The Wit of "Judge Rinder"
Judges, Humour and Popular Culture
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1036Keywords:
Judge Rinder, reality TV cour shows, Judge Judy, emotions, humour, laughter, televisionAbstract
Judge Rinder is a British reality TV court show. It has much in common with the US archetype Judge Judy. But there are differences. One is Judge Rinder’s humour, and more specifically his wit. Using a research database of Judge Rinder cases. The article examines the nature and effects of humour in this courtroom setting. It explores the role of the judge, the form the humour takes and the interactions and social relations it generates. A distinctive feature of the analysis is consideration of the impact of the audio-visual technologies, and the techniques and conventions developed around them, upon the interactions and social relations the onscreen humour generates with viewers. While the camera aligns the screen audience with the judge and the laughter track infects the audience with emotion the judge generates, the paper cautions against assuming that all viewers have the same emotional experience.
Downloads
Metrics
Downloads:
PDF 336
References
Ang, I., 1982. Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination. London: Methuen.
Asimow, M., 1999. Justice with an attitude-Judge Judy and the daytime television bench. Judges Journal, 38, 24-28.
Babuscio, J., 2004. Camp and gay sensibility. In: H.M. Benshoff and S. Griffith, eds., Queer Cinema, the Film Reader. New York: Routledge, 121-136.
BBC, 2016. Judge Rinder. BBC [online], Strictly Come Dancing. Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/5SLnPrKL1X4wfJ7m8J1rcM5/judge-rinder [Accessed 8 October 2018].
Bergman Blix, S., and Wettergren, Å., 2018. Humour in the Swedish court: Managing emotions, status and power. In: J. Milner Davis and S. Roach Anleu, eds., Judges, Judging and Humour. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 179-210.
Bergson, H., 1911. Laughter and Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Trans.: C. Brereton and F. Rothwell. London: Macmillan and Co.
Billig, M., 2005. Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humour. London: Sage.
Black, D.A., 2005. Narrative determination and the figure of the judge. In: M. Freeman, ed., Law and Popular Culture. Current Legal Issues, 7. Oxford University Press, 677-687.
Boxer, D., and Cortés-Conde F., 1997. From bonding to biting: Conversational joking and identity display. Journal of Pragmatics [online], 27(3), 275-294. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(96)00031-8 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Clover, C., 1998. Movie Juries. De Paul Law Review [online], 48(2), 389-406. Available from: https://via.library.depaul.edu/law-review/vol48/iss2/10 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Crawford, M., 2003. Gender and humor in social context. Journal of Pragmatics [online], 35(9), 1413-1430. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00183-2 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Critchley, S., 2002. On Humour. London: Routledge.
Deleuze, G., 1986. Cinema 1: The Movement-Image. Trans.: H Tomlinson and B Habberjam. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Epstein, M., 2001. Judge Judy, Mablean and Mills: How courtroom programs use law to parade private lives to mass audiences. UCLA Entertainment Law Review [online], 8(3) 129-141. Available from: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0pd249kt [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Foust, C., 2004. A return to feminine public virtue: Judge Judy and the myth of the tough mother. Women’s Studies in Communication [online], 27(3), 269-293. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/07491409.2004.10162477 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Glenn, P., 2003. Laughter in Interaction. Cambridge University Press.
Grindstaff, L., 2002. The Money Shot: Trash, Class, and the Making of TV Talk Shows. Chicago, IL / London: University of Chicago Press.
Holmes, J., 2000, Politeness, power and provocation: How humour functions in the workplace. Discourse Studies [online], 2(2), 159-185. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445600002002002 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Holmes, J., and Marra, M., 2002. Having a laugh at work: how humour contributes to workplace culture. Journal of Pragmatics [online], 34(12), 1683-1710. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00032-2 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Horton, D., and Wohl, R., 1956. Mass communication and para-social interactions: observations on intimacy at a distance. Psychiatry [online], 19(3), 215-229. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/00332747.1956.11023049 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Hunter, I.Q., and Porter, L., eds., 2012 British Comedy Cinema. London: Routledge.
ITV Studios, n.d. Judge Rinder [online]. Available from: https://itvstudios.com/programmes/judge-rinder [Accessed 8 October 2018].
Judge John Hack, 2014. Exclusive interview: Judge Rinder on life as Britain’s newest reality TV star. Legal Cheek [online], 15 August. Available from: https://www.legalcheek.com/2014/08/exclusive-interview-judge-rinder-on-life-as-britains-newest-reality-tv-star/ [Accessed 8 October 2018].
Kotthoff, H., 2006. Gender and humor: The state of the art. Journal of Pragmatics [online], 38(1), 4-25. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2005.06.003 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Levi, R., 2005. The Celluloid Courtroom: A History of Legal Cinema. Westport, CT: Prager.
Lorenzo-Dus, N., 2008. Real Disorder in the Court: An Investigation of Conflict Talk in US Television Courtroom Shows. Media, Culture and Society [online], 30(1), 81-107. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443708088613 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Lovell Banks, T., 2008. Here comes the judge! Gender distortion on TV reality court shows. University of Baltimore Law Forum [online], 39(1), 38-56. Available from: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/lf/vol39/iss1/6 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Machura, S., 2009. German Judge shows: migrating from the courtroom to the television studios. In: M. Asimow, ed., Lawyers in Your Living Room: Law on Television. New York: American Bar Association, 321-332.
Medhurst, A., 2007. A National Joke: Popular Comedy and English Cultural Identities. London: Routledge.
Moran, L.J., 2017. [Notes on a visit to Manchester to watch a recording of Judge Rinder]. 28th November 2017. On file with the author.
Moran, L.J., 2018. What’s a box of “Bakewell Tarts” got to do with it? Performing gender as a judicial virtue in the theatre of justice. In: J. Milner Davis and S. Roach Anleu, eds., Judges, Judging and Humour. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 211-239.
Moran, L.J., forthcoming. Law, Judges and Visual Culture: Picturing the Judge. London: Routledge.
Moran, L.J., Skeggs, B., and Herz, R., 2010. Ruth Herz Judge playing Judge Ruth Herz: reflections on the performance of judicial authority. Law, Text, Culture [online], 14(1), 198-220. Available from: https://ro.uow.edu.au/ltc/vol14/iss1/12 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Olsen, G., 2013. Intersections of Gender and Legal Culture in Two Women Judge Shows: Judge Judy and Richterin Barbara Salesch. In: H. Peterson, J. M. Vilaverde and I. Lund Andersen, eds., Contemporary Gender Relations and Changes in Legal Culture. Copenhagen: Djøf, 29-58.
Palmer, J., 1994. Taking Humour Seriously. London: Routledge.
Papke, D.R., 2007. From Flat to Round: Changing Portrayals of the Judge in American Popular Culture. Journal of the Legal Profession [online], 31, 127-151. Available from: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.902125 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Parvulescu, A., 2017. Even laughter? From laughter in magic theatre to the laughter assembly line. Critical Inquiry [online], 43, 506-526. Available from: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/689673 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Pramaggiore, M., and Wallis, T., 2008. Film: A Critical Introduction. 2nd ed. London: Lawrence King.
Provine, R.R., 1996. Laughter. American Scientist [online], 84(1), January-February, 38-45. Available from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/29775596 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Provine, R.R., 2000. Laughter: A Scientific Study. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Roach Anleu, S., and Mack, K., 2018. Judicial humour and inter-professional relations in the courtroom. In: J. Milner Davis and S. Roach Anleu, eds., Judges, Judging and Humour. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 141-178.
Roach Anleu, S., and Milner Davis, J., 2018. Thinking about Judges, judging and humour: The intersection of opposites. In: J. Milner Davis and S. Roach Anleu, eds., Judges, Judging and Humour. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 1-39.
Roach Anleu, S., Mack, K., and Tutton, J., 2014. Judicial humour in the Australian courtroom. Melbourne University Law Review, 38, 621-265.
Robson, P., 2007. Lawyers and the legal system on TV: the British experience. International Journal of Law in Context [online], 2(4), 333-362. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744552306004010 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Sargent, A., 2016. Visions of vindication: Law, Affect and the Intimate Public Sphere of Judge Judy. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society [online], 41(3), 653-676. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1086/684241 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Scarduzio, J., 2011. Maintaining order through deviance: the emotional deviance, power and professional work of municipal court judges. Management Communication Quarterly [online], 25(2), 283-310. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318910386446 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Schnurr, S., 2009. Constructing leader identities though teasing at work. Journal of Pragmatics [online], 41(6), 1125-1138. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.10.002 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Simpson, O., 2017. Brits’ favourite TV shows influence career choices. Fletchers Solicitors [online], 8 February. Available from: https://www.fletcherssolicitors.co.uk/news/careers-on-the-box/ [Accessed 8 October 2018].
Sinfield, A., 1991. Private Lives/Public Theatre: Noel Coward and the politics of homosexual representation. Representations [online], 36, 43-63. Available from: https://doi.org/10.2307/2928631 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Smith, J., 2005. The frenzy of the audible: pleasure, authenticity, and recorded laughter. Television and New Media [online], 6(1), 23-47. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476404268114 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
The Guardian, 2017. Why handbag dogs are going out of fashion. The Guardian [online], 16 January. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2017/jan/16/handbag-dogs-fashion-accessories-dogs-trust [Accessed 8 October 2018].
Thompson, J.B., 2005. The new visibility. Theory, Culture & Society [online], 22(6), 31-51. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0263276405059413 [Accessed 27 February 2019].
Wittgenstein, L., 1980. Culture and Value. Trans.: P. Winch. Oxford: Blackwell.
Wood, H., 2018 From Judge Judy to Judge Rinder and Judge Geordie: Humour, emotion and “televisual legal consciousness”. International Journal of Law in Context [online], 14(4), 581-595. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744552318000253 [Accessed 8 October 2018].
Zijdervelt, A.C., 1983. The sociology of humor and laughter. Current Sociology [online], 31, 3–100. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/001139283031003002 [Accessed 8 October 2018].
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2019 Leslie James Moran
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
OSLS strictly respects intellectual property rights and it is our policy that the author retains copyright, and articles are made available under a Creative Commons licence. The Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution No-Derivatives licence is our default licence, further details available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 If this is not acceptable to you, please contact us.
The non-exclusive permission you grant to us includes the rights to disseminate the bibliographic details of the article, including the abstract supplied by you, and to authorise others, including bibliographic databases, indexing and contents alerting services, to copy and communicate these details.
For information on how to share and store your own article at each stage of production from submission to final publication, please read our Self-Archiving and Sharing policy.
The Copyright Notice showing the author and co-authors, and the Creative Commons license will be displayed on the article, and you must agree to this as part of the submission process. Please ensure that all co-authors are properly attributed and that they understand and accept these terms.
