Celebrity Trials

I have spent most of the past week yo-yo-ing back and forth between, how horrible, to he did it, to how horrible, to he did it...and right now how horrible. Which is why I am not a trained judge with the skills to decide if Oscar Pistorius should get bail or not. And he can thank his lucky stars for that...well if he had any left but I think they may have all expired last year.

What has struck me in this yo-yo-ing is how much I want his version to be the true version. I can't quite accept that he could be a cold blooded killer. But why should I feel so let down, so upset at the thought that a COMPLETE STRANGER might in fact be something other than what I thought he was? It's a strange reaction and it got me thinking about how we all feel a part of something that is nothing to do with us. Like for example, when Princess Diana died. We watched the news footage with horror and heard the details as if we were being told about a relative, couldn't believe it in the same way that shock registers when you hear about an actual relative dying.

It's even like back when everyone thought Lance Armstrong was an actual hero, we didn't want to accept he was a giant cheat. Which is probably why he got away with it for so long. But why? Why do we feel so personally involved with a set of people we have never met, simply because we have been allowed to watch a little of their lives through our TV screens? Or read some tabloid version of who they might be?

Let's face it, first off, none of us are just one thing or another. Reading reports of occasions when Oscar has got angry made me think about how often I have lost my rag and said things I did not mean. Even done things I did not mean. Do you know I once head butted an ex boyfriend? Well I did. He had my arms pinned behind me to stop me from walking away during a row, not violently I hasten to add, he wanted me to stay and listen. In a split second reaction to him grabbing my arms I slammed my head backwards into his forehead. I was so horrified at myself I sobbed to him about how I was just like Trevor from Eastenders and how sorry I was, whilst he, get this, comforted me. And yes, I did hurt him. I also shocked him and myself. So the fact that Oscar Pistorius has once threatened to tear someone apart does not actually make him a girlfriend murderer. But the Newspapers make it look like it does. They make us believe they really know everything about this person and what they are 'really' like. By showing us three examples of a time he got angry immediately after he shoots his girlfriend, they manage to sell this image of a violent, angry young man. When in fact, all the actual interviews we have seen with him show him as a reasonable and polite man. Even the interview where he slammed Olivierra for having illegal blades came across as a man in shock over a defeat. Not a man who was hot tempered. But now, it's convenient evidence that he is.

Either way, we don't know anything about anyone really. Even our own family. If you had told me that a very close member of my family would end up in prison for stabbing someone, or if you told me I would head butt anyone, let alone a man I love I would have told you that you were crazy. Both of those things have happened. Both of them were a shock. And then you deal with the situation, you accept that something has happened and you get through it. And before you know it, the stabbing of someone has become just an incident amongst a whole lifetime. It becomes, inconsequential in a way you can't quite believe it ever could. Because that incident does not define a life, it features in it. 

Of course, it does define a life, a life of the victim, if the victims life is cut short. Suddenly, everything that went before is blurred behind the word 'Murdered' or 'Accidently shot'. That victim becomes just a sentence. In fact, that is all she is, she is just the thing that happened to this great Sportsman. I feel horrible admitting this but I haven't once thought about her. I didn't know her, she wasn't 'in my life' in that weird way that hero's are. My first thought on hearing it was an accident was 'Poor Oscar'. I felt so terrible for him. And then when I got to the point of 'he did it' my thoughts moved to 'But why Oscar, what a fool'. Once again, I had no real reaction to the actual victim of the story because the story was and is Oscar. The same way the story was Diana or was OJ Simpson. OJ Simpson, once again, we all thought he did it. I want to say 'Know' but as he was found innocent I will go with 'thought' he did it, and we all know that Nicole Simpson was not a victim of a tragic accident but the victim of a brutal double homicide but did we really think about her in amongst the excitement, the drama of the Sportsman on trial? No, she became the murdered, the deceased, the nothing but the event that was bringing this giant sportsman down. Or as it turned out, that didn't bring the giant sportsman down, that was a jewellery heist.

What is it then that famous people do to us that make us care about their actions? Why is it such a disappointment to find a Sportsman in the dock for murder? Why am I rooting with every ounce of my body for his defence team to prove the Prosecution wrong...as I have spent most of the morning doing? Simply because when he runs I find it exciting? Really? 

And what about if this was my beloved Ryan Gosling? What would my reaction be then? I mean we all know how tragic it was for me when he began cheating on me with Eva...could I handle him being a murderer too? 

Ah...the answer may just have found me...it's because I am delusional. I see. The problem is me, not celebrity stories or the Daily Mail. Or the Guardian live trial feed. It's me. And maybe all of you too. Okay, so you're not in a fantasy relationship with Ryan Gosling (or a stranger on Twitter - @theSwellman) but you are following the case. You are reading the Newspaper articles. It does interest you too if he did it or not. So what is wrong with all of us?