Jodi Arias and the Circus

When real trials become reality television

By:  Kurt Joachim von Behrmann

                Any story that features illicit sex, violence, scandal and murder is destined to receive attention, and quickly.  The Jodi Arias trial contains all of these elements, and in plentiful supply.  On trial for the murder of her boyfriend, Travis Alexander, Arias is accused of shooting her ex-boyfriend in the face, stabbing him multiple times, 29, or 27 times depending on the source, and slitting his throat, literally from ear to ear.  

                Found at the scene of the murder was a digital camera that was badly damaged. However, it was not in such condition that the photos contained on it could not be rescued.  Showing nude shots of Alexander and Arias along with the bloody body of Travis Alexander, a visual record had been kept.

                  Arias maintained that her actions were in self-defense.  She described Alexander as abusive and into deviant sex.  She was a reluctant participant in these encounters.  After a meeting at Alexander’s home, according to Arias, he attacked her. She retailed by stabbing him, severing his jugular and shooting him.  For some reason, Arias felt the need to photograph the dead body of her former boyfriend.

                In a story that includes obsession and a gruesome murder, the outcome of the event is in the hands of a jury, one that by Arizona law can ask questions.  Certainly there are questions to be asked.

                As the story becomes the focus of news reports, in a case that in previous times would have been reported by correspondents and court artists, cameras now capture the proceedings as they unfold without the need for an intermediary.

                One rule in sciences states that what is observed changes simply by being observed.   Applied to a court trial where every lurid detail can be seen as it is revealed, one has to wonder if awareness of the unblinking eye of a camera has an impact on how everyone behaves. 

                It is true that when cameras are turned on, participants frequently forget that there are eyes watching.  It is also true that some have no problem playing to an audience, either real, imagined or by proxy.

                Things are made even more interesting in a trial when you have a photogenic young woman on trial for the kind of violent murder that is simply not associated with women who have been considered highly desirable.   The disconnection between what is perceived as the norm and the reality of what happened makes for an interesting mix of the lurid and the sexual.

                In a past time when films were created and marketed to woman with an emphasis on love and love gone wrong, what was once condescendingly called “women’s pictures” could sometimes contain elements of jealously, greed, sex and sometimes crime.  A classic example is the Joan Crawford vehicle “Mildred Pierce.” In it a woman is accused of the murder of her lover.  However in the film version, the gore level was limited to a gun shot.  There were no steamy photos or slit throats.

                Trials like the Arias trial seem almost tailor made for a public that has a fascination with crime.  That interest has always been around.  It explains the popularity, and to some degree that fascination everyone has when violence and revenge are center stage.  There is a certain hard to define allure about watching a world where actions are swift, brutal, retaliatory and bloody fueled by passionate emotions and equally sturdy desires. 

                As films become more graphic, video games more true to reality, what has happened is that a need is being filled with increasingly more detailed violence that may not have been conceivable in other times.  This is not to say the world has been a peaceful place.  Looking at the gore of the Middle Ages and one has to wonder just how low the human level for tolerance of violence can go.  Look no further than the Spanish Inquisition and it becomes apparent society can stomach a great deal of blood and gore.

                The big difference is that true violence was not broadcasted easily accessible in constant supply.  While there may have been a sadistic interest in watching public murder and torture in the past, it was not part of the fabric of existence and broadcast to see in the comfort of your own residence.  If you wanted to see murder and gore, you had to at least leave your home to see a public hanging.

                Another big difference is the violence and gore we see in films and media are not real. The vast majority of what we see is not real.  There is distancing that takes place when you know what you see is not real. 

                The convergence of reality versus fantasy comes in watching a murder trial.  Even with all of the uninteresting left in, when you see someone on stand knowing their life hangs in the balance, there is a theatrical component.  When you watch, it is difficult not to see it as some for, dare say the word, entertainment.

                The fear has been voiced that when television news fell under the banner of entertainment it would spell the end of serious objective news coverage.  When news divisions were expected to turn a profit, something historically they were never required, that meant news had to be geared for a wider audience.

                In an effort to make news more “interesting” the lurid, the salacious and the trivial would be brought center stage along with the comings, goings and problems of the successful.  Entertainment had merged with news. The marriage was at the expense of journalism. 

                Shackled with the demands of making money, and the idea that the fastest way to gain audience share is to appeal to the most basic emotions, information and anything serious was left to the wolves.

                Reality television, which ends up blurring the line between scripted entertainment and actual events, no doubt has created an appetite for the basest behavior. Throw a drink, call someone a bad name, get drunk, start a bar fight and quickly you become an instant star.  Andy Warhol saw all of this early. His comment that everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes has more relevance now than it did then he uttered that often quoted line.  Definitely, Warhol had an insight into celebrity and the pitfalls that are attendant.

                The Arias trial, being broadcast day by day has the feeling of a soap opera.  People simply become actors and it is hard to discern that a reality if unfurling with life or death on the line. 

                The guilt or innocence of Arias rests with a trail.  But the idea of trials become fodder for entertainment is problematic in a media age.  Without the distancing that comes with news being reported rather than broadcasted with little interruption means a new type of information.  The O.J. trial may have been the template for court room drama where the real and the fantastic meet.