On February 14, 2013, Reeva Steenkamp was killed by her boyfriend in his home. Shot four times through a locked bathroom door, she died alone, afraid, too soon.
She was 29, a model, a paralegal planning on taking the bar, the face of an anti-bullying campaign, and an ardent campaigner against domestic violence. Yet, on Valentine’s Day in 2013 this future was snatched away by a boyfriend who’s alleged erratic temper, controlling disposition and history of abuse had made past parters fear for their lives, and cost Steenkamp hers.
The boyfriend in question, Paralympian Oscar Pistorius. The story, one of heartbreaking loss and the ever-present issue of domestic violence.
Well, this was the story to everyone except our national broadcaster.
The BBC’s new four part documentary, The Trials of Oscar Pistorius, is one that’s decided what’s above isn’t what’s important. Instead, its about the man currently serving 13 years for murder. A man who a court of law proved guilty. A man who the BBC call “an international hero who inspired millions,” that “suddenly found himself at the centre of a murder investigation.”
Clocking in at a sobering five and a half hours, the four part documentary is one where Pistorius’s life is mapped out meticulously, and one where we are repeatedly invited to show sympathy and pity for the man.
We see his childhood and how he resiliently overcame his disabilities, we see how he made history being the first amputee to compete in the able bodied olympic, we hear his nicknames of: “The Blade Runner” and “The fastest man on no legs”, and we are shown how much of a national icon and hero he was to South Africans.
Whilst all of this may have been true, and should command some basic respect, he lost the right to be revered in such a way when he shot his girlfriend four times. Its sickening the amount of times we are shown him on a podium, winning races, or speaking to dignitaries. Its undoubtedly more than Steenkamps life is celebrated.
Context is needed, obviously, but this much? In a series about a murder?
Such an exclusion of Steenkamps life and achievements should’ve been a bleak expectation from viewers, given that the original trailer for the series didn’t even mention her name. It led to Steenkamps mother writing an article for the telegraph in protest, a twitter campaign under #sayhername, and even caused waves within the BBC itself, with a host of their own journalists complaining to management how it minimised violence against women.
It seems the message the documentary is trying to portray, is that, despite being a convicted murderer, Pistorius is still deserving of celebration, and that his sporting legacy should be able to coexist and be seen as separate to what he did.
The series does this through intertwining the investigation into Steenkamps murder with accounts of Pistorius’s achievements. This creates a morbid paradox where the real tragedy was not Reevas loss of life, but Pistorius’s loss of career and status.
We do get some accounts of Steenkamps life, told through archive footage and interviews with family and friends, but, such accounts are drowned out by the paralympians achievements. Statements from his family, friends and fellow athletes both question his guilt and console his mental state following the incident, and this persistent padding of pro-Oscar advocates eventually feels gnarled and uncomfortable.
How the BBC would not expect this from a director (Daniel Gordon) that has openly stated his “flip-flopping” over Pistorius’s guilt, is foolish. The statement does explain a lot, with the documentary frequently feeling like an amateur public re-trial. But even then, if his purpose was to debate Pistorius’s guilt (as to this day the Paralympian says it was an accident, and he thought she was a robber), it fails.
Whilst he does display Pistorius as someone of remarkable dedication and character, who overcame countless odds to be where he was. It also displays him as petulant and brattish, someone overly obsessed with guns who wanted to live life in the fast lane.
Even if we forget the muddy moral compass and look at it objectively as a piece of television, The Trials of Oscar Pistorius is poorly made. It relies on true crime cliches with a cacophony of news reports and trivial interviews, and frequently trudges through narrative rabbit holes that add little to the story other than to, again, look into Pistorius’s life.
It means the series is one that has no scope, nothing to actually say. It instead unfolds as propaganda for a convict, ultimately undermining the experience of every victim of domestic abuse.
It plays into the nauseous narrative oft-seen when men murder their partners. Where these ‘honourable’ men have been provoked by their partners, and, in a moment of madness, have lost control and hurt them. Thereby painting them as victims, and how they promise that they really are good people, really.
It could’ve been powerful, it could’ve explored the harrowing details of these toxic relationships and how they come to be, It could’ve told of how dangerous a place South Africa can be for women, it could’ve criticised the media response and dissected the myriad ways in which it was reported.
Instead, its a plea of forgiveness for a man in prison, playing in to genre tropes to try and whet the grim fascination of the true crime brigade, and it should be one that is avoided at all costs.
Don’t watch it, instead, remember and celebrate the only name that should matter in the story, Reeva Steenkamp.
