What We can Learn from Celebrity Trials?

I have not written anything about the Michael Jackson trial because, frankly, there is not one aspect of the entire thing that I do not find totally repulsive. However, now that it’s over, I have a few thoughts on the whole subject of celebrity trials.

From OJ to MJ the celebrity trials have been decided, not on factual evidence, but by competing claims on our sympathy. In the OJ case the prosecution portrayed the victim as an exemplar of women’s plight in a world dominated by testosterone drenched men. This invited the defense to counter by portraying OJ as a victim of racism. The evidence of the case was forgotten and the public was treated to competing victimization narratives. This played well on TV, but not so well in the courtroom. To the dismay of feminists everywhere, the race card trumped the gender card, and in doing so it provided one small clue as to the relative saliency of these two narratives. Race, it would seem, trumps gender.

Then came Robert Blake. Here the race card was inapplicable so the defendant’s victimization narrative was that of celebrities being preyed upon by grifters. The dead wife was plausibly portrayed as a con artist who had entrapped Blake and apparently decided that she got what she deserved. The jury apparently agreed, discounted abundant evidence that Blake had tried to have his wife killed, and found for the defendant.

Michael Jackson also plugged into this narrative. The race card was problematic, given his penchant for reinvention, and there were no blacks on the jury, so once again the defense presented a narrative that plausibly portrayed a celebrity as the victim of con artists [and, borrowing a page from Bill Clinton, of sex-obsessed prosecutors]. Interestingly enough, the alternative victimization story was that of a young child being abused by an adult sexual predator. Again the jury ignored evidence of Jackson’s peculiar promiscuities and found for the celebrity victim.

So what can we conclude from this? In all three cases the weight of the evidence took a back seat to victimization narratives, and look at how those narratives fared. Portraying women and children as victims of adult males was far less salient than the counter-narratives that depicted the plight of rich adult male celebrities.

Could it simply be the case that it is impossible to convict celebrities? Not really. Both Winona Ryder and Martha Stewart were convicted and Stewart was sentenced to prison. Does this mean that child and female victimization narratives are less potent than alternative ones based in race and class? Possibly, but neither Stewart nor Ryder attempted to make victimization the core of their cases. It’s hard to tell; the sample size is too small. We need to indict and try more celebrities – lots of them – before we can come to any firm conclusions.

Let’s get started – simply in the interests of social science, you understand.