It's about time we either forgive ourselves for our fascination with A Current Affair and COPS, or quit congratulating ourselves for not watching them. These sorts of programs, bottom feeders though they may be, are also responsible for expressing the thoughts and opinions we've grown too bigotted or, worse, too politically correct to express ourselves. Even in the United Kingdom, mainstream respectable newspapers are finally questioning the legitimacy of the British Monarchy, but thanks only to the efforts of the much reviled tabloids that exposed scandals like Camillagate and late-night telephone tapes. The instantaneous quality of today's media provides us with relatively uncensored, direct feed from the front, wherever that may be. More significantly, its speed and distribution allow for participatory, culture-wide events to unfold in the present tense.
History becomes now.
This is why the truly magical, dreamlike moment of the O.J. debacle was not the trial, nor the murder itself, nor any of the TV movies that are sure to follow, nor even the media covering the media about the media's intrusion on the courtroom. No, the transcendent scene that launched the O.J. virus into public consciousness was the epic Bronco drive to Mom's. Were the image in a film, it would be criticized as too blatantly symbolic. But also, and most importantly, we, the viewing public, participated in the event as observors and subject matter all at the same time. The was the first time in media history that people sitting in their homes, watching an event on their TV sets, quite literally walked into their own picture tubes.