Opinion: O.J.'s canceled book reeks of crassness

The usually good advice Shakespeare gave to Laertes doesn’t work for me this week. I’m not being true to my own self.

I once promised myself that I would never again utter the name O.J. Simpson in conservation nor in a column. Breaking a promise doesn’t come easily, especially one to myself.

The announcement of a book written by O.J. Simpson (there, I said it again), and its subsequent cancellation, was enough to break a whole bunch of promises.

The original story of the upcoming book came on an incredibly hot pop culture news day. At the same time, word flashed around the nation that George Clooney had been named the “sexiest man alive” by People magazine. The award announcement was extra ponderous because Clooney is now tied for sexiest man titles with Brad Pitt. Both have won the award twice. Don’t ask how the two of them can trade off being both more and less sexy than the other. Go figure.

Alas, the announcement of the O.J. book nudged Clooney out of the limelight. “If I Did It” was to be the title. Happily, I speak of it in the past tense because a truly bizarre thing happened: A crass pop culture event was called off because it was too crass.

The pre-publication book hype that led to its demise said the book would hypothetically discuss how he would have killed his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ron Goldman if he had killed them. The title might as well have been “How I Got Away With It.”

To add gasoline to the toxic fumes given off by the book, the Fox network (not the cable news channel) was to feature O.J. in a two-night interview about the book. It should be obvious to all why this story knocked the sexiest man on earth out of the box.

The book and TV announcement brought back memories of a time when the nation was caught up in what surely was the crime of the 20th century. In 1994-95, the only ones who weren’t saturated with news about the case were babies or someone isolated atop a remote mountain. There was no escape from coverage of events beginning with the murder to the televised farce of a trial to the verdict of innocent. The subsequent civil suit against O.J. by the victims’ families had a more reasonable outcome. In this court, O.J. was found guilty of the murders and fined $33.5 million, which was never paid.

The massive wall-to-wall coverage by a vast media mix made it virtually impossible to escape the sordid mess.

To say it was an explosion of unheard-of proportions of pop culture delivered to America is an understatement.

It’s obvious that the O.J. trial opened the door for overexposure (albeit not as expansive) of other celebrity trials such as those of Robert Blake, for the murder of his wife, and Michael Jackson for being weird - actually, it was for child sexual abuse. That all three innocent verdicts were delivered by California juries have certainly tainted that state’s system.

If there was anything the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman did not need, it was O.J. thumbing his nose at them in print and on TV by virtually confessing to having murdered their loved ones. The nation certainly didn’t need a reprise of the colossal pop culture blemish on its face.

To the everlasting credit of the American public, I heard no one defending the book and TV interviews. The public was so grossed out, and said so, that Rupert Murdoch, owner of both the book publisher HarperCollins and Fox Broadcasting, pulled the plug on the whole thing.

It’s refreshing to know that there is a point where Americans, who will put up with a lot of pop culture schlock, say, “No more!”

Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.