ten year old, and I'd mostly forgotten about the trial except as a punchline. The show seems like it has the potential to actually build its own meaning around the events, and bring it back into public consciousness, helping people to figure out what it was other than a media circus.
posted by codacorolla at 1:13 PM on February 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

The show seems like it has the potential to actually build its own meaning around the events, and bring it back into public consciousness, helping people to figure out what it was other than a media circus.

Well, it has the potential to build its own meaning around the events and to help people believe that it is what the producers of this show want the public to believe it was...

This is really just media circus round two, the fiction version.
posted by hippybear at 1:17 PM on February 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is really just media circus round two, the fiction version.

You seem to have a pretty strong opinion for someone who self-admittedly didn't watch the fucking show.
posted by codacorolla at 1:19 PM on February 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

Anyway, the show is the show, and this post is about Marcia Clark's interview. Maybe we can talk about the show in the appropriate thread, and if you want to shit up a Fanfare post you can do that whenever someone makes it.
posted by codacorolla at 1:20 PM on February 3, 2016

I've read enough about it to know that it's highly speculative and fictionalized about the things that aren't taken from court transcripts. Plus, there is a LOT being written about it. So, media circus, fiction version. Do you have proof otherwise?
posted by hippybear at 1:21 PM on February 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Well, it's a good thing it's no longer like this for women some 20 years later. I feel so bad for women of that generation.

Is this sarcastic? I can't tell, mostly because of the second sentence. Things are exactly like this for women still.
posted by OmieWise at 1:24 PM on February 3, 2016 [17 favorites]

and strangely Travolta

Travolta's in it? That's blowing my mind—interestingly, Pulp Fiction was released less than a month before the trial's swearing-in.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:25 PM on February 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yeah, sorry. HUGE sarcasm there. I should have added the hamburger.
posted by blurker at 1:25 PM on February 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

This was an extremely thoughtful interview on Marcia Clark's part. I was old enough to remember the case itself, though I don't really have any firm image of Marcia Clark leftover from that period, and I came away very impressed with her canniness about it.

It's a hell of a thing to be a prosecutor in a deeply racist system, to understand that, and still have a firm conviction that "no, guys, this one time it's actually not a race thing".
posted by tobascodagama at 1:28 PM on February 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

I should have added the hamburger.

that is never true
posted by thelonius at 1:49 PM on February 3, 2016 [5 favorites]

From the article --

I just hope that in addition to that, it reminds us there were two victims here.

That's what gets me. I can't view this as just a cultural moment. I keep thinking of two people butchered by a big, powerful man with a knife. A painful, terrifying, and terrible way to die. Their parents living with that. I don't want to watch this.
posted by zipadee at 1:56 PM on February 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

I get Clark's discomfort, but you can't disguise the fact that she got worked up and down. The plaintiff attorneys in the civil cases, with the publicity of OJ's acquittal and without the awesome resources of the government at their disposal, were able to get a culpable verdict without breaking a sweat. There was almost nothing that Clark didn't do wrong, and most of it was immediately recognized as wrong as she did by defense lawyers and prosecutors alike.
posted by MattD at 2:35 PM on February 3, 2016 [5 favorites]

I get Clark's discomfort, but you can't disguise the fact that she got worked up and down. The plaintiff attorneys in the civil cases, with the publicity of OJ's acquittal and without the awesome resources of the government at their disposal, were able to get a culpable verdict without breaking a sweat.

As I recall being reminded repeatedly by TV legal analysts at the time, civil cases have a different standard of guilt than criminal cases. I believe it's "beyond a reasonable doubt" vs. "preponderance of the evidence". I wasn't in the courtroom and haven't studied what evidence was presented at each trial, but I can certainly see how in a case with as many things going on as this one, it might have been easy to get to the lesser standard while being relatively difficult to convince a jury that he was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
posted by Copronymus at 2:50 PM on February 3, 2016 [6 favorites]

It's not just a cultural moment, but it is a legitimately fascinating story about race, celebrity, money, the media, the police, and gendered violence...this is a hell of a story, and it informs our world today in an uncountable number of ways. For some people, a show like this will always be in bad taste no matter what, and that's fine. But no one makes shows for people who won't watch them no matter what. It's an interesting and valid stance to take, but once you take it, there's not much else to say.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:27 PM on February 3, 2016 [7 favorites]

I was trying to explain the whole O.J. thing to my 13-year-old yesterday (it was mentioned on NPR) - it's amazing how bizarre the whole thing sounds when you're explaining it from scratch. And that's even without getting into Kato Kaelin or the slow-mo car chase. When the verdict came down I was working for a truly appalling cop magazine called "Law and Order" and the entire not-me staff was watching it on TV in the boss's office and they severely flipped out.
posted by Daily Alice at 3:54 PM on February 3, 2016 [6 favorites]

(The interview is on Vulture, not Vox)
posted by Charity Garfein at 4:25 PM on February 3, 2016

This was a great read. This took place when I was 12 and we talked about it in school. I remember the day the verdict came out I was relieved, because from my 12 year old perspective I felt like, well it could be racism? Who knows? I don't think it was made clear to me that they really did know in this case.

Also I remember my teacher being disappointed in those of us who were relieved he was innocent, like she thought we were smarter than that or something.

So anyway. I really liked reading Clark's take on it now. This was such a complicated and nuanced story I'm not surprised that we're not done with it yet.
posted by bleep at 4:39 PM on February 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

MattD: I get Clark's discomfort, but you can't disguise the fact that she got worked up and down. The plaintiff attorneys in the civil cases, with the publicity of OJ's acquittal and without the awesome resources of the government at their disposal, were able to get a culpable verdict without breaking a sweat.

Copronymus: As I recall being reminded repeatedly by TV legal analysts at the time, civil cases have a different standard of guilt than criminal cases.

There was also the matter of OJ no longer being able to afford a legal Dream Team; there were numerous other differences between the trials, some of which seem to have been predicated specifically on both countering the defenses used in the criminal trial and avoiding the mistakes made by the prosecution. It wasn't exactly a do-over, but they certainly had the benefit of knowing what not to do.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:29 PM on February 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

One of the issues with OJ's criminal trial was that television viewers saw and heard more of the case than the jury. A lot of evidence wasn't presented during the trial, including OJ's "suicide note," the Bronco chase, and evidence OJ was carrying a disguise, a passport and a bundle of cash.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:00 PM on February 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's not just a cultural moment, but it is a legitimately fascinating story about race, celebrity, money, the media, the police, and gendered violence..

It showed that, finally, a rich black man was just as capable of getting away with killing someone as a rich white man.
posted by Sangermaine at 6:01 PM on February 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

No. Not even.close. But I think its: "On balance of probabilities". Which means "its more likely".

"Preponderance of the evidence" is indeed the typical burden of proof for civil cases, in California and elsewhere in the US. It effectively means "more likely than not". Check out California's Civil Jury Instructions.

The best book about the OJ trial was Vincent Bugliosi's Outrage. The prosecution did a garbage job. The Dream Team was overrated.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:10 PM on February 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

'Outrage' is very good, as are 'The Run of His Life' and 'American Tragedy'--if you're only going to read one OJ book, I suggest it's one of those.
posted by box at 4:34 AM on February 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

One thing that interests me is how the TBI issue seems to fit here and is fairly often overlooked. From my memories of the time, the thing everyone was saying was "how could OJ fall so far?" Well, on hindsight we've now got dozens of similar cases. Not saying he's not guilty, but I'd like to see him donate his brain to the study.
posted by nevercalm at 6:49 AM on February 4, 2016 [5 favorites]

Yeah, I followed the trial somewhat, and I can't remember the TBI thing coming up. It's a different playing field now.
posted by OmieWise at 8:17 AM on February 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

One of the ways in which the current show is superior to the real-life trial is that the new show isn't going to spend the next year pre-empting Animaniacs and Gargoyles.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 8:37 AM on February 4, 2016 [8 favorites]

Shallow sidebar: How on earth does Marcia Clark look younger today than she did 20 years ago?!
posted by samthemander at 9:57 AM on February 4, 2016 [4 favorites]

the awesome resources of the government

endless lol at the idea that prosecutors have endless resources, or anything even remotely comparable to the resources of high-end civil litigation firms
posted by prefpara at 10:37 AM on February 4, 2016 [3 favorites]

Shallow sidebar: How on earth does Marcia Clark look younger today than she did 20 years ago?!

She mentions raising kids at the time of the trial, so I'm guessing it's a combination of having come out on the other side of the Child Maelstrom and being able to afford better stylists now.

(Honestly, just the fact that she's sitting for a professional photographer for the pictures that go with the interview rather than appearing under drab, institutional fluorescent lights is probably a huge part of it.)
posted by tobascodagama at 11:18 AM on February 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

I remember a day in the trial when there was a discussion about working late that night and Harden said no. I think she said she didn't have a sitter; it was definitely related to kids and child care. The men ( Ito, particularly, I think) backed right down and were even apologetic for not considering that, but the pundits the next day were all over it, saying that she did have a sitter and how she had "played the mommy card."
Overall, she really was portrayed very harshly.

I enjoyed reading this interview. Thank you.
posted by SLC Mom at 11:38 AM on February 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

Has OJ found the real killer yet? I assume he's still directing his independent investigation from prison.
posted by theorique at 10:51 AM on February 5, 2016