Public Eye the Victim, You Say?

By MARGARET CARLSON

By my count, O.J. Simpson has been called an American hero about 4,392,979 times since being charged with murdering his wife. The night of the chase alone, there were roughly 987,763 such references by commentators like Barbara Walters, who found themselves with hours of airtime to fill and nothing to say. Even the U.S. Senate got in on the chorus. In chamber on Friday, the chaplain offered a prayer for O.J.: "Our hearts go out to him . . . Our nation has been traumatized by the fall of a great hero." To this moment, I have not heard Nicole Simpson referred to as much of anything at all. A victim, you say? She has become even smaller in death, as her ex-husband remains larger than life. As a noncelebrity and a woman, she looks headed for a very unfair trial.

Consider the 911 tape released last week, which should have had the unambiguous effect of bringing the most die-hard O.J. fan to his senses. Instead of the silky-smooth patter of the blue-blazered N.F.L. sportscaster, the self-deprecating wit of the motivational speaker, here comes the coarse rant of a man who owns his ex-wife. He rampages through her home, breaking down a door, and you can hear how terrorized Nicole is, even as she begs her ex-husband to hold his voice down to keep from frightening the children.

But so firmly entrenched is his image, so unformed hers, that the tape had the perverse effect in some quarters of helping to explain his conduct and incriminate her. Hey, she had a boyfriend. What's more, she entertained him in the living room O.J. paid for, and her antics provided fodder for an article in the National Enquirer that made him look like a cuckolded male. That's something men, at least the ones calling into sports talk shows, can sympathize with. This must be what the founding lawyers had in mind when they concocted the heat-of-passion defense. Radio host Rush Limbaugh with 20 million listeners had an on-air epiphany, when he played the tape for his listeners and found out it was another man that O.J. was furious about. He took pleasure in pointing out that O.J. was only yelling. He broke down a door, big deal. He didn't break her.

It shouldn't be so hard to humanize Nicole and cut O.J. down to size. He may have held the record for yards rushing, but he also holds it for celebrity afterlife. Only in the deflated coin of the realm would Simpson have been considered a hero. He was an athlete who turned a brilliant career running a football into a minor one flacking rental cars, sportscasting and acting. Much is made of the amiability with which he performed these duties, but accommodating fans is how a faded athlete convinces a company like Hertz to keep paying him top dollar for pushing midsize cars with unlimited mileage.

Although calls for help from battered wives sharply increased last week, domestic violence remains not really a crime -- especially among the men who commit it or sympathize with those who do. The word domestic modifies and diminishes the word that follows so much that it is not considered true violence. Beating up a stranger gets you jailed; beating up a wife lands you in therapy.

Society now is all too ready to blame the victim, while simultaneously making a victim of the perpetrator. Leo Braudy, author of The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History, says "The celebrity is constantly being told how great and wonderful he is by a phalanx of yes-men and supporters, so his sense of self-justification is so much stronger. In O.J.'s mind and in his so- called suicide note, he is the victim." Before this is over, Nicole will be the bitch who ate Brentwood and asked for everything she got. As for O.J? He was only human.