RIP Jerry Springer

[Szumi]

"Take care of yourself, and each other" 😭💔

 

Jerry Springer was 79 years old

[Hobo]

 

[The Buscher]

I remember when I was like 7 years old flipping the channels on some random weekday during summer. Jerry Springer came on and my grandmother just blurted out "Oh god, turn that off, not even I'm old enough to watch Jerry Springer".

[GoGo Yubari]

Jerry Springer is one of the defining pop culture figures of the back half of the '90s, at least in the US. You can take whatever you want from that, but it's true.

[gunnar hendershow]

Since we're a wrestling forum. There is probably no Attitude Era and maybe no late 90s boom without Jerry Springer.

He brought to middle class homes an entire segment of American culture that, following the neoconservative era of the 80s, just was screaming for attention and he sure gave them that attention.

[TheGrandAvatar]

Ah. I used to watch him weekdays if I was ever home during the 90s, along with late night repeats at time's.

To think Vince Russo wrote most episode's of RAW with Jerry Springer on in the background at the time, it still makes me chuckle to think about that, and how it influenced thing's at the time. 

RIP Jerry. 

[Warhawk8492]

RIP to a TV legend

[TheGrandAvatar]

 

 

[CobraKaiEnTai]

RIP Jerry 

[RPS]

I feel two ways about Jerry Springer. Let's stay positive first, go negative and come back to positive.

Jerry Springer, whether intentionally or not, celebrated a side of Western culture that is tricky to celebrate. Western culture aspires for bottle service, expensive cars, everything gold. You see this so often in the media. Even the focus on rags often becomes a desire to become riches. It's bizarre to say that a story is a rag story... you'd probably in your head complete it saying rag to riches story. It's rare to actually explore low income neighborhoods, trailer parks, and tall cans of cheap malt liquor. But this is how a large amount of Americans live. Pay cheque to pay cheque. Picking up the cheapest thing to drink on a Friday afternoon. In less than ideal neighborhoods. 

Even a show like Jerry Springer never expressly focused on these places, but merely the people. And I think as a show, devoid of any interaction with the audience, noise from middle America, the media disdain for it, etc. it was a thoughtful celebration of the complicated lives of those who live at the margins. Yes, the precise stories are absurd and not true, but they are real stories that happen to others. And it was never Jerry shaming or berating his guests. He's just a guy asking thoughtful questions and trying to help people fix their fake(?) problems. 

I have lived a privileged life. I grew up in military housing and less than ideal situations, but my parents were always better off than most. There is a decorum that comes with that privilege. Jerry Springer, like John Waters, Trailer Park Boys, etc. was my literal first time realizing the pragmatic nature of life for others. When you are poor, life is more difficult and problems have less than ideal solutions. I also think, like John Waters, Jerry Springer was celebratory of those that defied decorum and just wanted to be themselves, if not transgressive.  Jerry always ended every episode preaching humanity and compassion for his guests 

But Jerry Springer cannot be devoid from the audience who were grossed out by trans guesses, middle America who turned their noses up at confident sluts,  or the media who morphed Jerry Springer into something nasty. We were told to disdain the subjects. We were told that this focus on these people were trashy. It almost became a race to become more absurd. Most of this is not Jerry Springers faults. I felt he always treated his guests with respect. 

It did morph into this uncomfortable feeling I never reconciled. Jerry and the guests were never the problem. Society at large was the problem- the people booing trans people, middle class clutching their pearls. But there was this bizarre feeling that Jerry didn't mind the mockery so long as people kept watching. 

I think overall, Jerry Springer was a good, flawed show. Every episode ended with him lecturing about compassion,  empathy and understanding. Perhaps that was his way if addressing those mocking him and his guests. But I always felt he could have been more explicitly an ally. 

[Hellraiser]

What is happening? Why are we suddenly tying ourselves in knots trying to find something noble and altruistic about the TV show that he moderated? The Jerry Springer show is the last show on earth in need of critical re-evaluation. It is a show about exposing those living a the margins on national TV (often pitting them against each other) for the rest of the nation to gawk and laugh at. Lowest common denominator bullshit that people watch to feel better about themselves because even if there are things going wrong with their lives, at least they're still doing better than the people on the show. It was deeply exploitative and shouldn't be celebrated. And while I agree with the embedded tweet above stating that it is a bad faith argument to say that the show is somehow the root of all of America's problems, I still think the show was deeply exploitative and shouldn't be celebrated.

Edited April 28, 2023 by Hellraiser

[Chris2K]

You're entitled to feel that way, but from the way Jerry himself puts it in the below interview with Jeremy Paxman, these were people who volunteered to go on the show with their issues, got the chance to talk about their lives where people would listen, and didn't feel exploited in doing so. If people are laughing and mocking them that's on the audience, not the show itself, and I've got no reason to think that Jerry didn't want to help most of the people who went on the show.

If anything, the shows that spun-off from Springer (Jeremy Kyle immediately springs to mind) were far worse, dealing with far more serious life situations in a much more brutal fashion.

 

[RPS]

3 minutes ago, Hellraiser said:

It is a show about exposing those living a the margins on national TV for the rest of the nation to gawk and laugh at. 

See, I never got the impression that Jerry Sprinfer wanted to gawk and laugh at his subjects. I think America wanted to gawk and laugh at his subjects. I think he was complicit in it, by not more forcefully pushing back on it. But I don't think his intent was to laugh at the audience. It was sensational and over the top, but Jerry Springer never tells his audience to boo the promiscuous woman. I always struggle to with what should he have done. If he stops the show because mainstream media is incensed by his subjects, is that right? He wants to tell stories about trashy people, should he stop because America stopped and gawked? 

But I also liken it to John Waters. People accused him of mocking poor people, but he never did. The audience did. He just wanted to showcase a certain segment of American population that isn't represented in mainstream America. 

I agree its not all neat and tidy, but I don't think it was solely exploitative. 

[Bobfoc]

I appreciate that Jerry Springer came to regret the impact his show had on mainstream popular culture. Sadly, it inspired the likes of Trisha and The Jeremy Kyle Show, which were unequivocally exploitative and nasty.

[The Buscher]

43 minutes ago, RPS said:

It was sensational and over the top, but Jerry Springer never tells his audience to boo the promiscuous woman.

I can't speak to Springer, but I attended a Maury taping during college, and the producers very much tell you who you're supposed to cheer and boo.  Now Maury isn't exactly the same show as Springer, but it was filmed in the Stamford studio literally right next door and has the same reputation of being daytime trash TV, so the vibes are obviously similar.  Anyway I'd be surprised if Springer's producers didn't give similar pep talks to the crowd, especially if they were borrowing crew.

The producers came out before the show and told people "OK, we're doing paternity test results today.  We want the audience to loudly boo the man every time no matter how much he pleads his case.  Then cheer the results, whatever they may be, because we want it to look like justice was served."

Also worth noting that they flat out told the audience they need to participate if they want to get on TV.  That the editors won't show you in any close ups if you're just sitting on your hands.  Let's be real, a lot of people get a kick out of the prospect of being on TV, so of course they're going to play along.

[gunnar hendershow]

I don't think it could be said that Springer woke up one day and went "let's exploit these people living on the outside". If it came into that, it's certainly up for debate, but he consciously made a decision to bring those people on to TV because at the time all the other daytime talk shows - and media as a whole - desperately tried to pretend they didn't exist. And he gave them a platform in front of millions for more or less the first time in history.

Also, my dad was a social worker, and for what it's worth many of the clients he and his colleagues worked with made Springer appointment TV. These weren't usually the people who could stick their noses up at his guests, but instead from the part of the world he was trying to showcase. I think there's a misunderstanding of his audience from a lot of people who do think it was *just* the "haha look at these poor people" crowd. There were many people who tuned in because these were stories they may have actually related to.

[VerbalPuke]

I remember some friends and I got a hold of Jerry Springers Too Hot For TV VHS when we were teenagers.

RIP.

[gunnar hendershow]

11 minutes ago, VerbalPuke said:

I remember some friends and I got a hold of Jerry Springers Too Hot For TV VHS when we were teenagers.

RIP.

Oh man that thing was a mythical VHS  in middle school. Whoever had it and put it on at sleepovers was a clout god.

[Hellraiser]

Who cares about what Springer's intentions were? Maybe his approach to daytime talk shows was a bit more humane than that of his contemporaries or the people he inspired like Jeremy Kyle. But the end results were the same. The guests were still allowed to humiliate themselves in front of a jeering audience in the studio and in front of TV screens. I just fail to see anything good that came from that show. If he truly cared about his guests, he shouldn't have done the show to begin with.

[RPS]

21 minutes ago, Hellraiser said:

The guests were still allowed to humiliate themselves in front of a jeering audience in the studio and in front of TV screens.

From your perspective, how did they humiliate themselves?