MAKING OF A TRAGEDY

OJ Simpson’s legacy is a complicated mix of America’s anxieties over race, justice and nature of celebrity

ACELEBRITY ATHLETE, a poster hero of black achievement, a television star: OJ Simpson was a man who liked to be at the centre of attention. In hindsight, it was perhaps foretold that one of America’s biggest sports star’s eclipse would also make for riveting national television, changing the face of news — and what passes as entertainment — forever. It would foreground, too, America’s anxieties over race, justice and the nature of celebrity. In life as in his death, on April 10 at the age of 76, it was this complicated legacy that became Simpson’s bequeathal.

In 1995, Simpson’s “trial of the century” for the murder of his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman transcended the courtroom and spilled into America’s living rooms, exposing its deep societal divisions. Like the South African Olympian para-athlete Oscar Pistorius, who was convicted of killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013, this was a story that defied linear narratives. Simpson’s case was as much about domestic violence as about race, about economic inequalities, prejudices and the loopholes woven into the justice system. And unlike the Blade Runner, Simpson managed to get away with an acquittal. Did race influence the verdict? Did fame? These are questions that have been teased out time and again in interviews and publications, talk shows and screen adaptations such as The O J Simpson Story (1995), American Tragedy (2000), O J: Made in America (2016) and The People v O J Simpson: American Crime Story (2016). The case captured the blurring of the lines between tragedy and entertainment and the gluttony for 24/7 television spectacle, where everything and nothing is news.

In every possible way, Simpson’s story is a cautionary one — it speaks of the headiness of success but also the dark underbelly of fame. It speaks, too, of systemic prejudices and how truth stands to become a casualty when nuance is lost. In the post George-floyd era, these are issues that continue to reverberate not just in the US but across the world.