Linda Fairstein gets the hero treatment in The Preppy Murder after When They See Us portrayed her as a villain

Rolling Stone

The former New York City Assistant District Attorney felt the heat last summer after Felicity Huffman's portrayed her in a negative light in Ava DuVernay's Netflix limited series on the Central Park Five. The new AMC/SundanceTV docuseries The Preppy Murder: Death in Central Park portrays Fairstein in a much more sympathetic light because she championed the victim of the case amidst victim-shaming headlines. "That’s probably because that’s how she sees herself: as a champion for the victim. In the case of the killing of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin, she battled on the side of one of the most egregious victims of slut-shaming and victim-blaming in recent history," says Brenna Ehrlich.  "With the Central Park Five, she put on her cape for rape victim Trisha Meili — what she missed in that case was that Meili wasn’t the only victim involved. And therein lies the problem. The Preppy Murder is pretty black and white when it comes to right and wrong, however: in the case of Levin, Fairstein’s a scrappy assistant D.A. taking on the world in the face of sexism and misogyny. The show depicts another side of a hotly debated public figure, one that’s sometimes hard to square with Fairstein’s current status as persona non-grata."