Trial of the Century!
Aug. 18th, 2004 03:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oneirophreniaMy mother has lately been watching the Trial of the Century coverage of the Scott Peterson trial on CourtTV, and tghe media circus surrounding this ludicrous spectacle-which-isn't has gotten me to thinking about the nature of the American hype engine.
First of all, let me tell y'all up front: I don't give a flying fuck about this trial in particular. It is abundantly clear that Scott Peterson is a guilty-ass motherfucker--the evidence is damnear 100% conclusive...more than enough, in fact, to paint that turd GUILTY AS HELL. He clearly deserves to be thrown in the pokey for the rest of his life. The end. In fact, there is nothing particularly outstanding or even interesting about this trial: it's a textbook case of a guy killing his wife because he didn't want to be with her anymore and, I guess, wanted her money or something--these kinds of things happen every goddamned day in every imaginable corner of the world. So what if she was pregnant when he killed her? So what if he cut off her friggin' head? So what if he tried to cover up the whole thing? That doesn't change the fact that, at heart, this is a very run-of-the-mill murder case perpetrated by a very run-of-the-mill murderer.
CourtTV regularly covers other cases as average as this one--hell, the purpose of CourtTV is to let people see how the law is conducted, and most legal cases (even high-profile murder cases) are pretty tedious, everyday affairs. What gets me about this case is not that it's being covered by news networks--but that it has been exploded via the American hype engine into some kind of grandiose American Tragedy(tm) upon which the very future of the country in particular and the Human Species in general will depend!
Yes, it's full of sensationalistic elements that tabloids and whatnot immediately batten onto: sex, lies, decapitation, a poor little innocent unborn fetus, blah blah blah--so, naturally, it's a beautiful, glamorous case of moider most foul, as in the best it sure as hell is, that can fill up headlines almost indefinitely...or, at least, until Scott Peterson is found guilty and tossed onto Assrape Alley. It's a big, bright, sensationalistic blowout for the Enquirer and the Star and shitrags like them. But MSNBC, CNN, and other more respectable news sources are taking the bait to and splattering the airwaves with hundreds upon hundreds of commentaries surrounding this trial as though it were, the quote The Onion, the Trial of the Century.
Bullshit.
It's not even exciting enough to fill up an episode of American Justice on A&E. The only reason it's such a big deal is because the hype engine has amplified the surface details of this very average case--Scott Peterson's lies, his affair with that cute blonde chick, the fact that he hacked off his pregnant wife's head--into straw effigies of supposed National Importance. Bread and circuses, people. That's all this is: sensationalized bread to feed the American public's bottomless appetite for TRAGEDY! and a media circus to keep the kiddies' entertained. Sound and fury, signifying nothing. One woman got killed by her piece-of-shit husband, the end. He goes to jail--very deservedly--and that's it. A show repeated thousands of times a year in courtrooms throughout the nation. Definitely not the Trial of the Century.
The OJ Simpson trial...now that deserved coverage. Not as much as it got--it, too, was magnified into a grandiose circus, as well--but it still had more of an impact than this trial ever could. See, at first, both the OJ trial and the Peterson trial both started out as the same thing: a guy killed his wife and tried to cover it up. But the OJ Simpson case took on a greater significance (or, rather, a greater significance was forced upon it by Simpson's defense) when it began to take on greater sociological issues such as can a very wealthy guy get off scott free because he can afford the best attorneys and can afford to play the race card? These are Big Issues of which the OJ Simpson case was a much ballyhooed microcosm. In other words, the Simpson case had some far-reaching consequences and drew attention to some major concerns.
Does the Scott Peterson case do this? No. Not even close. The only aspect of this case that really has lasting consequence is the fact that it generated interest in the "Unborn Victims of Violence" act and similar pieces of legislation--which most people barely pay attention to in the first placed. These matters do deserve greater public attention, but other than that the Scott Peterson trial is nothing more than a glitzy stage show to which the "Unborn Victims" stuff is little more than a footnote.
First of all, let me tell y'all up front: I don't give a flying fuck about this trial in particular. It is abundantly clear that Scott Peterson is a guilty-ass motherfucker--the evidence is damnear 100% conclusive...more than enough, in fact, to paint that turd GUILTY AS HELL. He clearly deserves to be thrown in the pokey for the rest of his life. The end. In fact, there is nothing particularly outstanding or even interesting about this trial: it's a textbook case of a guy killing his wife because he didn't want to be with her anymore and, I guess, wanted her money or something--these kinds of things happen every goddamned day in every imaginable corner of the world. So what if she was pregnant when he killed her? So what if he cut off her friggin' head? So what if he tried to cover up the whole thing? That doesn't change the fact that, at heart, this is a very run-of-the-mill murder case perpetrated by a very run-of-the-mill murderer.
CourtTV regularly covers other cases as average as this one--hell, the purpose of CourtTV is to let people see how the law is conducted, and most legal cases (even high-profile murder cases) are pretty tedious, everyday affairs. What gets me about this case is not that it's being covered by news networks--but that it has been exploded via the American hype engine into some kind of grandiose American Tragedy(tm) upon which the very future of the country in particular and the Human Species in general will depend!
Yes, it's full of sensationalistic elements that tabloids and whatnot immediately batten onto: sex, lies, decapitation, a poor little innocent unborn fetus, blah blah blah--so, naturally, it's a beautiful, glamorous case of moider most foul, as in the best it sure as hell is, that can fill up headlines almost indefinitely...or, at least, until Scott Peterson is found guilty and tossed onto Assrape Alley. It's a big, bright, sensationalistic blowout for the Enquirer and the Star and shitrags like them. But MSNBC, CNN, and other more respectable news sources are taking the bait to and splattering the airwaves with hundreds upon hundreds of commentaries surrounding this trial as though it were, the quote The Onion, the Trial of the Century.
Bullshit.
It's not even exciting enough to fill up an episode of American Justice on A&E. The only reason it's such a big deal is because the hype engine has amplified the surface details of this very average case--Scott Peterson's lies, his affair with that cute blonde chick, the fact that he hacked off his pregnant wife's head--into straw effigies of supposed National Importance. Bread and circuses, people. That's all this is: sensationalized bread to feed the American public's bottomless appetite for TRAGEDY! and a media circus to keep the kiddies' entertained. Sound and fury, signifying nothing. One woman got killed by her piece-of-shit husband, the end. He goes to jail--very deservedly--and that's it. A show repeated thousands of times a year in courtrooms throughout the nation. Definitely not the Trial of the Century.
The OJ Simpson trial...now that deserved coverage. Not as much as it got--it, too, was magnified into a grandiose circus, as well--but it still had more of an impact than this trial ever could. See, at first, both the OJ trial and the Peterson trial both started out as the same thing: a guy killed his wife and tried to cover it up. But the OJ Simpson case took on a greater significance (or, rather, a greater significance was forced upon it by Simpson's defense) when it began to take on greater sociological issues such as can a very wealthy guy get off scott free because he can afford the best attorneys and can afford to play the race card? These are Big Issues of which the OJ Simpson case was a much ballyhooed microcosm. In other words, the Simpson case had some far-reaching consequences and drew attention to some major concerns.
Does the Scott Peterson case do this? No. Not even close. The only aspect of this case that really has lasting consequence is the fact that it generated interest in the "Unborn Victims of Violence" act and similar pieces of legislation--which most people barely pay attention to in the first placed. These matters do deserve greater public attention, but other than that the Scott Peterson trial is nothing more than a glitzy stage show to which the "Unborn Victims" stuff is little more than a footnote.
