Rebalancing the extra-judicial scales: Documentary aesthetics and the legacy of the Central Park Five

Sofia Baliño Rios

doi:10.12681/syn.27562

Abstract

The Central Park jogger case has returned to news headlines with the 2019 Netflix mini-series When They See Us, a dramatised account of the original trials. It has reignited debate over the injustices faced by the Black community in the United States, and led to lawsuits and job resignations on the part of former police investigators and prosecutors. Since the case’s inception, issues of race, media reporting, economics, and the identity of New York City have influenced the trial and its aftermath and have inspired documentaries, books, and the landmark 1990 essay “Sentimental Journeys” by Joan Didion. In this article, I argue that the creators of two of these works, by testing the boundaries of narrative, demonstrate that the case was inexorably tainted by a pervasive feeling of social precarity and racial prejudice which cost five young men several years of their lives, and offer a productive line of enquiry for acknowledging such factors and their influence, if not resolving them.

Highlights

In March 2020, Linda Fairstein, a writer of crime novels and the former head of the sex crimes division of the Manhattan district attorney’s office, filed lawsuits against Ava DuVernay, Attica Locke, and the Netflix film studio, claiming that their new mini-series had defamed her by portraying her as a “racist, unethical villain who is determined to jail innocent children of color at any cost” (Deadline n. pag.)
At issue in both situations was When They See Us, a four-part television series that focused on the trials known collectively as the “Central Park Jogger” case, in which these two women were key players in the prosecution of five teenage boys known as the Central Park Five
McCray, Richardson, Salaam, Santana, and Wise faced a battery of charges, including assault, attempted murder, sexual abuse, rape, and sodomy of the jogger, as well as charges related to separate attacks on other individuals who were in Central Park that night (Supreme Court of the State of New York, 5)