World Watches U.S. Watch O.J.

TORONTO -- Calls were coming in thick and fast to the talk radio program's open line. The subject: Prosecutor Marcia Clark's hairdo.


Opined Rita: "She should have left her hair a little longer, a little fluffier."


Countered John: "She has a right to wear her hair any way she wants."


On and on they debated, two more aficionados captivated by the permutations, and permanent waves, of the trial of former football star O.J. Simpson. But this was not Orlando or Toledo. This was Toronto, one of dozens of foreign locales where residents are as fascinated as Americans are by Simpson's trial on charges of killing his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.


The case is debated at dinner tables in Amman and Beirut, broadcast live in Britain, analyzed in magazine spreads in Germany, bannered across the front pages of Israeli newspapers and sneered at in France. The Simpson case is being followed abroad not just because it is a grisly crime with a well-known defendant, but also because it displays to the rest of the world nearly every trait for which America is infamous.


"This shadowy affair combines all the ingredients of a film noir: jealousy, sex, race, violence, money, sports and drugs, along with a dog as the only witness," wrote Catherine Delapr?e, reporting from Los Angeles for the French conservative daily Le Figaro. "It seems that the thirst of Americans for the most sordid details of the Simpson couple's conjugal life is unquenchable."


Other countries have long enjoyed pointing out troubles in the most powerful nation on earth; the Simpson case is a golden opportunity.


In Britain, the independent television network ITN spent 15 minutes last week examining the case as a trial of race relations in the United States. The reporter noted that the trial was taking place in the "terribly volatile" setting of Los Angeles.


Similarly Gerhard Mauz, writing in a six-page spread in the German magazine Der Spiegel, said the trial would decide "whether society lives together in total transparency, at every moment and in every place under the eye of the television camera, or whether a world controlled by the media will have an island for the administration of justice."


Mauz noted shortcomings in the American legal system, including the fact that "witnesses are no longer useful, because they have already sold their stories to the media for money."


The case also speaks to the spread of American culture around the world; it is another chance for Europeans, in particular, to remind themselves that they know more about the United States than Americans do about them.


"O.J. Simpson is known in Germany because he is prominent in America. Should Franz Beckenbauer (Germany's most famous soccer player) stand accused of murder in Germany, this would be a nonevent in America. Thanks to the influence of popular culture and the media, America now, as before, sets the agenda, at least for the world's gossip," wrote Kurt Kister, Washington correspondent for the S--ddeutsche Zeitung, a Munich-based national daily.


For countries with less understanding of the United States, the Simpson case is serving as a primer.


Commentators in many South American countries remind their viewers, for instance, that Simpson was a star of "American football" -- not to be confused with the real kind, soccer. And in China, where the trial has received extensive coverage, the Beijing Evening News provided an extensive explanation of the jury system.


"The jury has in its hands the power to handle the case," the Evening News said. "Whether Simpson will spend the rest of his life in prison or will be released as a free man will be decided by the 12-member jury."


Similarly, Poland and other nations in Eastern Europe are following the case enthusiastically, because it tells people about a country of which they know little, according to Tomasz Wroblewski, Washington correspondent for RMF, Poland's largest private radio station.


The most extensive coverage of the Simpson case, not surprisingly, comes from English-speaking nations. In Britain, where newspapers used analogies of cricket stars to explain Simpson's sports fame, the trial is broadcast live by the independent network Sky News and featured on the front pages of nearly all the national newspapers. Even in troubled Ireland, Simpson is on Page 1.


In Canada, where American culture is a way of life, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's all-news Newsworld channel broadcast the opening statements live. The network broke in occasionally to provide commentary from a Calgary lawyer on how legal practices differ in Canada.


Simpson is regular fare in newspapers and on talk radio; when one station asked listeners to phone in their opinions about his guilt or innocence, respondents voted 76 percent to 24 percent for a guilty verdict.