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From: Kariana
Date: 27 Jul 2000
Time: 15:41:47
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Six Years After Murders, O.J. Simpson Still Evokes Strong Response
By DRU SEFTON
c.2000 Newhouse News Service
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O.J.
Say two little letters, get a big response -- everything from anger that O.J. Simpson remains in the public eye, to pride that the justice system finally worked for a black man.
Why is it that six years after the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, nearly five years after O.J. Simpson's acquittal, more than three years after a jury found him responsible for the deaths in a civil trial, the case still evokes visceral emotions?
Is it Simpson himself? Just this week he's sparked controversy by appearing on the "Today" show to promote his latest venture (www.askoj.com) -- and by not being a guest on "The View," after fans of that talk show protested his scheduled appearance.
Or is it the classic chicken-and-egg conundrum? Do the news and entertainment media cover O.J. because the public remains fascinated, or is the public fascinated because the news and entertainment media cover him?
Even experts differ.
"I'm bored with the subject, and my students are. They yawn when I bring it up," said Frankie Bailey, a University of Albany specialist in media and criminal justice in popular culture. "I know the media are still interested. People may just be dragged along behind the media."
Darnell M. Hunt disagrees. "I don't think the case will ever be NOT interesting," said Hunt, director of African-American studies and an associate sociology professor at University of Southern California. "People will always be somewhat titillated by it."
To Joshua Meyrowitz, professor of communication at the University of New Hampshire, it's "shortcut journalism. That's the reason why O.J. and others like JonBenet Ramsey and Elian Gonzalez keep popping up."
He added, "It's not so much (that) the public is interested, it's that journalists and journalistic institutions have figured out how simple it is to report these cases. It doesn't require research, or understanding of complex issues."
Meanwhile, on the World Wide Web, the 645 members of one O.J. newsgroup (alt.fan.oj-simpson) still debate, every day, the minutiae of his guilt or innocence. They even have labels for their split, the "No-J's" and the "Pro-J's."
The 1,272 topics include everything from the gruesome ("Nicole, whose trachea was severed, did not even aspirate a single drop of blood...") to the mundane ("Kato saw the golf bag about 10:55 p.m. outside the front door, when Simpson was still in the house...")
One member is Betty Parker, 60, a General Motors retiree in Trenton, N.J. She's pondered, or researched, or written on, or read about the case "from Day One," she said, and continues to do so.
At the outset, "I didn't even like O.J.," Parker said. "But I started watching, and I found myself thinking, `That's strange,"' about so many details.
The bloody glove, for instance. "Why would a killer leave that behind at the scene?" Or Simpson's injured finger. "If he was in a life-and-death struggle he would have practically sliced it off, but it was just a tiny cut."
For Parker, such nagging questions never have been answered, and in their wake is a different America.
"As an African American, I feel my people are being punished for taking this (innocent) position," she said. "There are people in board rooms making decisions, who are still embittered over the O.J. Simpson verdict. And those decisions are their retribution."
USC's Hunt, author of "O.J. Simpson Facts and Fictions: News Rituals in the Construction of Reality," agreed that race is a prime reason why Simpson remains a flash point. "I think the case might be seen as a giant Rorschach test," he said.
The trials forced America to consider three hot-button topics simultaneously, Hunt said:
-- Race, as Simpson is black and Nicole was white.
-- Gender, with the allegations of domestic abuse.
-- And class, with his wealth enabling Simpson to hire a "dream team" of attorneys.
"And those are issues we continue to wrestle with," Hunt added.
Once again, however, there's disagreement.
"The people I encounter, the subject of O.J. just never comes up," said Bailey from the University of Albany. "I think by this time, most people have reached their own conclusions about the case."
One thing isn't in dispute: that O.J. Simpson is a permanent fixture in American society.
"He's outspoken, he continues to talk about it," Bailey said. "As an academic, I'll be interested to see how many hits he gets on his new Web site."
Will Simpson ever be able to stroll down a street and not evoke a response?
"Oh, absolutely not," Hunt said. "I just can't see it. Until he dies, he'll be a symbol of where we are as a society."