550:656) Jonathan Hayes
Date: 18-JUN-94  18:19

 The thing is, the way he was presented last night, it was hard to see him
 as anything BUT a character in a crummy TV movie. Cutting from SkyCam shot
 to SkyCam shot, the station ID logo fading in periodically, it lacked
 nothing but a cheesy soundtrack. It was impossible to see The Man inside
 the car. He was just some character who had, in a rather unusual move,
 taken *himself* hostage.

 How sorry did you feel for Nicole and Goldman when you read about their
 deaths? They were just another two murder victims, people who you didn't
 know. A small frisson of intrigue because of who they were? How much time
 have you spent feeling sorry for the estimated 250,00 Rwandans killed
 during the last few months?

 We experience pity and sympathy and compassion in direct relation, I
 think, to the way in which we are fed it by the media. People experience
 misery and anguish, *horrendous* misery and anguish, every fucking day.
 Where should our compassion lie? OJ wasn't fed to us like that so we could
 feel compassion for his plight. This was EXCITING TV, TV delivering on its
 potential, ushering us into the panopticon, where we can see everything in
 the world exactly as it happens. Why did you watch it last night, I mean
 why keep on watching a tracking shot of a white car on a highway, kept
 pretty well in the center of the frame, moving at the speed limit? I think
 that it is part of the conditioning nature of television that we are
 trained to expect a climax, a crisis in the action, at approximately 13
 minute intervals before we hit the commercial break. We were lead along
 expecting a thrilling resolution, and the whimper that was the invisible
 surrender was pretty disappointing.

 For me, the most disgusting thing I have seen recently was this morning's
 New York Newsday headline: THE OJ SIMPSON TRAGEDY. Those filthy,
 disingenuous fucking dogs - may they all die roaring in
 Hell's eternal flames for want of a devil to piss on them, hypocritical
 sanctimonious bastards that they are.

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