The Political Culture Of 'Judge Judy'
Everyone Loves A Bully Who Pushes Around People They Don't Like
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, MADtv, Fox’s answer to Saturday Night Live had a regular skit where Stephnie Weir played a character named Leona Campbell, a sassy elderly Southern woman hilariously perplexed by some of the craziest, nonsensical aspects of modern society. She once humiliated the grifting psychic Ms. Cleo (played by Debra Wilson) by asking why she wasn’t able to predict 9/11. In another skit, an SUV ran her over, and in a casual conversation with the owner, she ponders the absurdity of needing such a large vehicle.
In my favorite skit, she casually meanders into a news interview with a man suing McDonald’s, accusing the fast food chain of making him fat. It was based on an actual 2002 lawsuit. In the skit, the man’s lawyer says the success of the lawsuit depends on the judge’s compassion, to which Leona replies:
“Oh, I tell ya, you better hope you don’t get Judge Judy, cause I tell ya she calls it like she sees it honey and she gonna point at you and tell you ‘You are what you eat and you’ve been supersized!’ She shoots right from the hip, that Judge Judy!”
I thought about this skit again last week after Judy Scheinlin, the famed TV courtroom host Judge Judy, endorsed former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for President. The endorsement surprised liberal friends and relatives of mine, who somehow coded her as one of them. Some suggested that they thought she had endorsed President Biden in 2020 and expected she would again.
I was not shocked. Judy has always leaned right politically. She previously praised George W. Bush, Rudy Giuliani, and Michael Bloomberg, endorsing the latter in 2020. She was critical of Barack Obama. Her son was the Republican district attorney of Putnam County, New York. Judy’s style is very right-coded.
I may be the only person in my social circle who did not like Judge Judy at the peak of her fame two decades ago. Her brash style seemed to resonate across all demographics; young and old, male and female, white and nonwhite. My gay friends loved her as if she was a sassy contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race. My black friends loved her, one saying she reminded him of “an auntie who put you in your place when you acted the fool.”
Sure, it was funny to watch her snarky reactions to the stupidity of her guests, but it often felt like watching a bully pick on a challenged kid. It bothered me that her guests were often poor, undereducated, and very frequently people of color. She came across as arrogant and dismissive of cultural trends she didn’t understand, like it was beneath her to understand the people coming before her. It felt almost elitist.
I recognized that she was one of that era's most beloved television figures. Both my grandmothers, one a lifelong liberal Democrat who hated the rich and loved the Kennedys, the other a lifelong Republican who adored Ronald Reagan, watched Judge Judy religiously and loved her antics. They would often watch her together. Even Leona Campbell, that MadTV character was clearly a fan, was a Democrat who hated George W. Bush.
It hit even harder when I learned that many of Judy’s “cases” were staged. They hired actors to play characters who reinforced the type of negative stereotypes that make it harder to build popular support for a fairer world; dumb white trash, irresponsible and lazy poor people, arrogant and criminal black men, slutty black women, and shady, shifty gang-adjacent Latinos. They all dressed provocatively or strangely, were often morbidly obese, or had tattoos and piercings. People ate it up, but, often subconsciously, applied it to their everyday life. It felt like a collective bullying campaign against “social outcasts.”
…the type of brash, no-nonsense, tough-love attitude that Judge Judy is famous for and comes across as bullying to me is something most people enjoy.
Nevertheless, as I got older, I accepted the reality that the type of brash, no-nonsense, tough-love attitude that Judge Judy is famous for and comes across as bullying to me is something most people enjoy. They believe it is necessary to create order and normality in society. The type of guests on Judy’s show were undisciplined, disrespectful, and anti-social people who made an effort to be contrarian or stand out; the type who most Americans think sow disorder and chaos, and Judy’s style is meant to discipline them back into order, or punish and remove them from society so they can no longer cause disorder. This is not a dynamic left-leaning people are familiar with or accepting of as for them, disorder and chaos are sometimes necessary to foster changes in society. Most people, however, fear chaos and disorder and gravitate toward individuals who try to prevent it. They don’t want social upheaval, they want peace and stability, and Judge Judy comes across as an unapologetic fighter for order and stability.
She’s honest and blunt. Her character says what she feels and isn’t afraid of any backlash. She “calls it as she sees it,” as Leona said, and that’s what people seek in leadership. That was Donald Trump’s strength, that he “tells it like it is,” and by “like it is,” tells it as his supporters want it to be. Biden won in 2020 in part because he was that. Several 2008 Obama campaign alum confessed to me that Biden’s infamous “noun, verb, 911” lashing of Rudy Giuliani is one of the reasons he ended up on the ticket. In the 2020 campaign, he famously told Trump to “shut up,” throwing Trump’s combativeness back in his face.
Weeks ago, I wrote about how Republicans have a “cool kid advantage.” Judy is the “cool kid,” the alpha boss who puts down and neutralizes the outcasts and chaos agents who don’t conform. This is not a dynamic that is common in the Democratic Party aside from Biden and a select few others. Republicans and conservatives are the Judge Judys, unapologetic in calling out attempts to sow social disorder and push unpopular social changes. The liberals and the left are the crackpots who stand before her on her show. That is their greatest weakness.
I searched for, now own and frequently wear the “Will You Shut Up Man” t-shirt - always get comments on it. The “man” at the end and putting it in the form of a question makes this obviously the best rejoinder in US debate history.
Anyone who read the awful book that made Judge Judy famous (“Don’t Pee On My Leg” or whatever) would not be surprised by her Haley endorsement. How a person who seemingly despises human beings could end up as a family court judge is light years beyond me.