22 years after O. J. Simpson\u2019s charge with the double murder of his ex-wife Nicole Simpson and friend
\nRonald Goldman, FX revives the “trial of the century” in this 10-part recreation with an excellent cast, featuring Cuba Gooding Jr. as O. J. Simpson, and John Travolta and David Schwimmer as Simpson\u2019s
\ndefence lawyers.<\/p>\n
Occurring two years before the trial and forming the backdrop to the case, the 1992 Los Angeles riots thrust the\u00a0issues of police brutality and racism into the spotlight. The rioters took to the streets for six days,\u00a0immediately after the acquittal of the four police officers from the LAPD who were charged with the violent arrest and\u00a0beating of Rodney King. Feelings of injustice and mistrust in the police engulfed the African-American community and explains why the opinions were so divided when American football star O. J.\u00a0Simpson was charged with murder.<\/p>\n
This complex backdrop is cleverly woven into the opening episodes of the American Crime Story’s first season,\u00a0which doesn\u2019t shy away from tackling racism head-on. The programme opens with footage from the\u00a0riots, the infamous footage of Rodney King’s arrest, and in-backroom scenes where members of\u00a0Simpson’s\u00a0defence utilise and manipulate racial tensions by selecting a jury made up of mainly African-Americans. The show handles these issues superbly, and is best evidenced by the conflict within the\u00a0characters themselves. Simpson, for instance, first refused to play the “race card” by appealing to\u00a0the African-American community, believing that his celebrity status is enough to convince\u00a0people of his innocence.<\/p>\n
This celebrity status is explored in the second episode,\u00a0depicting the famous Bronco car chase; which,\u00a0cleverly cut between real footage and cheering spectators, whilst Simpson is pursued by\u00a0police. Celebrity culture arguably plays a more prominent role in society today, and thus the\u00a0portrayal of Simpson\u2019s special treatment in the media raises some intriguing questions about how\u00a0we treat celebrities. But\u00a0not all the references to celebrity culture work\u2014the inside jokes and\u00a0references to the Kardashian name in particular\u2014stemming from Robert Kardashian\u2019s backstory,\u00a0felt like cheap and unnecessary nods to today\u2019s well-known reality TV stars.<\/p>\n
Despite this, American Crime Story\u00a0is an incredibly clever and exciting recreation, giving a\u00a0factually based insight into one of the most controversial and dividing trails in history. What makes\u00a0watching the case as a recreation particularly fascinating is how many of these racial issues such as\u00a0police treatment of African-Americans remains the same 21 years later. In recent years the number\u00a0of high profile acts of police misconduct has been increasing. As a result, whether or not you agree\u00a0with the verdict, the recreation of the O. J. trail gives audiences an opportunity to be reminded of\u00a0race\u2019s prominence once again in contemporary society, as well as its role in recent history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
American Crime Story’s first season, entitled The People v. O. J. Simpson, gives its audience a reminder of issues that are all too relevant today<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":301,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[16891,16892,5338,16893,16894,16895],"coauthors":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28306"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/301"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28306"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=28306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}