Allergic Reaction to Media’s O.J. Mania

It was a well-earned night of vegetation, of slouching on the sofa with channel changer in hand. It had been a long day, and the last thing I wanted was to watch the news. So I punched up ESPN. All sports. All the time.

What I wanted were the baseball highlights. We’re all entitled to an escape, right?

But ESPN’s “SportsCenter” wanted me to wait. Their top story was everybody’s top story--a double homicide that has already gotten more ink and more air time than most wars.

And it ticked me off. I can’t tell you how it ticked me off. I felt like throwing the channel changer at the TV. I felt like calling ESPN and saying: “You jerks! You jock-sniffers! Murder is not a sport! Who do you think you are--Court TV?!?”

Instead, I went searching for my new favorite show, which is called “Anything but O.J.”

It’s not as though the Simpson case doesn’t interest me. It does. I’ll admit to intermittent moments of fascination. But I couldn’t even watch the famously riveting freeway chase for more than a couple of minutes. Not long after the first news of the murders, I seemed to develop an allergic reaction.

My diagnosis suggests a combination of factors. One is almost too common to mention. Simply put, I never rooted for a football player more than I rooted for O.J. Why, in one semi-glorious season in junior high, I was lucky enough to be assigned O.J.’s No. 32, further stoking my superstar fantasies. So inside the adult lingers the hurt of an adolescent who fears that he’s been betrayed. Has the say-it-ain’t-so sentiment ever been felt so widely and so deeply?

But there’s another reason for my aversion: the sheer gaudiness of the spectacle. The Simpson case is the Las Vegas of media events--a grotesque perversion of sensible values.

Most of us, I suspect, know the difference between a big story and an important story. Important stories are supposed to be big. But, as the Simpson case demonstrates, an enormous, humongous, Gargantuan story doesn’t have to be all that important.

The point here isn’t to minimize the pain of the victims and their families. Nor is it to minimize the concerns about domestic violence raised by the Simpson case. But sadly, there are many other victims and many other families who do not make headlines.

It’s the convergence of two great American pastimes--celebrity worship and the voyeurism inspired by “sensational” crimes--that has made this the biggest story of the moment. The people who manage American media believe that the public can’t get enough O.J. The spousal abuse stories, however worthwhile, represent an effort by the media to find deeper meaning to the Simpson case and, perhaps, to salvage a measure of self-respect.

Concern over spousal abuse is not why a division of TV trucks are camped outside the Criminal Courts Building. And it’s not why the networks went live from the preliminary hearing. Rather, the Simpson case is the latest and perhaps greatest monument to the way American culture so routinely perceives heinous crime as a source of entertainment, eclipsing the sagas of Amy Fisher, the Menendez family and the Bobbitts. When the Simpson case reaches its resolution, it would be interesting to count and compare the TV hours and print coverage devoted to these great L.A. stories--the Rodney King riot, the Northridge earthquake and the Simpson case. Hell, it would be interesting to compare them now.

There is something wrong here, and that’s why I hope the O.J. allergy is contagious.

It was good to learn that fans of daytime soap operas, for example, made it clear they prefer to be entertained by the fiction of regular programming than the sad facts of the Simpson case.

Like most journalists, I’ve hyped a story or three, so I can empathize with the programmers, producers and editors who want to cover every angle, every detail of the Simpson case. If criticized, they’ll defend their decisions by saying they are merely giving you what you want. Don’t blame the messenger--blame the audience.

Obviously, they need our help. Letters are good. But the most effective protest is to simply change the channel. They’ll get the message--and print will follow TV’s lead. And in time, maybe O.J. mania will settle down into the more appropriate levels of a sensational story of little social consequence--which, if you consider recent examples, is plenty.

So it isn’t that I don’t find the Simpson case interesting. It’s a good whodunit, particularly given the desire to believe it was some random psycho and not O.J. But of all the O.J. conversations I’ve had in recent weeks, the most interesting wasn’t a dissection of the evidence, an exchange of tasteless jokes or the speculative casting of the made-for-TV movies to come. Rather, it was an exchange with a visitor from Sweden describing her arrival in Washington, D.C.

“When I turned on the TV,” she told me, “there was this picture of a white truck on the freeway. The police were trying to arrest this Simpson man for murder. And I was wondering, ‘Who is this Simpson?’ ”

Oh, to be blessed with such ignorance.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to Harris at the Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, Calif. 91311.

The Simpson case is the Las Vegas of media events--a grotesque perversion of sensible values.