In 2017, I wrote in a review of the fine miniseries “The People vs. O.J. Simpson“:

I was going to say the O.J. Trial was a formative event for me, but it was more of a confirmatory one. For example, in the miniseries, which is mostly accurate although somewhat pumped up, Johnnie Cochran starts out advising the Dream Team that their ideal juror is a black man, but they need to be worried about allowing black women on the jury because O.J. married a white woman.

But then focus groups reveal that not even Johnnie Cochran is cynical enough: black women love O.J., especially now that that blonde bitch ex-wife is permanently out of the picture. Meanwhile, white feminist prosecutor Marcia Clark thinks loading the jury up with black women is a great idea. …

One theme of the mini-series is spelled out in a derisive comment by Marcia Clark: the prosecution’s secret weapon is that all the alpha male egos on the Dream Team will cause the defense to implode. Like virtually every single thing Marcia says in the show, this sounds reasonable and intelligent under the current conventional wisdom (after all, gender diversity is our strength, and who has heard of a team of highly competitive males ever sorting out their differences, establishing a functional hierarchy, and buckling down to win anything?), but turns out to be wrong. The seemingly chaotic defense team managed, if barely, to battle out their differences and adjust to circumstances, most notably in the internal coup in which Cochran replaced Shapiro at the top. In contrast, the more hierarchical prosecution was doomed by boss lady Marcia’s self-confidence in her own bad judgment, most notably about blacks, women, and, especially, black women.