It took an earthquake-one that devastated Los Angeles, no less-to knock Tonya Harding off the front pages of the country’s newspapers, even if only for a few days. And before Tonya and friends came along, there were the Bobbitts with their tale of abuse and retribution occupying the prized spot.
And before them is a long, unbroken succession of other scandals and real-life dramas: the trial of the brothers Menendez, Erik and Lyle, accused of offing their millionaire parents; Michael Jackson’s fall from grace; Bill Clinton’s alleged sexcapades; Heidi Fleiss’ VIP list of johns.
Each one set tongues wagging at the water cooler and made life easy for late-night comedians.
With each one, we couldn’t get enough.
“These kinds of stories have always held a certain public fascination,” said Cecelia Tichi, author of “Electronic Hearth: Creating an American Television Culture,” and a Vanderbilt University professor.
“Primordial anxieties are called up. In the skater’s case we have a class-based figure. It’s always hard to talk about class in this culture; this gives us a way. There’s the riffraff vs. the upper class. We see Tonya Harding not as underdog but as white trash.”
Anthony Chan, an associate professor of television studies at the University of Washington’s School of Communications, said people are riveted by the real-life drama because they fill a void in their own lives.
“There’s this fantasy people want to live of an exciting life and they can’t do it themselves, their lives are essentially dull, so they have real, live people doing things that are stranger than fiction,” Chan said.
The Bobbitt story, for instance, touches us because it is essentially about the “love-sex, life-death struggle,” Chan said.
“The real basic foundation of our lives is love, that’s what we’re mainly interested in,” Chan said. “And a little bit of Bosnia in between.”
The high public interest in the stories is reflected in the popularity of shows like “A Current Affair” and the rise of Court TV, a cable station devoted to broadcasting trials live. It’s also evident in the way the stories have been covered by mainstream media.
What used to be the domain of sensational tabloids and television shows is now everyone’s fair game. Mainstream news media have become less afraid of offending their audiences’ sensibilities. The Bobbitt case, for instance, brought the ordinarily taboo word “penis” to the pages of the nation’s newspapers and the mouths of evening news anchors.
Sleaze, in short, has paddled right out into the middle of the stream.
“They’re following us now,” said Barry Levine, a news editor at “A Current Affair,” the New York-based show that started the tabloid TV craze seven years ago. “At the same time Clinton is making a very important trip abroad, The New York Times devoted half of its front page to Harding.”
“That’s what their readers really want,” said Charlie Montgomery, the National Enquirer’s news editor. “They can come off their ivory towers and give readers what they want. Who wants to read about city councils when you can read about Heidi Fleiss?”
The National Enquirer, meanwhile, has found itself in the unusual position of passing up some stories. Montgomery said the Enquirer hasn’t done stories on the Bobbitts or the Menendez brothers because they were “too sleazy” for a publication that he considers a “family newspaper.”
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“There’s been an embarrassment of riches,” said Levine. “This past week, with Harding, Menendez and Jackson, there’s just not enough time to fit in all the stories.”
There are so many cases, in fact, that difficult choices had to be made, said Gregg Jarrett, an anchor and reporter for the show. While a head-on collision between the trial of Lorena Bobbitt and the Menendez Brothers was averted, the trial of Reginald Denny’s attackers had to make way for the Menendezes.
The Harding case, with its constant twists and turns, has been the perfect soap opera.
“Each day is a new chapter, and we’re attempting to chronicle all these chapters,” Levine said. “Each day as we get closer to air time we’re always scrambling to get the latest development in. The public has taken a real liking to the story. They’ve showed an appetite for it.”
The interest in human dramas is nothing new.
“There’s something about trials that fascinates the American public,” said Jarrett after a recent appearance on KOMO’s “Northwest Afternoon” to discuss the Menendez case. “It’s like a soap opera, but it’s real-life drama. There’s nothing more compelling than that. `L.A. Law,’ as entertaining as it is, is not real.”
Both Chan and Tichi say there’s nothing wrong with the fascination with these stories.
“I don’t think it’s sleaze,” said Chan. “People are watching a slice of life in America and that’s just what it is. To make a value judgment is unfair.”
Tichi believes the stories also serve an important cultural function.
“Cases like these give people something in common,” Tichi said. “You can talk about it at work, with friends, family. When a lot of people live in such different patterns, everyone can overcome barriers in diversity and come together, and talk about questions of motive and be entertained.”
Beyond entertainment, these stories also give people a way of talking about substantive issues.
“What people are able to do is talk about moral values and ethics,” Tichi said. “They’re able to discuss what’s right and what’s wrong. I think people need to be able to give voice to their values.”