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From: Jasper
Date: 9/10/04
Time: 4:01:37 PM
Remote Name: 69.212.228.106
Ludwig,
On the surface the case, O.J. looks like Othello who succeeded in killing Cassio where Othello tried and failed. The story looks like the play without Iago. It looks like the story of a rich black guy in a rich white neighborhood who accomplished great things, married a white woman, went insane with jealousy and killed his “wife” and the innocent man he thought she was having any affair with.
Fuhrman’s Brentwood story doesn’t quite fit Shakespeare’s Venice story. But it does fit as well as a certain pair of gloves we know – close enough to work for most people.
The outward similarities between the Brentwood murders and Othello (the play) were so striking that I didn’t think anyone had to point them out. Long before the grand jury proceedings an NPR commentator floored me with the “uncanny” parallels she drew between Othello (the character) and O.J. She repeated the common misconceptions and got the core of what happened to Othello, Desdemona and Cassio wrong. She missed the fact that they were ALL set up. She didn’t even mention Iago, the guy who did it.
Then I heard a similar rundown of the play and the parallels by another media commentator… and another… and another. Not one of them mentioned Iago.
If the superficial aspects of the Bundy murders were what they appeared to be the points these commentators were making had some merit. But the case hadn’t gone to trial yet. Where was the presumption of innocence? If things were not as they appeared to be there had to be an Iago – a crafty, ambitious villain working behind the scenes to engineer a murder/frame-up plot. If there was an Iago in Brentwood, O.J. wasn’t Othello. He was Cassio (you nailed it). The prosecution was Othello. But just as Iago plotted to elevate himself by brining down Cassio and avenge himself by setting up Othello to punish the innocent on an illusion, a real Iago in Brentwood would have tried to elevate himself by bringing down O.J. For this illusion, Nicole made a perfect Desdemona.
I experimented with a bunch of titles for the book – some of which included the name Othello for the reasons you mentioned. I kept coming back to the subtle game of substations that Fuhrman played with the setting, props and characters in Othello. I wanted to draw a connection to Murder in Brentwood so I did it by substituting the first word in that title with Iago. I knew that most people wouldn’t recognize the name or make the connection. I was trolling for the few people who would and those with enough curiosity to find out. The more people know about Iago the less persuasive I have to be to get them to take a serious look at Fuhrman as a puppeteer and a killer. –Jasper