Justice, too, has a Sense of Humor - The Rolling OJ Simpson Legal Thread

When I mentioned to friends I was seeing an eight-hour documentary on O.J. Simpson, two or three seemed at a loss to understand how the story could support such a length. It seemed just as obvious to me that, with some intelligence and a very wide lens, of course it could.

The first three hours, methodically laying out the 30-year backdrop to the murders, are excellent. Rodney King is the immediate prelude, but there's so much more, beginning with O.J.'s time at USC--you get a parallel track of O.J.'s racially ambiguous ascension on one side, Watts and John Carlos and Daryl Gates on the other, and you know already they're on a collision course. The murders and the trial--the next three hours--are very strong. The freak-show elements of the story are minimized (Kato Kaelin, for example, gets barely a mention); the focus is domestic abuse, Fuhrman, and how the case slipped away. I only started to lose a bit of focus during part five, the civil case and O.J.'s bizarre life after that (now that was a freak show).

At 12:30, when the film started, we were told the director would be there afterwards, along with "a very special guest"; "O.J.!" one guy called out, to much laughter. It was Gil Garcetti, who I had mixed feelings about at the time, possibly because he looked vaguely Satanic. He actually spoke thoughtfully about the film and the case. The sportswriter Robert Lipsyte was also there for the Q&A; he gets off what I thought was the funniest line in the film.

Unless there's a Trump connection, there's nowhere for the story to go.

http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t427/sayhey1/o.j._zps9k5tclk7.jpg

who else has seen the 4- or 8-hour version?

i have never cared to have an opinion on his guilt or innocence; i ignored the trial as much as i could at the time.

its gonna be on espn this summer, & im planning to not ever watch it

spoiler - hes guilty

wtf

Can a mod get that pls

ok i'll bite - what is this documentary everyone assumes everyone knows about

Its just the fullday chase coverage with an oj commentary track

i bet even the 8-hr version has only 20 seconds of Towering Inferno and Roots

what got modded above?

he did it

just saw the trailer - a lot of v on the level critics like wesley morris are dropping extremely high praise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrB3rOcrJxg

Them, plus me.

i read your post upthread, also has me intrigued.

a.o. scott's review sez it does not handle the domestic violence aspects of the case (and OJ's life) as adroitly as the other major issues - did you think the same? i'm gonna watch it regardless, but seems odd that it'd be a blind spot amid what's supposedly v nuanced material

esp. considering that the primary producer, caroline waterlow, considers it one of the movie's major priorities https://medium.com/@laura_berger/o-j-made-in-america-producer-caroline-waterlow-on-race-marcia-clark-and-domestic-abuse-61eacd3dc19b#.yj6pkiqhl

For me, that's an odd thing to find fault with--I thought domestic violence was one of the film's primary focuses (foci?). The photos, the 911 calls, they're all there--and they make it clear that it had been going on for years, and that the LAPD had looked the other way more than once.

i love oj's childhood friend with the raspy, high voice.

Me too, reminds me a little of Cuba's voice in the FX show

i already cannot remember the details but someone in this was talking abt oj's reaction to something like oj was behaving like a real [blank] or in that moment i thought oj was a [blank] and the broadcast bleeped out the word? anyone know what im talking abt?

is this really ilx's only oj simpson thread?

Justice, too, has a Sense of Humor - The Rolling OJ Simpson Legal Thread
OH NO THEY GOT O.J.!!
No one cares how O.J. "would have done it"?

Thank you. The third one is what I was looking for.

i already cannot remember the details but someone in this was talking abt oj's reaction to something like oj was behaving like a real [blank] or in that moment i thought oj was a [blank] and the broadcast bleeped out the word? anyone know what im talking abt?

― johnny crunch, Sunday, June 12, 2016 5:55 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's robert lipsyte reacting to O.J. not being offended by hearing a white woman say, "look, there's O.J. sitting with all those n----rs." after describing O.J. saying that the white women "knew" how he wanted to be perceived, lipsyte is like, "at that point, I thought O.J. was fucked."

protip: if you watch via watchespn/the espn app, it's uncensored

thx slothrop! yea I had figured it out on the ep reair; its an odd usage grammatically & contextually imo

agree w/ you there - i can't tell if he meant O.J. was fucked up for saying that, or like, fucked in a broader sense by his desire for white approval

as in like, fucked for life as a result. gotta be precise w/ your profanity folks!

word yea I think he means the latter but should instead say crazy or deluded

the director of the doc was on NPR w/ jeff toobin and they both emphasized the domestic-violence angle over and over and over again. for one thing, it provided the jury with a clear pattern of behavior and motive.

apparently the espn app has all the episodes streaming

As I mentioned above, Lipsyte was there for the Q&A after the screening I attended. I thought his line about O.J. being fucked (because of racial schizophrenia, yes) was the driest and funniest in the film. When I asked him to sign my program afterwards (wished I'd had a book with me, although I realized afterwards that I don't have anything of his), I had to ask if he had a pen on him; "I'm a writer, aren't I?" as he produced a pen from his front pocket.

carl e douglas is amazing in this

what ever was the deal w oj's son running out & yelling/flailing @ ac cowlings in the bronco

oj & our justice system are both huge piles of shit, basically

in the FX miniseries, the kid is scared and agitated and iirc trying to tell O.J. to surrender, to which A.C. replies, "let me handle this" or some such - while that's fiction obvs, as far as i can tell by comparison to the doc it sticks verbatim to the script in the moments that are a matter of public record. e.g., A.C. and O.J.'s dialogue in the miniseries' bronco scenes matches up to the snippets you hear in the doc.

all this is making me want to read toobin's book on which the miniseries was based but that might be O.J. overkill for this year

the other amazing moment in part 3 is watching oj watch johnny cochrane roast darden in the sidebar abt the nword -- i think bailey or someone tries to whisper something to oj and he just is so intently focused on johnny & u can practically see his expression of like omg theres no way im getting found guilty

oj as an individual is only compelling in the way that most sociopaths can be compelling--he's essentially an inexplicable void--but what really makes this documentary great (so far) is the way that something like history or larger socio-cultural forces become caught in the black hole of his orbit and then get explosively expressed through the whole sordid mess. it's riveting and even exhilarating to watch that unfold.

Very well described--that's exactly why I thought it was so great, the way O.J.'s story was so inexorably linked to larger events (he's almost like the anti-Ali). Toobin's book (and every book of his I've read) is very good.

As the whole thing unfolds, there are a few elephants in the room who don't show up as interviewees: Darden and Ito are at the top of the list. (Shapiro fell out with the other lawyers the day after the case ended, so his absence isn't surprising). Darden must obviously still be really bitter about the whole thing. Someone suggested in the Q&A I attended that Ito was duty-bound not to participate, but the director quickly made it clear that Ito could have taken part if he'd wanted to. Also, that Garcetti's participation was the only reason Clark (who swears like a truck driver...) took part.

Fuhrman seems to take great pleasure in being the villain. Wasn't sure how to read him.

the director edelman said darden was one of the first people he tried to talk to but that dude doesn't wanna say word one about any of this apparently. can't really blame him

the most obvious missing talking head is OJ's first wife, and I can absolutely understand her not wanting to have anything to do with this or anything else about the guy, who I'll assume treated her like shit. she denied in the divorce proceedings that he abused her, and that's possible, but the doc makes clear that he cheated on her numerous times.

http://www.vogue.com/13446573/where-is-marguerite-simpson/

the spectacle of people surrounding the cops (who were themselves surrounding OJ) at the moment of his surrender cheering "Free OJ", etc. is so unbelievable. it's a mix of black folks and white folks. some of them are probably righteously indignant at the LAPD, for very good reason, but a lot of it reminded me of the retrograde penn state rioting after joe paterno was fired. just throwing their reflexive support behind an odious figure.

i should add, throwing their support behind him just because he's a celebrity they admired for his athletic prowess.

i was in college when all this went down. i remember watching part of the chase on TV, but then i moved on to something else... and i remember at the time (1995/96) feeling vague contempt toward people urging me to watch the trial on TV. i dunno, i guess i was just a snobby college kid, and i felt kind of repulsed by the whole thing. so a lot of this stuff is totally new to me, even though i easily could have been watching it 20 years ago.

most of the immed post-verdict reaxtion ftage shd be in the smithsonian, particularly the old woman screaming THE JUICE IS LOOSE HES LOOOOSE

i was in 6th grade when the trial ended so i didn't understand any of it. i didn't even understand until now what a big deal he used to be. unrelatedly, when he committed the robbery in las vegas he was 60 years old!

yeah i didnt have much context for the level of fame he had at the time of the chase, i knew from the reporting that it was a big deal but i had no idea why besides he possibly murdered someone

i said elsewhere the doc has been like a v comprehensive college course, it pulls a lot of threads together really well

Some of those ex LAPD on-camera interviews in ep 2/3 are so infuriating

i think i was a jr in hs, they wheeled a tv into my spanish class for the verdict

me too

i was too young to witness OJ's football career, so i mostly knew him as one of those celebrities who is mostly famous for being famous. oh, and "the naked gun" (where he is quite funny).

i was actually a little underwhelmed by the documentary, perhaps b/c expectations had been set so high. it's very good for what it is, particularly the first three episodes. but i found some of the discussion of the trial (and his history w/ nicole simpson) needlessly confusing, and there were some major lacunae.

I finished final ep tonight, was impressed that they don't really let anyone off the hook. Like, it's kinda shitty all round. And even Carl Douglas & Danny Bakewell claiming victory so decisively it comes across as pyrrhic

as in so many thing, alfred, you are the exception which proves the rule

you can always seek sanctuary with k-lo and the gang on the national review's cruise ship!

Daily seminars featuring NR's editors and guest speakers;
Two "Night Owl" sessions;
"Break out" policy sessions;
Three revelrous cocktail receptions;
A late-night "smoker" featuring world-class H. Upmann cigars;
Intimate dining on two evenings with a guest speaker or editor.

'intimate dining' with jonah goldberg, resplendent in his formal cargo shorts

Clearly Florida's fate is an advancing coastline that relegates it an island, with Disney/Orlando at the center. Disney/most people prolly cool with that. Atlanta gets to be the new Redneck Riviera. Other swamp people can move to Oklahoma or something.

Alfred excepted, of course. He can stay at the top of Cinderella's Castle and beam, Sauron-style.

The Island of Disney

Never thought I'd watch the mini-series, but a station here was rerunning the whole thing over the weekend, and when I stopped on a few minutes midway, it actually seemed to be well done. So I went and bought a bootlegged DVD this afternoon.

First episode pretty shaky--lots of yelling. The part where Shapiro asks O.J. point blank if he did it; did that actually happen? I thought that question was verboten among criminal defense lawyers, that it was just a distraction to preparing a defense. Or does it vary from lawyer to lawyer?

My #1 Guilty Pleasure on television (which really means Embarrassed Pleasure--such things never actually make me feel guilty) is Pawn Stars, which I always stop on when flipping around. I find some of the items interesting, and the phony pretense of the show kills me--if the bald guy knew even half as much as what's scripted for him, he'd have either won a million dollars on Jeopardy! by now or he'd be a Harvard professor in the I Know Lots About Everything department.

On an episode playing this afternoon, O.J.'s Bronco turned up (A.C.'s Bronco, technically--the one from the chase). I recognized the guy trying to sell it (Mike Gilbert) from the documentary. Obviously the whole thing was scripted; he didn't just show up one day looking to sell it. When asked how he happened to have the Bronco, he explained that he was O.J.'s agent at the time, and he took over ownership when he found out that some outfit was trying to buy it with the intention of using it for tours on the same L.A. freeway where O.J. fled. This was great: he thought that was "classless" and intervened. Line I wanted to hear next: "That's why I'm here today trying to sell it on Pawn Stars to you and your son, a guy named Chumley."

He asked for $1.3 million. The store passed.

wtf lol

I killed her

— O.J. Simpson (@TheReaIOJ32) June 15, 2019

I fuckin knew it

Could someone just please go punch Mark Fuhrman in the face for us?

Is that really OJ's account?

it says right there ‘therealoj’, it’s illegal to impersonate someone on twitter iirc

i’d kill for some pussy RN

— O.J. Simpson (@TheReaIOJ32) June 15, 2019

Even if the account is a fake, I still stand by my first reaction.

I’m amazed how an imposter can say with such 100% accuracy what O.J. is thinking

"If I tweeted this"

I killed her

Spoiler alert!

No one is gonna take OJ seriously after this

the white bronco chase was 25 years ago today

*turns on TV*

I was 10, was so mad that my mom made me go upstairs to bed before it was over for no apparent reason, took me years to realize that she didn't want me to see Nordberg from Naked Gun blow his brains out