If you had to narrow it down to a single day that ushered in the era of wall-to-wall-to-chimney, 24/7 media coverage that we see today, it may be June 17, 1994.
That’s the day everyone within sight of a TV was transfixed to the police pursuit of O.J. Simpson riding in a white Ford Bronco down a Los Angeles freeway as TV news choppers hovered overhead — capturing all the chaos below on camera.
Nearly 22 years later, the entire “O.J. trial era” is back on TV again in the new series, “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story,” which premiered on FX in February.
For those who weren’t around yet or too young to understand why their usual cartoons were knocked off the air every day to show all these boring grown-ups sitting around a courtroom, the show provides a historical perspective for all the O.J. references they’ve heard while growing up.
It also attempts to provide a behind-the-scenes look at what was going on behind closed doors as prosecutors and O.J.’s “dream team” defense plotted strategy for the murder trial of the century.
For a made-for-TV depiction of an incredibly high-profile event, you have to cut the actors some slack in their portrayals of such famous faces. For instance, actor Cuba Gooding Jr. really tries to take viewers inside O.J.’s emotional mindset just days after the murder of his ex-wife and a restaurant waiter, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Despite solid performances by Gooding, John Travolta as O.J.’s power-hungry attorney, Robert Shapiro, and the football star’s sympathy-dripping best buddy and sort-of attorney, Robert Kardashian, played by David Schwimmer, it’s hard to get around constantly thinking the actors are role-playing and not completely immersed in character. Is that really Ross from “Friends” playing the Kardashians’ dad?
More Top Picks Best Japanese Dish Towels
Instead of focusing on O.J., the series really revolves around the two lead attorneys in the case. Sarah Paulson delivers a spot-on, mirror-like performance as prosecutor, Marcia Clark, while former “Law and Order” star, Courtney B. Vance, acts like he was born to play lead defense attorney, Johnnie Cochran. Another spot-on shout-out goes to actor Evan Handler who captures the ego-intensity of famed law professor and attorney, Alan Dershowitz, who also served on O.J.’s legal team. Handler’s Dershowitz swiftly, yet spectacularly, knocks Schwimmer’s Kardashian down to a “you’re barely worthy of being in my presence” level at their first legal team meeting.
The first few episodes focus more on the inside dramas unfolding with brief references to all the concurrent media lunacy that catapulted the real-life O.J. saga into the stratosphere. I’m hoping that upcoming episodes reverse that inside-looking-out viewpoint and showcase how the non-stop, laser-beam, TV-talking-heads focus impacted an entire country that was on constant “trial watch” back then.
The accuracy of some behind-the-scenes trial happenings in the show are now being criticized and questioned by some of the real people who where there. A more macro-media approach would take into account what everyone watching saw back then — legal pundits, public reactions and police perceptions that raised serious questions about race and equality in American society. It’s especially important for younger audiences to see the public conversations and all the colors of the daily media spectrum that really shaped the post-O.J. trial outcome.
More than two decades later, we’re still having those same conversations in places far beyond a California courtroom.
Eric Scott is a freelance writer for the Pioneer Press
Twitter: @viberider18