People who were born in the late 80s or before probably followed the OJ Simpson trials as they progressed. In fact, my parents got married the day after the car chase and they remember watching it happen on the television. However, the younger generation probably did not have as much knowledge on the trials.
It's been about two weeks since "American Crime Story: The People vs. OJ Simpson" came to an end with "The Verdict." The FX show is based on the real life murder trials that occurred 21 years ago. Before watching this show, I only knew the name OJ Simpson and that he possibly killed his ex-wife, but he wasn't charged with the murder. I also had kind of heard about the car chase, but I didn't think the event was such a big deal.
The show expanded what I knew about the case. Because of the show, I now know that OJ was on trial for the murder of not only his ex-wife Nicole, but also her friend Ronald Goldman. Anyone who watched the show also got to see what happened behind the scenes in the lives of the jury, the lawyers, and the families involved in the trial. They even showed the Kardashians as children because their father Robert Kardashian was one of OJ's closest friends, which is something I also didn't know.
The cast was amazing in my opinion. Sarah Paulson who played Marcia Clark had one of the most powerful and convincing roles of the series. She was able to show the stress that the real life Clark went through as a mother, and more importantly, a woman lawyer. Sterling K. Brown who played Christopher Darden, the other lawyer that worked with Clark as the prosecution, also played the role in a way that convinced me that he was discriminated against greatly due to his race. Cuba Gooding Jr. played the most important role of OJ Simpson. I don't know if he intended to make people unsure of whether OJ actually committed the murders, but I was going back and forth on my decision based on how Gooding Jr. portrayed the emotions. Other strong performances came from Kenneth Choi as Judge Ito, David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian, and Courtney B. Vance as Johnnie Cochran.
The real life Marcia Clark praised Sarah Paulson's performance, saying Paulson's portrayal was "phenomenal." However, other people from the real life trials have critiqued the show. Mark Fuhrman, one of the detectives of the LAPD on the case, has said that the portrayal of him is untruthful and that he is upset that the show will become accepted as the exact story. Fred Goldman, the father of Ron Goldman, also said the show inaccurately portrayed the importance of Ron to the case. Maybe the writers should have consulted more with the people involved. Maybe if they had gotten more information, they could have extended the season.
Now that I've seen the show I feel very conflicted because now I want to form an opinion on whether or not I think OJ killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. However, I am still so unsure about the situation. Most of me wants to think that he did commit the crimes, but there's still a small bit of doubt in me that's holding me back. It honestly shouldn't be a big deal to me because it's just a show based on something that happened before I was born, so I will probably just let it be instead of becoming a crazy conspiracy theorist.
Now what? Well, the producers of the show have already begun work on a second season which was revealed to be about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This event happened in 2005 so it's something that a lot more people born after the events of the OJ trial will know about. FX has yet to renew the series, but since the ratings of this first season were decent, it would be a safe bet to assume that the show will get a season two.
