When I mentioned to a few people that I was watching screeners for FX’s “Clipped,” about the racism scandal from 10 years ago involving Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, it didn’t ring a bell for most. Maybe that’s because of the increasingly frantic pace of the news cycle over the past decade. Or maybe because it’s impossible to keep track of just how many men in power are saying and doing odious things behind closed doors.
Sterling never had much of a national profile in pop culture but his downfall changed all that. His assistant and maybe-mistress V. Stiviano was in the habit of recording their conversations — with his knowledge — which included a rant berating her for being photographed with Black people.
That snippet would ultimately find its way to TMZ, which resulted in Sterling being banned from the NBA and forced to sell his stake in the team. Throughout it all, Stiviano had a strange push-pull response to the ensuing media interest. That’s the recap, which suggests the story doesn’t warrant more than a movie-length treatment.
But FX is in the TV business and the six-episode series (streaming on Hulu) does some things I found intriguing. Ed O’Neill has said he wasn’t interested in playing Sterling at first and I get the reluctance; he’s not only repellent, he’s . As a real estate mogul, Sterling was previously the subject of housing discrimination lawsuits as well as sexual harassment lawsuits.
Those in business with him overloo.
