OJ Versus The Media: Round Two

We have no idea what’s on OJ Simpson’s iPod, but Blondie should totally be on there…because “one way or another” the media is definitely going to get him.

Of course, there are other phrases that are just as fitting for Simpson – “got away with murder,” “dead man walking,” and “dodged a bullet” come to mind – which is exactly why the press has resurrected its vendetta against him.

As Simpson stands accused in yet another very public trial, the media’s not even trying to hide its told-ya-so smirk.

But this time, the public doesn’t seem to be biting. After all, Sports memorabilia villainy doesn’t pack quite the punch of decapitation and freeway chases. Seriously, Simpson’s not even doing himself justice this time around.

His first courtroom foray left a Harper Lee-sized legacy, and this trial’s shaping up to be an epic buzzkill – at least for the bloodthirsty press.

So why can’t the crestfallen media parlay this into another “trial of the century?” Well, because this crime involved a boys’ club of thugs. There’s no victim, and certainly not a sexy one.

Deny as you might, Nicole Brown Simpson was the inertia for the momentum of his 1994 trial.

Nicole’s story was ammo for the stuff we use to warn little girls off of bad boys – not a cautionary tale, exactly, but a caution-fairy tale.

It’s the stuff of huddled admonitions telegraphed in hushed gusts of worry to little girls, lest they someday think of taking up with a guy like Simpson.

In Judge Ito’s courtroom, Nicole became the contemporary King Kong damsel, having been carried away by Simpson and later having gotten carried away with him.

The press, despite its high-brow meta-media pledge to modernity, remains hopelessly stuck on the watch-out-little-girl meme.

That’s what propelled Simpson’s first trial, turning him into a cultural character. But now Simpson is set to be less icon and more iconoclast – of his own legacy, and of the media’s tired narratives.