Salon calls Martha Stewart " the only megastar who couldn't beat the rap"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2005/06/14/jackson_essay/index.html

June 14, 2005 | It's over. Michael steps out into the sun, the doves are released, the already overcrowded Santa Barbara jail won't have to make room for a very special guest.

One more time, a celebrity beats the rap. It should give Martha Stewart something to think about that she's the only megastar who couldn't. And yet, one more time the show ended with the sense that the truth remains somewhere "out there," shadowy and elusive. One more time, it's hard to discern any moral of the story.

The Michael Jackson trial was part of an epic cycle of celebrity trials that started with O.J. Simpson, passing through Kobe Bryant, Robert Blake and Phil Spector (Tyson and the Menendez brothers also bear mention). These trials -- sometimes televised, other times reenacted, always dissected and second-guessed with obsessive attention -- have undoubtedly become a new genre of entertainment. They are American tragedies for our age -- big, crass, bizarre and, most crucially, morally empty.

The crimes or alleged crimes involved are as serious as they could be: murders, rape, pedophilia. The suffering, or alleged suffering, is profound. The scope and impact of the trials -- from the investigations to the legal strategies, the media spin, the social repercussions -- are huge. Yet it's impossible to wrestle from them the moral or even the psychological lessons that classic tragedy provides.

[VelmaD]

1. Maybe it's just me...

but did anyone else notice that Martha was the only woman on that list of celebs? She was also the only one not accused of a violent crime I think...and yet she went to jail. Go figure. :eyes:

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

2. It stinks on a NUMBER of levels...

...especially the media ridicule before, during, and after her incarceration.

:grr:

[brainshrub]

4. Didn't Tyson do some jail time?

I'm not a boxing fan or a celebrity-watcher, but I think he did some jail time in the 90s.

:shrug:

[amazona]

5. of course he did -- been in prison twice

Three years for rape, a shorter sentence for assault on a man.

[VelmaD]

6. I don't remember...

off the top of my head. Someone who cares more about boxing than I do will have to answer that one.

[Deja Q]

7. Quite. She's not the only one who cheated to make great sums of money.

Why the hell aren't thousands of other businessmen in jail then?

[VelmaD]

8. yeah...like the pretzeldent...

who somehow managed to avoid a serious investigation, much less jail time, for insider trading.

[On the Road]

3. "It Should Give Her Something to Think About"?

:wtf:

As in: "make sure to donate to Republicans as well as Democrats"?

Martha's problem was not the stock trade, which turned out to be legal, but that she panicked and lied to the investigators. Stupid, but deserving of a short jail sentence. Despite that, the prosecution probably would have let up on her if she were a Republican.

[Dogmudgeon]

9. How about Roscoe Arbuckle?

That was the classic Sex Frenzy.

He was a comedian who was accused of raping a woman with a bottle. The woman died.

Of course, he didn't do it. She crashed a party of his, high and sick with peritonitis, passed out in his bathroom, and he was good enough to call for an ambulance.

Of course, everybody knew he was guilty as sin.

It took three trials -- two mistrials and finally exonoration -- to clear his name.

It destroyed his career. It destroyed his health. It destroyed his life.

--p!