A law degree from the circus
The Oscar media frenzy is wearisome, but the story at its core is compelling,
WHEN Judge Dunstan Mlambo announced that a live TV broadcast of the Oscar Pistorius trial would be permitted, with certain restrictions, one of his stated reasons for the decision was that it would allow ordinary South Africans a better understanding of how the criminal justice system works.
However, many South Africans already have quite an advanced grip on how the criminal justice system works or doesn’t work, due to either having been victims of crime, being criminals themselves, or having squandered too many nights in the company of TV law dramas.
Author Malcolm Gladwell’s famous suggestion is that it takes 10 000 hours of practice to get really good at something. From the amount of time many of us have spent training in front of Ally McBeal, The Good Wife or Damages , half the country probably fancy themselves capable of stepping into either the Pistorius prosecution or defence’s shoes at a moment’s notice. The opportunity to watch the trial literally all the time is only going to make this self-taught-lawyer phenomenon more acute. If they start broadcasting it in bars, people will probably end up yelling at the screen like they’re watching soccer. “Objection, your Honour! Clearly objection! Make him approach the bench!”
(A note on The Good Wife: incidentally, I think we all know that investigator-cum-hit woman Kalinda Sharma would have cracked Pistorius’s allegedly forgotten iPhone password about six months ago. Possibly with the aid of a baseball bat.)
Panem et circenses — bread and circuses — was the ancient Roman formula for political appeasement. There isn’t enough bread to go around in South Africa, but we do have a whole load of circuses. The decision to allow the Pistorius trial to be televised intensifies the circus element to proceedings, however much the media crows about what a glorious day for freedom of expression it is. (eNCA’s Patrick Conroy did make a good point though, saying it’s virtually guaranteed that at some stage a high-ranking politician will be on trial in this country, and it’s nice to have a precedent in place beforehand so we can all gawk over that too.)
It’s interesting to observe that in certain circles there seems to be a kind of stigma attached to admitting you’ll be closely following the Pistorius case. This is slightly incomprehensible to me, since in my view it seems selfevident that the case is an interesting one. It’s possible to acknowledge that point while accepting there are hundreds of more important things happening in the country every minute, and while deploring the fact that many less highprofile cases are not brought to court with such speed and efficiency.
I carried out a quick and unscientific poll on Twitter, asking people how they felt about the trial — which, at the time of writing, had yet to start. The options presented were: a) Take a dignified interest, will watch; b) Indifferent, could take it or leave it; and c) Repulsed by the media circus. (I omitted the obvious d) “Take a totally undignified interest, become slavishly obsessed, quit job and devote your days to pinning up trial-related clippings and pictures linked with bits of string like Carrie in Homeland.)
The responses I received were almost unanimously c): Repulsed by the media circus. But then I realised I’d phrased the poll all wrong, because I suspect many people are simultaneously interested in the trial and repulsed by the media circus. That seems a reasonable response. This isn’t, despite appearances, a reality TV show. It’s an attempt to establish the truth behind the unnecessary death of a young woman. • MultiChoice is flighting a dedicated Pistorius trial channel on DStv 199