Do you think TV court shows misrepresent the justice system? / LJWorld.com

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Asked at Massachusetts Street on August 7, 2005

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“They just make it more dramatic than I think it really is, but I’m not really in a courtroom enough to know.”

— Emily Kammerer, teacher, Lawrence

“Yeah, obviously. I don’t believe those for a minute. That’s just for entertainment.”

— Ted Steen, writer, Overland Park

“Yes. They definitely make it too black and white.”

— Erin Gingrich-Gaylord, Kansas University graduate student, Lawrence

“I think they probably do. They try and sensationalize it. I know they are nothing like real court, but they at least give the impression that our society is concerned with justice.”

— Lawrence Dryfus, university dean, Lawrence

Harsh lessons learned in court

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GreenEyedBlues 7 years, 9 months ago

Short answer: TV misrepresents everything.

Even something as dry as judicial process has to be super dramatized and larger-than-life in order to sell to TV execs.

We need Celebrity's Children's Pet Night Court, and every show should have at least two drag queens and a preteen heroin dealer. Ya know, very reminiscent of the Sally Jesse Raphael/Maury/Ricki Lake/Springer guest lineups.

Fangorn 7 years, 9 months ago

GEB: The drag queens and juvenile heroin dealer are a good start, but Weird Al's got you beat, dude. Remember his parody of M.C. Hammer "I Can't Watch This"? Referring to the quality programming offered on TV, he wrote "Talkin' 'bout sick shows/About transexual Nazi Eskimos". The image he creates is too much too bear! You're exactly right about the Springer/Lake/SJR genre of shows.

Fangorn 7 years, 9 months ago

I question the perspective, and perhaps even the intelligence, of anyone who still fails to understand Reagan's genius. A quick read of "Reagan: In His Own Hand" will show the most thick-headed, recalcitrant historical revisionist that our fortieth president had laid out the key elements of his foreign and domestic policies during his radio commentaries in the latter half of the 1970s. The book even provides copies of some of his manuscripts (i.e. "in his own hand") for those who are especially slow on the uptake. Far from being an "imbecilic puppet", he was a man with a clear vision of where he was going, who forcefully and unapologetically communicated that vision to others. This concept, foreign and unknown territory for many, is called "leadership". It astounds me that so many cannot grasp this. But then again, perhaps it shouldn't when there are still those who believe that Reagan's tax rate cuts caused the deficits of the 1980s and that the out-of-control spending by a Democratic Congress (emulated by today's Republican Congress) had nothing to do with it.