The recent true-crime limited series “When They See Us” is difficult to watch. Not for the lack of quality, however. The acting, the writing, the directing, and everything else about the series is top notch, thanks to the incredible cast and crew led by filmmaker Ava DuVernay. But what makes watching the series such a harrowing experience is just how it exposes bigotry and prejudice in such a real, believable, and incredibly terrifying way. And unfortunately for Linda Fairstein, the bigotry and prejudice of the series seem to land at her feet.
After watching just the first episode of “When They See Us” on Netflix, viewers are immediately going to be feeling a bunch of emotions. And one of those emotions is likely to be disgust with Felicity Huffman’s character Linda Fairstein, the investigator at the center of the accusations against the Central Park 5 in 1989. The series does such a good job at portraying Fairstein as a villain that viewers are now starting a #CancelLindaFairstein campaign on social media to make sure the former investigator feels the ramifications of her alleged actions.
I say “alleged” only because in a new op-ed written for The Wall Street Journal (via THR), Fairstein attempts to give her side of the story, and expose the supposed “falsehoods” of DuVernay’s Netflix series. And since the miniseries has been released, Fairstein has resigned from the boards of various groups she was a part of and lost her book deal, after becoming a children’s book author in recent years.
Thus, it’s no surprise that Fairstein is no fan of DuVernay’s miniseries, which she described as “so full of distortions and falsehoods as to be an outright fabrication.” The series pulls no punches with her portrayal, showing in no uncertain terms that Fairstein went after these young men based solely on prejudiced motivations.
The main issues that the former prosecutor has with the miniseries (other than her overall portrayal) seem to be with how the Central Park 5 were shown to be given less-than-great conditions when they made the infamous confessions that landed them in jail for years.
“’When They See Us,’ repeatedly portrays the suspects as being held without food, deprived of their parents’ company and advice, and not even allowed to use the bathroom,” she wrote. “If that had been true, surely they would have brought those issues up and prevailed in pretrial hearings on the voluntariness of their statements, as well as in their lawsuit against the city. They didn’t, because it never happened.”
Fairstein claims that because of the eventual exoneration of the five men in 2002, this has “led some of these reporters and filmmakers to assume the prosecution had no basis on which to charge the five suspects in 1989.”
She continued by saying that it was right to let the Central Park 5 free, but that ultimately, the group was still responsible for crimes during the night in question in 1989. “The other charges, for crimes against other victims, should not have been vacated. Nothing Mr. Reyes said exonerated these five of those attacks. And there was certainly more than enough evidence to support those convictions of first-degree assault, robbery, riot and other charges,” she wrote.
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Ultimately, Fairstein says that DuVernay went so far to show that the five men were falsely accused that she “ignored so much of the truth about the gang of 30 and about the suffering of their victims” the night of the incident.
Like with any narrative re-telling of a real-life event, you always have to understand that DuVernay (and every other filmmaker that has done this sort of project) does her best to present the truth, how she sees it, based on the stories relayed to her by the men in question. Whether or not it portrays any of the people invovled in a good light is a product of the events of 30 years ago. And frankly, it doesn’t appear like it was a great situation for anyone involved. But let’s be real, at the end of the day, five men went to prison for a crime they didn’t commit and Fairstein became a children’s book author. Take from that what you will.