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Judge Judy
1996 · TV series · 22 min episodes · 25 seasons
Created by Judith Sheindlin
Judge Judy is an American arbitration-based reality court show presided over by retired Manhattan Family Court Judge Judith Sheindlin. The show features Sheindlin adjudicating real-life small claims disputes within a simulated courtroom set. All parties involved must sign contracts, agreeing to arbitration under Sheindlin. The series is in first-run syndication and distributed by CBS Television Distribution. Judge Judy, which premiered on September 16, 1996, reportedly revitalized the court show genre. Only two other arbitration-based reality court shows preceded it, The People's Court and Jones and Jury. Sheindlin has been credited with introducing the "tough" adjudicating approach into the judicial genre, which has led to several imitators. The two court shows that outnumber Judge Judy's seasons, The People's Court and Divorce Court, have both lasted via multiple lives of production and shifting arbiters, making Sheindlin's span as a television arbiter the longest.
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7 comments on Hacker News
While your chances of winning are lower without a lawyer, they’re nowhere near what you’d see on an episode of Suits. It’s more akin to what you’d see on Judge Judy without the cameras and irritating preaching from a judge.
It seems like culturally, we’ve mostly gotten over the difference between fact and fictional idiocy. The movie Naked Gun had a plot against the Queen, for example, and we don’t have any reservations.
Sometime in the 90s, there was some clever new method to generate media that was right between fact and fiction, that led to Jerry Springer and other shows, where you had to make up your own mind whether it was real or fake. Cops, MTV reality shows, celebrity entertainers, Judge Judy, etc.
It’s all totally fake. Now we have AI which is really just repeating back stuff it’s prompted and we’re wondering if psychos are going to really go insane. This could be so much worse than reality TV.
Reputation is also often the cause for corporations venturing into "anti-racism," and censorship territory.
When the telecoms were buying up media companies and film/tv studios, suddenly all of their most expensive assets (actors & personalities) started falling out due to cancel culture. Bill Cosby, Matt Lauer, Rosanne Barr, etc., must have driven the execs at AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon completely nuts. The highest paid CEO used to be CBS's, until they also got him on cancel culture. If CBS's most profitable asset, Judge Judy, were a man, she'd already have been cancelled a decade ago. (She's fought with CBS execs over her exorbitant contract for over a decade now.)
It's a dirty little, not so secret, shameful pastime of America. For the same reason that we love Dr. Phil, live pd, or judge Judy we love feeling better than stupid, ignorant, uneducated, abused, neglected, diseased, impoverished, drug addicted, poor people the narratives crafted to fit the mugshots and clips we see in the news or online.
I highly recommend listening to the latest two parter from Behind the Bastards, about Dr. Phil.
Part 1 https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-dr-phil-is-even-82410850/
Part 2 https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-two-dr-phil-is-even-82492562/
The whole darn podcast is great too. I'm not associated, or donating, nor do I even listen to the ads, I'm just a satisfied listener.
> but I feel that you undervalue literature and history
Fair enough. I said folks don't "need" history and lit, but I probably should have said that they don't want them or care about them as they are currently taught.
As I mentioned, I think the history should be primarily local, and primarily focused on learning how to think and learn about history rather than just memorizing a bunch of facts.
I think literature should be salient to the audience rather than the (relatively) high-brow art that is the current canon. That would mean that "poetry" would probably look at more contemporary music lyrics (e.g., rap, country, rock, etc.). "Drama" would look at whatever TV series are popular rather than Shakespeare. This is the kind of stuff that people who are usually not interested in education would be very much engaged with.
Even something as off the wall as Judge Judy could be used to teach some basic law/civics.
> There must be better ways to teach algebra and higher math, science, history, literature, etc. But to say they are useless is bonkers to me.
They are useless as currently taught because most of the learners and their communities completely do not care about them -- the content is completely disconnected from many learners' day-to-day existence. Not only that, but for many learners who do show some interest in these topics, they will likely be ostracized.
As such, teaching these subjects better within the current paradigm (i.e., oriented towards college prep) is a bridge to nowhere.
None of these subjects will be highly engaged with by a learner until that learner's peers think that these subjects are important. At that point, learning can and will happen. Sadly, most people are not in a proper/efficient education setting at that point.
Feel free to follow up -- this topic needs to be discussed more by intelligent people. Your reply brought up several great points.
Judge Judy was a New York judge from 1982–1996, starting as a criminal court judge and then promoted to supervising family court judge in Manhattan, until her retirement (followed by tv show).
Yes, winning usually still means you usually don't get paid.
http://www.sptimes.com/Hillsborough/90698/Small_claims_usually_.html
"Only 8 percent of those winning plaintiffs collected, court records show. Officials say some plaintiffs might not have notified the court, so as a backup test, the Times contacted 39 winning plaintiffs. Eight -- 21 percent -- said they had been paid.
Court officials nationwide confirm that whatever the real number is, it's low.
"Most plaintiffs would be better off taking their money to the roulette tables in Biloxi, Miss., and placing it on red," said Jimmy Dye, a collections lawyer who works throughout Florida. "They'd certainly have more fun." "
Go on Judge Judy or something. The TV shows will actually pay you if you win.