Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!


I'm a bit behind, but I wanted to comment on Episode 6, the Marcia Clark-centered installment of the People V. OJ . Kudos to the writers for providing a window into the nastiness Marcia Clark had to deal with from all sides in regards to her appearance, because even in a supposedly progressive decade like the 1990's, the most important aspects of a powerful female public figure were still her hair, her clothes, her "likability," and precious little else.

It's another aspect of that freakshow trial that they got right; I totally remember seeing a clip of that whore Lance Ito making bitchy comments about Marcia's hair from his perch on the bench. (Seriously, when will men learn not to pick on a woman's hair? Especially when most males are so severely lacking in the follicle department?)

Because if anyone is qualified to rate someone else's looks, it's this hunka-hunka burnin' love.
(Is this Lance's version of "blue steel?")

Marcia should have fired back, "Oh hey Lance, nice work on the comb-over today! You almost managed to cover up that bald spot." Then she should have pointed at OJ and shouted, all lawyer-y and indignant, "YOU! Wipe that smirk off your face before I come over there and do it for you. And Johnnie? Bite my lily-white ass." Of course, she wouldn't have said any of that in court, but I'm sure she was thinking it every damn day of the trial and undoubtedly launched into daily profanity-laden rants about Ito, OJ, and that whole slimy defense team to her friends and colleagues behind closed doors. According to the book the series is based on, Jeffrey Toobin's The Run of His Life (which I read last week. A bit slow in the middle, but otherwise a good read. As dense as it was, I ripped through it pretty quickly), Marcia swore like a longshoreman, chain-smoked Dunhills, and had a hot fling with Christopher Darden. She was more of a bad ass than any of those bitches on the defense team. In fact, she could have totally eaten them all for breakfast and picked her teeth with Cochran's bones, but she was so hamstrung by the gross, sexist atmosphere created by the media and all those assholes at the OJ table, who I believe were secretly petrified of her.

And don't even get me started on that washed-up boozebag F. Lee Bailey and his lame courtroom reference to his lap hog in the midst of all the glove-trying-on shenanigans, trying to awkwardly imply that his own hands were also too big to fit those stupid gloves. (And how ironic that this episode aired just days after Trump made a similar joke during the Republican debate. What is it with these elderly white males and their penis obsessions? Whatever.) And what was with his crack that "(Marcia's) eyesight is as bad as her memory?" Was he implying that she failed to recognize his alpha male virility because she hadn't gotten any in such a long time? Girl, please. M.C. was getting more action than anyone in that courtroom. And unlike F. Lee Bailey, she never had to pay for it.  Marcia should have shut down old F-LeeBay by calling his bluff: "Well whip it out then, whisky dick, and let's see what you got!"

I do love Nathan Lane as F-Lee. Another stroke of genius casting.

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