[ad_1]
“All those people who talk about ‘poor Oscar’, would they say that if someone famous killed their daughter?”
Andrea Johnson, director of the South African Prosecutor’s Office, had no doubt about what happened when Oscar Pistorius murdered Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day 2013. And her certainty is typical of the 65 collaborators of the documentary miniseries The trials of Oscar Pistorius– Relatives and members of the prosecution and defense teams are convinced that Pistorius deliberately shot his girlfriend through the bathroom door, or buy the story that he thought she was an intruder and was in defense own.
On the other hand, the director of the documentary, Daniel Gordon, says: “Four years later, I’m still going around. You’re never quite sure. “That is a very minority opinion, and the struggle for balance that it entails has caused some outrage against the BBC for screening the ESPN series. In short, people don’t feel there are two sides to the story. history.
Following the exceptional acclaim and success of the DO: Made in America series in 2016, ESPN clearly had a taste for ‘sports legends meet real crime’ and reached out to Gordon to do this. He’s made some classy sports papers over the years, including this year. The australian dream about racism in Australian football, a thoughtful portrait of George Best, and an excellent film about the deception of Ben Johnson at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. This, however, seems like a rare miss for him and the production operation of 30 by 30 movies from ESPN.
The BBC has already caused a furor with the way it promoted the series, with many people disgusted that it focused too much on Pistorius’s problems, including a press release on his “extraordinary history” as “an international hero who inspired millions of people”. ”, And an enthusiastic trailer about his sporting achievements.
Alongside the online hashtag campaign, #SayHerName, people asked the BBC why Reeva Steenkamp’s life and death weren’t in the spotlight. The BBC apologized and replaced the promotional material.
Certainly, the series opens in a way that immediately invites generosity towards Pistorius. His brother, cousin and uncle are the first to hit and the language they use is passive and distant: “Oscar’s disbelief at what happened …”, “is killed by a firearm.”
While it is true that Steenkamp’s tragically short life receives some coverage, and it cannot be denied that the case captured the global public interest, there is something macabre and grotesque about the project, something misleading and simplistic about its commodification of the murder of this woman. .
The BBC is often accused of being too awake, too spot on, whatever you want to call it, so it seems very strange that they bought a miniseries that rattles on topics that can inflame. A white journalist explains domestic violence in South Africa. Another white journalist says of apartheid: “In its simplest terms, apartheid divided the races. Blacks had their places, whites had their places. “
Well that’s certainly part of the story. What they really needed was for Alan Hansen at the 2010 World Cup to tell BBC viewers that “apartheid was a terrible system,” as if it were a poorly coordinated offside trap leading to a shocking defense. .
As is the modern style with factual programming, there is no narrator, but an overwhelming flow of one head speaking after another, and at five and a half hours, there is more than enough. Streaming services like BBC iPlayer and ESPN’s player where this can be found love a multi-part story for the obvious bum-in-the-seat reasons, but it would be nice to go back to the days when television he could even tell a very complex tale in an hour or so.
The series portrays Pistorius as a troubled and therefore fascinating fallen hero, and we are all, especially on sports pages, complicit in disguising the terrible behavior of men as something intriguing and therefore something. understandable. Reeva Steenkamp, who was 29 years old, would have gone to a secondary school that day to give a talk to the girls about relationships, respect and men. But she didn’t, because Pistorius killed her. Poor Oscar? Poor Reeva.
