Like a Glove
The new OJ miniseries is a perfect fit for 2016
HERE’S a strange blessing for our times: May you live long enough to see a sensationally overblown news event that you can still vividly recall turned into a very good and even powerfully thoughtful TV miniseries a couple decades later.
For, as creator Ryan Murphy and his collaborators on FX’s masterful “American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson” are quick to remind us old fogies, many viewers will be coming to this material fresh.
“American Crime Story” began Tuesday from a squareone approach, assuming that anyone under 30 is only vaguely aware that, once upon a time in the dialup modem days, a retired professional football star was arrested and charged with murdering his exwife and a restaurant employee with whom she was casually acquainted.
It happened in June 1994, and by the time of O.J. Simpson’s acquittal 16 months later (oops, spoiler alert), American culture had unwittingly but necessarily entered a new kind of conversation about race, justice and media — a conversation that remains an important precursor to the #BlackLivesMatter era.
It’s easy for some of us to regard the Simpson saga as a spent narrative, picked apart and talked about to death, but “American Crime Story” makes an effective, convincing case that now is a perfect time to turn the story into a piece of topical art.
Although “The People v. O.J. Simpson” has 10 episodes with which to allow the saga some sprawl, it’s clear that theme and arc are perhaps more important than making sure every twist and turn in the story of record are covered.
At the same time, quite a number of the case’s key elements are touched upon, inside and outside the courtroom. (The source material is journalist and author Jeffrey Toobin’s 1996 book, “The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson”; Toobin also serves as a consultant to the show.)
The series steadily ruminates on the subject of fame itself, as Simpson’s Blist celebrity status subsumes his acquaintances, defense attorneys, the prosecutors, the family members of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Gold man, the witnesses, the reporters, the jury members and court personnel. (Even Judge Lance Ito, played by Kenneth Choi, falls prey to the trial’s allure.)
In one episode, Simpson’s friend Robert Kardashian (David Schwimmer), who also serves as one of his many “dream team” attorneys, takes his children to brunch, where they’re dazzled by the fact that the hostess recognizes him and offers the family a prime table while other customers wait. Kardashian (who died in 2003) offers his brood (Kim, Khloe — you know) a cautionary word about those who seek fame. It falls on deaf ears. It’s a moment that is almost too delicious in its irony and resonance.
The real attraction in this story was always the legal maneuverings, which make even more sense with a couple decades of hindsight. John Travolta, whose comebacks tend to occur in 20year cycles, has a ball covering his face in even thicker makeup than usual, playing Robert Shapiro, the vainglorious attorney who wisely senses that some early mistakes by LA police and prosecutors have opened a window into the flammable subject of race.
Is it possible, Shapiro wonders, to portray his client, who has for all appearances assiduously avoided identifying with AfricanAmericans, as a victim of discrimination?
Enter the late legendary defense attorney Johnnie Cochran (Courtney B. Vance, in a knockout performance), who not only takes that bet but wrests control of the case from Shapiro — and every one else. In Episode 5, titled (of course) “The Race Card,” the series goes deep on Cochran’s background and style, contrasted with the inner conflict experienced by Christopher Darden (Sterling K. Brown), a prosecutor who must always wonder whether his role in the case is merely symbolic — and if so, symbolic of what?
What comes across is the inexorable, unrestrained chaos that was the Simpson trial. This is particularly true in “The People v. O.J. Simpson’s” and Sarah Paulson’s exquisitely painful take on lead prosecutor Marcia Clark, who, in the trial’s permanent lore, must shoulder not only the burden of proof (the series once again shows us just how much proof should have been there; how openshut the case first seemed) but also the burden of utter failure.
Sometimes good television about past events can make time travel seem almost possible. If you lived it the first goaround, you’ll probably be amazed at how “The People v. O.J. Simpson” sucks you right back in, even if you believed yourself immune or permanently numb to its circumstances and outcome. And if this is all new to you (or like the hook in some old pop tune you can’t quite identify), then perhaps you’ll take to the social networks and start the debate all over again, with new insight and perspective.
Given the degree to which it left so many of us feeling outraged or misunderstood, this story could use some fresh meaning.