Thursday, November 26, 2009

JUDGE JEANINE PIRRO


JUDGE JEANINE PIRRO (Fox 2008).

Last year with little fanfare this new court-TV show slipped into the line-up with allegedly tough New York prosecutor Jeanine Pirro in the role of judge, a role that, frankly, doesn't suit her very well. There are two kinds of reality court TV programs. The first kind -- Judge Judy and The People's Court with Judge Milian are good examples -- features an actual experienced judge who absolutely controls his or her courtroom and won't brook any nonsense. The second kind -- Judge Mathis, Judge Joe Brown, and now Judge Pirro are good examples -- are cut from the "Jerry Springer" cloth and have a judge -- real or imagined -- who allows the litigants to run off at the mouth, take over the court, and publicly disgrace their fool selves for the sake of the audience. Their selling point is sleaze and humiliation. [The fact that Judge Judy, who does not allow this nonsense, leads the pack in the ratings doesn't seem to have impressed itself upon the producers of these other shows. Judge Pirro comes from the same camp as Judge Mathis. ] "Judge" Pirro not only doesn't display much courtroom savy -- she sllows people to talk over her all the time [imagine Judy doing that!] -- but doesn't seem to have the intellectual depth to really see what's going on in certain cases. One case of harrassment between two women clearly had intimations of homophobia and self-hatred, but it was all above the head of Pirro. On one episode she had two drug dealers in front of her, and while she expressed amazement at the situation, she never made any mention of "unclean hands." She actually awarded one of these scuzzbags $1500 for mental distress because the other one claimed he stole both money and drugs from him at gunpoint when he didn't. Who cares? Not only does this call into question Pirro's competency as a "judge," it calls into question her competency as a prosecutor or anything else. Hopefully this will come back to bite her in the ass should she ever decide to run for public office when her five minutes of fame are over. One senses that as long as the occasional male litigant tells Pirro that she's "hot" and the checks roll in, Pirro doesn't give a damn.

Verdict: Disgraceful and scuzzy! Watch Judge Judy instead. *.

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