A woman drags her ex-boyfriend to court over an overdue adult movie rental and unpaid loan. A woman is heartbroken when her best friend betrays her with her husband. A smooth-talking ex-boyfriend claims that bail money was a gift. Welcome to the courtroom reality TV shows, where judges resolve “real-life” disputes between friends, neighbors, family members, roommates, and lovers on national television. Americans are hooked to television entertainment, especially to those so-called reality television programs in which ordinary people go unscripted and are put into “real”, unusual “legal” situations in order to entertain the viewers. What most people don’t know is that all of those courtroom reality shows, especially Judge Judy, Divorce Court and The People’s Court have negative effects on viewers and in the whole society in general.Judge Judy, a reality show featuring former family court judge Judith Sheindlin, resolves noncriminal disputes over small claim cases. The setting takes place in a court house where Judge Judy questions the parties about dates, times, locations, and other facts central to the lawsuit. She sometimes disciplines participants for showing up in inappropriate clothing, and silences audience outbursts, even if they are in response to jokes she herself made.
Because people are paid to appear in the show, they allow themselves to be humiliated by Judge Judy. Questions about their employment history, marital and parental status, income, drug habits, sexual practice and orientation, incarceration record, and past and present dependency of public welfare are asked in front of millions of viewers. People better tell the truth because Judge Judy’s past experience as a family court judge has enable her to “see through the bull”, i.e., she can always tell if you’re lying. All see has to do is make an eye contact. For example, in a recent case, the plaintiff argued that her ex-husband didn’t pay child support for their daughter in the past couple years. The defender argued that he did pay the child support and it was current on all his payments. All it took for judge Judy to discover who was telling the truth was a phone call from her office to the California Department of Child Support Services. The husband was lying since he hasn’t paid child support for the past two years and a judgment was ruled in favor of the plaintiff, obviously after ruthlessly having humiliated and screamed at the man in front of national TV.
I believe that humiliating people by calling them stupid, dumb and uneducated in reality shows like Judge Judy is not in the best interest of our society. “Life According to TV”, an essay by Harry Waters, mentions that “No other medium reaches into every home or has a comparable, cradle-to-grave influence over what society learns about itself” (142). In other words, people learn to behave the way they see characters on TV like Judge Judy, ruthless and obnoxious. This is especially true for those shows that are broadcasted in prime time and can reach the biggest audiences, many of whom are children, who learn violent and aggressive behavior through those shows. “Reality programming promotes the worst aspects of human behavior,” said G. Brent Ludwing, Ph.D., Psychology Associates. "It is not surprising that people emulate what they see on TV. Psychologists have research going back to the 1960s that demonstrates these phenomena. Classic research covered in psychology classes is Albert Bandura's Bobo Doll study. Children were shown one of two short films and then observed in a playroom full of different types of toys. Children who viewed a film of a person acting aggressively were significantly more likely to play aggressively - especially by beating up a Bobo Doll, an inflatable clown - than children who had watched a film of a person acting non-aggressively. The Bobo Doll studies were conducted in a contrived, laboratory situation, but almost anyone who has spent time with children can attest to the studies' validity”.
It is certainly true that the more Judge Judy screams and mistreats litigants the higher the ratings go, according to Nielsen ratings, a standard audience measurement system. The behavior and acts that are allowed in her courtroom reality television show would possibly not be appropriate in a “real courtroom”. The more “straight-talking” she appears to perform, which often translates in being as mean as possible to unlikable litigants, the better ratings she receives. Judge Judy is arguably one of the toughest judges of reality TV. Consequently, she is also the one with the highest ratings and the most famous reputation, and the biggest salary.
TV marketers and producers know that we love “reality courtroom entertainment” and they deliver it to us. Su Holmes and Deborah Jermyn stated in their book “Understanding Reality TV”, that “As we embark upon a new century of broadcasting, it is clear that no genre form of type of programming has been as actively marked by producers, or more enthusiastically embraced by viewers, than reality-base TV” (1-28). In other words, because people enjoy watching “reality” programming, producers go the extra mile to bring those to us, even if they dehumanize and humiliate participants and produce negative influence on viewers as Judge Judy does.
The genre of court shows can be traced back to 1980 when the first Reality TV courtroom program, People’s Court, appeared. Back then, People’s Court was headed by Judge Joseph Wapner, and is now presided by Judge Marilyn Milian. Judge Milian’s question litigants with questions related to small claim cases and other factors central to the lawsuit.
People’s Court litigants are paid for their appearance in the show. The losing party does not actually need to pay the judgment. In the ending credits of the show, there is a message that reads, “Both the plaintiff and the defender have been paid from a fund for their appearance in the show.” Critics of the show, including myself, argue that because people are paid to bring their cases into the show, litigants may bring frivolous cases, which they believe the program encourages people to do - ''lawsuits over the thickness of a slice of pizza, or a cold cheeseburger at your local In-and-Out can be presided, for heaven's sake,'' said Thomas I. Friedman, a Superior Court arbitrator and a temporary judge in Los Angeles, who has presided over night court for the last nine years and has seen an increase in the number of small-claims courts in other jurisdictions that did not have them. He goes on to explain that on ''The People's Court,'' even losers win. In real court, he mentioned, losers get nothing and winners may not be able to collect. Furthermore, Friedman argues that “reality courtroom show”, gives people the wrong impression of the law. “People walk into my court thinking it will be like what they saw on TV, and it’s not,” he said. “They’ve even cited Judge Milian’s decisions in cases similar to their own”.
It is not a surprising that the United States has earned the nickname as the most “litigious society” out there, in part due to shows like People’s Court that encourages and incentive people to file lawsuit involving everything from hot spilled coffee to neighbor’s dispute, since it rewards monetarily the plaintiff and defender. In fact, according to a study done by the Economic Journal, Americans spend more on civil litigation than any other industrialized country and twice as much on litigation as on new automobiles.
Divorce Court a reality court TV show about cases involving divorcing couples arbitrated by Judge Lynn Toler, presents the privatize space of the TV courtrooms as the most “efficient” way to resolve most cases involving betrayal, infidelity, and trust related issues. Both sides present their arguments for the divorce, and the judge rules. Judge Lynn’s decision includes finding in favor of one of the litigants, petitioner or responder, and resolving issues such as alimony, and assets division. The judge decisions are legally binding and in some cases the judge may withhold a decision to give the couple a time to consider reconciliation.
The courtroom genre of reality TV exemplifies what James Hay describes in his book “Reality Television” as a cultural apparatus for “neoliberal forms of governance” (231-248). In other words, let the free market, TV Networks, take control of our judicial system and have the government outsource its governmental function to them. Let us have Judge Lynn Toler do “distance government” to deal with our divorces and issues of alimony and child visitation by doing a privatized approach to conflict management, while at the same time entertaining us. This seems almost as a win-win situation. However, critics of this way of TV “neoliberal form of governance”, including myself, argue that this approach is dangerous since undermine real people who is caught in a drama of ordinary life events such as divorces and use them as a raw material for entertainment and amusement of TV viewers. For example, in Divorce Court, litigants tend to come mainly from “oppressed groups (woman, people of color, and the working classes)”, according to Laurie Ouellete on her essay “Take Responsibility for Your Self” (244), and they are lectured about their “wrong” judgments and choices on life.
Moreover, because neoliberal principles are associated with global free trade and the deregulation of industry, a decline in welfare assistance and social service, shows like Divorce Court are used to deliver encoded messages to its viewers to “take responsibility” for their actions. Lessons are often directed at litigants who receive public assistance and are cast as deviants. Woman are often routinely asked to disclose their past or present reliance on government support, and those who admit to receive benefits are subsequently marked as irresponsible and lazy individuals who “choose” not to work for a living. Welfare recipients are also constructed as morally unsound citizens who cheat taxpayers, as was the case in an episode where Judge Lynn demanded to know whether a married woman with three children by the same father wanted a divorce merely to qualify for welfare benefits.
After reading each reality TV show, I realized that TV has a much larger influence over our lives than I have previously thought. Because TV Network corporations find journalism, documentaries and other “substantial” information formats unprofitable, reality TV programming, especially courtroom shows, will continue growing. As a matter of fact, Judge Judy recently topped Oprah in the battle of daytime shows, according to Nielsen ratings. Presently, it is almost impossible to watch TV without any reality show on it. As a result, networks are polluting our minds with distorted pictures of reality and encoded messages, leaving behind an ever bigger effect than that of regular television.
Reality TV : the work of being watched / Mark Andrejevic.
Lanham, Md. : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, c2004.
Understanding reality television / edited by Su Holmes and Deborah Jermyn.
London ; New York : Routledge, 2004.
Reality TV : remaking television culture / edited by Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette.
New York : New York University Press, c2004.
Common Culture/Michael Petracca and Madeleine Sorapure
Life According to TV by Harry Waters,
The New York Times – The Law ‘The People’s Court’: The Case For and Against It by Margo Slader
Nielsen Ratings
http://en-us.nielsen.com/tab/industries/media/television
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