American Crime Story and Wine
Signs I'm still thinking about American Crime Story: The People vs. OJ Simpson even though the series is unfortunately over. I went to the grocery store for lunch and saw a display of "Simi wines", in particular a Sauvignon blanc on sale. I queried whether the wines came from Simi Valley and whether Simi Valley was enough of a status location for (admittedly discounted wines) that the locale should be emblazoned in faux-fancy cursive to lure buyers looking for California wines. But toxic enough as a location in 1994 because the jury there acquitted the officers who beat Rodney King that it could discredit any police officer who lives there.
Immediately went back to research that the Simi wines are from Sonoma county (real wine country), seven hours away from Ventura County where lies Simi Valley and the infamous trial that acquitted the officers who viciously beat Rodney King. The wine label got the name "Simi" because it was the last name of the family who started the wine label.
Whew.
No, but seriously, I REALLY loved the hell out of American Crime Story. I wish I had more to say- but I feel like a novice at the study of OJ Simpson. This is actually the ONE TV series where the official news outlets did a better job covering TV than a fanbase because it's chock full of older reporters who remembered the case going on live and maybe even covered some of it. LOL. The two other main creators/writers besides Ryan Murphy were on CNN on Friday and I was struck by two things:
(1) They said that the idea for the show started percolating two years ago JUST BEFORE Michael Brown's shooting really started to kick off the Black Lives Matter movement. So, as they wrote and developed the show, they were writing it alongside the development of the Black Lives Matter movment. They vaguely said that affected the development of the project- but the CNN reporter unfortunately didn't ask them to expand on that.
(2) When they were asked how the story differs from the Jeffrey Toobin source material, they made a note of saying that, upon researching the case, they really came to like Johnny Cochran, Marcia Clark, and Chris Darden in particular and thought they all got a raw deal in the press at the time so they wrote the scripts with that in mind.
(3) The stories that night were back to back- first a discussion of Bill Clinton's remarks defending the 1994 crime bill and himself against accusations that the bill was racist or hurt black communities, then the interview with the writers/creators of American Crime Story, and THEN, the upcoming HBO movie Confirmation about Clarence Thomas's confirmation hearings and the Anita Hill scandal. There wasn't a stated link, but amusingly, after the Clinton story was covered, the American Crime Story interview was previewed with the scene from the series where Bill Clinton made his statement and Johnny Cochran regarded it as a triumph that the President of the United States had to weigh in on the trial.
Immediately went back to research that the Simi wines are from Sonoma county (real wine country), seven hours away from Ventura County where lies Simi Valley and the infamous trial that acquitted the officers who viciously beat Rodney King. The wine label got the name "Simi" because it was the last name of the family who started the wine label.
Whew.
No, but seriously, I REALLY loved the hell out of American Crime Story. I wish I had more to say- but I feel like a novice at the study of OJ Simpson. This is actually the ONE TV series where the official news outlets did a better job covering TV than a fanbase because it's chock full of older reporters who remembered the case going on live and maybe even covered some of it. LOL. The two other main creators/writers besides Ryan Murphy were on CNN on Friday and I was struck by two things:
(1) They said that the idea for the show started percolating two years ago JUST BEFORE Michael Brown's shooting really started to kick off the Black Lives Matter movement. So, as they wrote and developed the show, they were writing it alongside the development of the Black Lives Matter movment. They vaguely said that affected the development of the project- but the CNN reporter unfortunately didn't ask them to expand on that.
(2) When they were asked how the story differs from the Jeffrey Toobin source material, they made a note of saying that, upon researching the case, they really came to like Johnny Cochran, Marcia Clark, and Chris Darden in particular and thought they all got a raw deal in the press at the time so they wrote the scripts with that in mind.
(3) The stories that night were back to back- first a discussion of Bill Clinton's remarks defending the 1994 crime bill and himself against accusations that the bill was racist or hurt black communities, then the interview with the writers/creators of American Crime Story, and THEN, the upcoming HBO movie Confirmation about Clarence Thomas's confirmation hearings and the Anita Hill scandal. There wasn't a stated link, but amusingly, after the Clinton story was covered, the American Crime Story interview was previewed with the scene from the series where Bill Clinton made his statement and Johnny Cochran regarded it as a triumph that the President of the United States had to weigh in on the trial.