Selling Murder: The Trial of O.J. Simpson

Selling Murder: The Trial of O.J. Simpson

In the late hours of June 12, 1994, a barking and blood-pawed Akila dog led two Brentwood residents to the front porch of 875 South Bundy Drive, where they found the slain bodies of 35-year-old Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, 25-year-old Ronald Lyle Goldman. Both had suffered multiple fatal stab wounds. Nicole Brown Simpson’s throat had been slashed so deeply that the injury had nearly decapitated her. Ronald Goldman had tried to resist his attacker, discernible by numerous cuts all over his body, but had succumbed to two particularly deep knife wounds on his neck. 

However, despite the brutality of the homicides, these killings would garner unprecedented media and public attention in the US (and worldwide) for one main reason: Nicole Brown Simpson had been the ex-wife of former NFL American football player O.J. Simpson. Simpson was one of the most resonant media figures of the nineties in the United States. Against all odds, he had turned the American Dream into reality by becoming an American sports hero. But to the shock of a nation, the athlete was charged and arrested for the murders and put on trial in January 1995.

The O.J. Simpson case was commercialized and marketed as a "Megaspectacle" to audiences. Street vendors filled the streets around the Criminal Courts Building in Los Angeles, where the athlete's trial was held, selling t-shirts, caps, stickers, and buttons, featuring Simpson’s mug shot as one of over fifteen different designs.

Oftentimes, the thin line between satirical references and distasteful ridicule of those involved in the case was arguably crossed for financial gain. One design, for instance, was printed on the panels of a blue baseball cap and showed a dark leather glove, from which blood drippled on the brim, and below the slogan “It’s a set-up.” Depicting a glove soaked in the victims’ blood on a baseball cap to express one’s belief that Simpson was framed by the LAPD seems apathetic, but it illustrates once again that, more often than not, the trial was not about the victims but about the business of sensationalism. Other examples include a papier-maché doll of the dead Nicole Brown Simpson that was covered in blood and stab wounds. 

Entrepreneur Bill Zucker profited from the Simpson hype by inventing “The People vs. O.J. Simpson Trivia Game” in 1995, which, according to the cover description, is a “Game of Fun & Facts.” The objective is to move forward to the six locations on the map by answering questions and to return to the start position before one’s opponents do.

Brands and individual entrepreneurs develop products for purchase to enable consumers to form social relations with their new possessions. By doing so, the product becomes an extension of the idea it stands for. Zucker’s trivia game and other trial memorabilia of the like “suggest[…] that a celebrity’s aura [will] rob off on the consumer who use[s] the favored products, thus placing him, in his imagination at least, on the other side of the glass with the celebrity” (Gabler 201). The possession of a piece of memorabilia thus promises the prolongation of pleasure and the safe immersion into new and possibly dangerous worlds. 

The above examples constitute only a small portion of the many ways in which the O.J. Simpson trial was commercialized. And while from the outside, the unabashed monetary exploitation of two homicides might seem appalling, the profitability of the merchandise seems indicative of a continuous public and medial demand. In fact, media scholar June Deery argues that this allows to view the handling of the Simpson case as an authentic reflection of American society at one particular point in time, illustrating a paradox in that, although the trial’s authenticity was partly undermined by its commercialization and narrative manipulation, its commercial design and the appearance of authenticity was ultimately one of the most authentic aspects of the case.

This newsletter contains excerpts from my dissertation and book, The Mediatization of the O.J. Simpson Case: From Reality Television to Filmic Adaptation. For more on the topic, you can buy the publication on transcript Verlag's website or on Amazon. Links are provided below. Thank you for reading and until next time! :) Tatjana

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