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 The popularity of long, complex documentaries like "Making a
Murderer" and "The Jinx," and the radio podcast "Serial" are
putting an immersive and realistic twist on TV crime staples and
spurring heated debate about the shortcomings of the U.S.
judicial system.
And there is much more to come.
A much-anticipated, 10-episode TV series on the O.J. Simpson
murder trial, which still fascinates and polarizes Americans 20
years on, will start on the FX channel in February. Discovery
Channel last week began its six-episode "Killing Fields" series
that takes viewers inside an active cold case murder
investigation in Louisiana as it unfolds in real time.
"What we're seeing in this batch of shows is the idea that true
crime can have some kind of social utility," said David Schmid,
an English professor at the State University of New York at
Buffalo, and editor of the 2015 book "Violence in American
Popular Culture."
"I think these shows are tapping into our culture's widespread
sense that our justice system, if not broken, is definitely in
trouble," Schmid added.
To be sure, police, crime and lawyers have been pop culture
favorites for decades. But while TV franchises like "CSI" and
"Law & Order" dramatize stories ripped from the headlines and
package them into neat one-hour shows with star casts, what is
grabbing American viewers now are six-to-10-hour series
portraying ordinary, imperfect people caught up in legal
troubles that might never be fixed.
"These shows let you go on a journey. It feels like audiences
are solving it in real time, side by side with that hotshot
investigator. You can be sitting on your couch in Oklahoma and
you feel like you have solved a murder," said Mark McBride, a
Beverly Hills criminal defense attorney.
McBride said the U.S. justice system often does not come out
well in such series. Suggestions in the Netflix documentary
series "Making a Murderer" that convicted Wisconsin scrap car
dealer Steven Avery may have been framed by law enforcement for
a 2005 murder have led hundreds of thousands of people to sign
petitions calling for his pardon or a new trial. Authorities in
the case have denied the allegations.
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Such concerns may be part of the fascination with the new breed of
true crime shows. "People have had concerns about the justice system
at least since the O.J. Simpson case in terms of evidence
mishandling, biased detectives and lab technicians who are not
superheroes," said McBride.
"I don't think these (shows) undermine the system. I think the
criminal justice system wants to be held accountable," he said.
FX's "The People vs. O.J. Simpson" limited series, which uses actors
to dramatize the behind-the-scenes legal battle in the 1994
prosecution and murder trial of the football legend, has become one
of the most buzzed-about TV shows weeks before its Feb. 2 launch
even though it is not expected to throw any new light on the case.
"The O.J. Simpson case brings together everything our culture is
fascinated by - namely sex, sports, violence, celebrity and, in this
case, race," said Schmid.
However, Schmid noted that documentaries like "Serial" and "Making a
Murderer" are a far cry from the lurid, melodramatic true crime
narratives of past decades that seemed to celebrate killers.
"What these shows have done is to take the alleged perpetrator and
turned them into the victim," Schmid added.
"Viewers get to feel that maybe, in a small way, they can contribute
to making the justice system a little more responsive, a little more
just... That's something which is relatively new in the history of
the genre."
(Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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