H-Net Discussion Networks - OJ SIMPSON TRAGEDY: TV within TV

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From: Rollins@osuunx.ucc.okstate.edu
List Editor: Rollins@osuunx.ucc.okstate.edu
Editor's Subject: OJ SIMPSON TRAGEDY: TV within TV
Author's Subject: OJ SIMPSON TRAGEDY: TV within TV
Date Written: Fri, 1 Jul 1994 13:23:54 CDT
Date Posted: Sat, 01 Jul 1994 14:23:54 -0400

        At lunch today, I watched NBC coverage of the preliminary hearing
and heard dog-lover and TV-lover Steve Schwab describe his evening of
12 June, 1994.

        It was a Sunday, so Nick at Night was running the Dick Van Dyke
show a little later.  It was over at 10:30 and there was a break until
11:00pm when the Mary Tyler Moore Show would be on.  During this break,
Mr. Schwab took his dog out to "do its business."

        A block away, he ran into Nicole Simpson's Acuta(sp?), an
unleashed dog barking at Ms. Simpson's home.  The loose dog had mud
on its belly and blood on its paws.  Steve checked his watch because
it was time to get back to TV.

        Now Steve is on TV.

Before, during, and after this testimony, the following observations
were made:

Bob Green of a Chicago Newspaper:
        "We are using the format of the legal system to deaden the
                pain and mystery of this case. Perhaps it will help
                us to explain the inexplicable."

        "There is a majesty to the law in its way of bringing this
                violent case into an orderly procedure."

        "We used to talk about he gap between art and life, but now
                we know that there is no difference."

Tom Brokaw of NBC:
        "Schwab is a perfect man to establish time because he lives by
                the television schedule."


Ira Reiner, NBC legal consultant
        "There was an eye witness to the case, but he can't talk.
        If this were Perry Mason, they'd bring the dog into the court
        and he would growl at the criminal."
**********************************************************************

        Someone with more background in the Detective Formula should
comment on these perceptions.

        A mystery starts with violence and ends with rational resolution.
Has the OJ Simpson case begun as a Western but will close as a Detective
Story?

        What of Mr. Schwab? Is he Everyman-USA who uses the media to
lull him into formulaic sleep via the Situation Comedy Formula?

************************************************************************

        Along the way, Tom Brokaw apologized for showing bloody items
from the crime scene--to wit, the blood-stained envelope in which the
prescription glasses of Nicole Simpson were put by the lady bartender
at the restaurant where Mr. Goldman worked.

        Brokaw said that "violence in real life is not as clean as you
see it on TV. With a murder, there is struggle and blood with details
that are memorable in the worst possible way..


************************************************************************

Here are some of the issues which emerge and which might be discussed:

1. Formulas in popular entertainment:
        The Western
        The Detective
        Violence in stylized drama

2. Gratifications of Situation Comedies.

3. Interpenetration of life and media.
        Poor Schwab wanted to live in the world of Mary Tyler Moore, but
        ended up on Dragnet!

Please share your perceptions of the on-going coverage!

Peter Rollins
Rollins@osuunx.ucc.okstate.edu

Humanities & Social
Sciences Online