Politics is the ultimate reality show. That’s especially true in Memphis this election year thanks to the mud-slinging antics of former Judge turned TV arbitrator Joe Brown, who recently accused his political opponent, District Attorney Amy Weirich of being gay and in the closet. Brown’s subsequent apology for the attempted public shaming generously allows that gays have nothing to be ashamed of, blaming the victim of the intended gay smear because she doesn’t do more to support LGBT rights.
The only surprising thing about this dustup is that people were surprised. It’s not like Weirich is the first person Judge Joe has accused of being gay on the “down low.” Judge Joe’s long history as an arbiter of proper gender conduct suggests he has a serious problem with women, especially if they don’t have a man. Why you may ask? Because women without men raise boys who act like women, which more or less implies that there must be something wrong with the way women act in the first place. For fifteen seasons the celebrity judge presided over a make believe courtroom, slut-shaming and ball-busting his way to becoming America’s second favorite TV judge, just ahead of The People’s Court‘s Marilyn Milian, but well behind Judge Judy. But there’s a dirty little not-so-secret secret about popular courtroom programming. It’s nothing like an actual courtroom, and critics have long worried that it warps viewers’ sense of how our legal system actually works. The combative and openly biased behavior TV judges regularly engage in to score big on a daytime/late night reality shows would merit disciplinary action in the real world.
Court shows are typically confrontational reality TV, and that kind of programming has always trucked in manufactured drama, aggression, poorsploitation and heterosexist culture-bating. And like I said, when it came to bringing in the ratings, Judge Joe was always a big #2, swirling around the commode of trash television.
Here are just a few of the wacky things the tough-loving judge has said about women. And Men who act like women.
1. Men are Weak, Women are Weaker: Judge Joe Brown describes himself as a “Defender of Womanhood,” and a “Promoter of Manhood.” It’s practically the guy’s motto. And what’s wrong with defending womanhood and promoting manhood, anyway? Isn’t that chivalry, or something? It’s certainly Medieval, right?
The cast of the musical Camelot explains the true meaning of chivalry.
I’m not going to spend too much time with this because it’s pretty self-explanatory and the other entries are solid examples of just how screwed up an idea it is. By making this his mission Judge Joe is basically saying that women require a strong man to protect them from weaker men and also from intrinsic weaknesses of the feminine kind. When Joe talks about promoting manhood what he’s actually promoting is anti-girlishness in men.
2. Thugs are bad because they act like women and homosexuals aren’t strong role models: Judge Joe thinks men have “too many puny ‘role models.’” In April, 2012, at a “Men’s Day program” held in in the Hathaway-Howard Fine Arts Center on the Pine Bluff Campus of the University of Arkansas, he supported his unified puny dude theory by listing numerous examples of unmanly male role models: “prima donna” athletes, “uninformed” journalists, “self-serving” politicians, homosexuals in the entertainment industry,” and… wait, what? Why are homosexuals puny role models? And more importantly, what would “prima donna” athlete and openly gay defensive end Michael Sams have to say about that?
But wait, there’s more.
“Gangbangers and would-be thugs are really nothing but girls, not men,” he continued. “Boys with bling don’t have jobs because they think some woman somewhere will be silly enough to support them. It requires moral and physical courage to be a real man, and that’s why you need an education. People need your leadership.”
The shorter Joe: It takes moral and physical courage to not be a girl. Ladies, take note.
3. Pretty women are insecure and easier to deal with than ugly women: “I don’t deal with ugly women,” Judge Joe told some adoring fans one night after he had been drinking.
Beauty is only skin deep but life’s too short for ugly chicks.
A widely-shared video clip shows Brown seating young ladies on his knee and pontificating on the differences between pretty and ugly women. So why does Judge Joe prefer pretty girls? Because,““Pretty women are insecure,” and therefore easier to deal with.
Well duh! Anybody who’s ever tried to exploit somebody’s weakness for personal satisfaction knows that.
4. If you act gay, you’re gay. And it might be contagious: Once upon a time Cracked, the humor magazine turned online list-factory decided to infiltrate the weird world of cheaply-manufactured court TV. The storyline Cracked developed was irresistible: A man asked his friend to hire strippers for his bachelor party. Only the man hired male strippers and now the groom to be isn’t just single, he’s gay. Ridiculous, right? So ridiculous, in fact, that every major Hollywood courtroom wanted them.
Cracked took its case to Judge Joe who, before ruling in favor of the plaintiff, attempted an outing of the defendant: “If you hired these people, obviously you might like what they have to offer…If there was a time for you to come out of the closet, this is the time for you to do it.” It’s unclear what bearing the defendant’s sexual orientation had on the case or the plaintiff’s amazing transformation.
5. Single mothers are to blame for pretty much everything: A 15-year old male student accused of pushing a female classmate told Judge Joe he’d been called a “bitch.” Judge Joe’s response: “Maybe you were acting like one. Sounds like it to me. You’ve got earrings in your ears.”
Then Brown dressed down the boy’s mother: “You know what your problem is lady? Let’s get to you first so I’ll get it out of the way. There is no man in this boy’s life to give him man training. You’re the mother and you condone him going off and doing such physical injury to this young woman woman [cross talk]. Be quiet! [Crosstalk]. Now mam. He does not have a man in his life to give him man training. You take the position in writing that you condone what he did to this young lady… When there is no man in a boy’s life and his mother says his transgressions violently on other females is okay, where do I go from there but to say maybe, maybe what’s going on is because these single mothers with a lot of babies at home don’t want the man around, and then teach their sons to do the same bloody thing. And I’m looking at him with two earrings in his ears, and I’m listening to what she has said he was called, reading what the school report says and I’m thinking to myself that was a pretty apt description of this aggressive young girl over here. Not that one [the actual girl], the young girl standing to your left [the boy.]
Judge Joe, in the spirit of every schoolyard bully ever, called the teen boy a “sissy.” That was just the warm up for an epic rant about manliness and the failings of women. “You punk,” he continued. “You spineless, girl-acting, unmanly little cretin, what’s wrong with you? Then you’re gonna try to demonstrate some kind of attitude toward me? Roll your eyes? C’mon. Play girl. I’m getting a good demonstration. And you give me this nasty unmanly attitude about some young lady provoked you, using some language against you… Man’s got an obligation to protect womanhood. That has been my lifetime avocation. Protecting womanhood and promoting manhood.”
Hitting and pushing is troubling behavior. Seeding gender insecurity is clearly the solution!
6. If you don’t stand up straight you might be on the down low: After accusing a male defendant, whose activities had nothing to do with sex or sexuality of being potentially gay on the down low Judge Joe decided to stir the pot until it boiled. “What I used to see was, when there was a man standing at the podium, what he was doing was behaving in a certain way,” he said. “And I saw the young ladies and they would act in a certain way. And what’s interesting is over the last twelve years I’ve been doing this particular arbitration thing I’m doing right now, and considering [crosstalk]… Be quiet! The 20 years I have done this before I have noticed an interesting transition. The boys are beginning to act like the girls used to in terms of their body language, rolling eyes, head up, hand on hip, moving around. Women, since time immemorial have talked over someone who’s tried to address them and you are talking over me just like you are a woman. So when you start acting like one, sounding like one, moving like one, then I’m going to put it out there.”
After provoking the defendant in ways unbecoming in an actual courtroom and making presumptive comments about the defendant’s mother, Judge Joe called the LAPD to arrest the defendant for mirroring his own bad, womanly behavior.
