Personally, I’ve been getting very little on the Beeb’s World RSS feed over the course of the trial. The same goes for the NYT, Grauniad, and CBC feeds. They’re all popping about the topic now that the judgement is in, but otherwise it’s been quiet for me
They were taking a break from dumping on Wichita
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When I see top entertainers substituting lawsuits for sex (or any other intimate relation) and in competition to tell damning stories about each other, I’m reminded that they are people who have monetized their narcissistic and histrionic personality disorders.
Is it too late for them to step in front of a speeding bus?
Bread and circuses.
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And circus bread.
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The whole celeb schadenfreude reminds me of this song by TISM.
" I drank the slab that Bon Scott drunk
I injected some of Hendrix’s junk
I booked a seat on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s plane
Mama Cass’ sandwich? I ate the same
Now I’m bored, now I’m bored
Now I’m bored and there’s no stoppin’
Now I’m bored and there’s no stoppin’
I need another celeb to fill a coffin
Where will I get my next drug action?
Odds on it’ll be Michael Jackson
I’m on the drug that killed River Phoenix
I’m on the drug"
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It already has!
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At times, I felt like I was about the only person I knew that just did not GAF about this - any of it. And the only things I learned were bits and bobs from friends/family talking about it.
And then the Young Turks did a brief segment on it in most recent show in my feed to summarize the wrap-up and try to contextualize it in relation to the Me Too thing…that’s about the most I’ve heard about it, and I did not even know it was wrapped up until hearing that podcast and seeing this post.
The other thing I saw was that apparently that bit of “news” (in my mind, nothing related to celebrities is actually news) got more engagement than something like abortion being outlawed. SMH.
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It reminds me a lot of the OJ trial. I did not have a TV at the time for most of that, and when I did, I didn’t have cable anyway, but people would be positively flabbergasted that I was not following every zig and zag. I only knew OJ as “that guy on Naked Gun” anyway, but from the way people were glued to their sets during that, you’d think the outcome mattered at all when it came to any effect on their lives…
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I think the OJ trial had a tremendous impact on how Americans viewed race. The trial took place at an inflection point for race relations in America: soon after the LA uprising, as Black political leaders were transitioning from the activist posture of the civil rights movement and starting to assume real positions of political power (this is in the wake of the Washington administration in Chicago and the Bradley administration in LA—Bradley had just retired, in fact).
For Black people, the trial represented a clear public exhibition of racist policing and the rare example of a Black man being acquitted (if not exonerated) in the justice system. For racist white people, it represented an example of a Black man who had overstepped his bounds (not only did he kill a white woman, before that, he married her!) and the liberals in California letting him get away with it.
I dunno. I think the implications of the OJ trial have been ringing through American life for the past 30 years. It has affected all of us.
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corrupt racist cops letting him get away with it by getting caught being corrupt and racist
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All it took was a team of some of the best lawyers money could buy and a bumbling prosecution that snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
That aside, we clearly remember the trial very differently.
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The ‘reality’ shows, game shows and talk shows are ‘bread and circuses’ for the masses to keep them amused and diverted while everything around them is torn down, poisoned or stolen from them.
As T.S. Elliot wrote, “This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.”
Oh, sure, they were definitely components of the OJ thing, just like the MeToo is being tied to this Depp-Heard trial. That’s undeniable.
However, I think for many it is/was about the celebrity aspect and the various silly details and the courtroom drama - I got compared to OJ’s sidekick (forget his name and too lazy to look it up), and did not even get the reference at the time and it had to be explained - but people knew all about that guy. The Rodney King thing predated that, and I’m not sure the trial had the same wall-to-wall coverage (though the riots sure did) but he was not a famous football player who also was in movies. I think a lot of it is about watching celebrities brought low as far as the level of media “engagement”.
I think for many (white) people who were rather clueless (I mean, even prior to that - uh, yeah, Black people, being beaten by police? You don’t say! But I think that tape made it really, really hard to deny.) , seeing the raw footage of Rodney King opened some eyes and definitely started changing some views. And then, as you say, the OJ trial seemed to really hit a lot of nerves soon after. Seeing some of the recent docudramas and documentaries on OJ/the trial in recent years seems to back up what you are saying about how it’s still echoing through the culture.
This was not the perception in police-worshiping Republican America. I’m many ways, the OJ trial was the beginning of the hardening of white racism that spiked with the Obama election and eventually led to Trump.
And much of the “culture war” nonsense serves the same purpose. Someone (unfortunately) in my life keeps on trying to get me to have Great Concern about trans women competing in sports and ruining it for the girls/women, as an example. They had the same Great Concern about trans being able to poop in public restrooms, as well as whether Michelle Obama was really “Michael” (sigh).
I always ask them: “this affects you, how? Oh, it doesn’t? Then why are you so fixated on it?”
…and this is just one example of the culture war stuff which is absolutely a drain on time/resources, and just don’t matter. Wearing a mask is not tyranny and neither is getting vaccinated. But you’d think it was to hear the culture warriors, who are always the victims in any given scenario they’ve dreamt up…
It generally pays more to be a mediocre athlete who competes against men than it does to be a successful athlete who competes against women.
Besides, I have been hearing about how trans women will dominate womens sport for over 20 years now. It has never happened, just like that disabled South African athlete (who shall remain unnamed because he murdered his partner) never led to other athletes electing to have limbs amputated and replaced with supposedly superior prosthetics.
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Yeah, no duh.
And when the “bread” eventually runs out, that’s when the shit truly hits the fan…
Wow… that’s one helluva presumptuous take.
Had OJ not been rich & famous, he’d be under somebody’s jail, right now.
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Throw in ‘The Day of the Locust’ for good measure while we’re at it.
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Again, that was the perception among right-wing white people; the core Republican constituency. The OJ trial was an important part of the emergence of a mainstream white supremacist political movement.
