Well, I do like Doug, but I also was bothered by this snide remark.
FWIW, I'm not a fan of tattoos-- especially given the present-day trend of extensive, and usually ugly, tattooing.
But lots of TPC litigants have them, and unless the case is about the tattoo(s), it's normal to only see parts of tattoos exposed. But even the nasty Kurt didn't make comments about them in the hallway.
In that episode, though, Judge Milian was in her new crabby, nasty mood. I don't know whether it's menopause, or she's channeling the odious Judge Judy, or not feeling well, or what.
But she sarcastically jumped right on the fact that the plaintiff moved in with another man shortly after leaving the defendant. And when the defendant made a point of stating that the tattooed plaintiff ran away with a new boyfriend, and abandoned her young son to the defendant/father's care, that was all JM needed to hear.
Since Responsible Parenting, especially Motherhood, is sacred in TV court shows, and a source of many melodramatic sermons and lectures from the bench, it was predictable that JM would immediately beat the woman over the head with this allegation.
The defendant looked visibly thrilled to find that the judge was so effectively manipulated by this information, even if the plaintiff scored a TKO in the end.
I go into all this because I thought Doug's cheap shot was in the Hallway Guy tradition of echoing and reinforcing the judge's attitude and opinion.
The snotty remark about the tattoo was Doug's way of telling her, "Judge Milian saw right through you! You're pretty much a low-life whore, and now the entire viewing audience knows it." 😉
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Gubbio
7 years ago
In my opinion, you're over-thinking it.
Yes, it was awkward for Doug to "go there," having to comment on a woman's chest.
He probably felt that and then came up with that lame, "I guess you have to be dressed differently to see the whole thing" -- which made the situation even worse.
It was just clumsy; he never should have called attention to the tattoo and probably regretted it a second after he did it.
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LittleBrother55
7 years ago
Well, I agree that your interpretation is plausible.
"Over-thinking", like its fraternal twin "overreacting", is in the eye of the beholder. Guilty as charged.
If I had the proverbial nickel for every time someone applied either term to me, I'd have been financially independent by the time I reached puberty. 😉
Put another way, I'm often confronted by what strikes me as under-thinking.
Yes, it could've been Doug's spontaneous attempt to satisfy his and the audience's curiosity. I admit that I'm always curious about the elaborate text people choose to have imprinted on their flesh; I even pause less family-friendly fare to see if I can decipher these mottoes or messages.
OTOH, Doug obviously watches the cases unfold. And, perhaps to deliberately keep a touch of his predecessor Kurt's antagonism, since his return he's taken occasional cheap-ish shots at the losing litigant.
Without bothering to dig up the details, Doug recently asked an obnoxious loser, "Are you just stupid?" That was gratifying-- in fact, despite Doug's uncharacteristic bluntness it was actually kind; the woman was more creepy-crazy than "stupid".
So, who knows? I have the sense from your comments that you're more tolerant or forgiving of Judge Milian's recent "edginess", for lack of a better term, than I.
But I trust that you agree that in this case, JM fully indulged the tiresome TV-judge penchant for tendentiously "shaming" a litigant's questionable parenting. Maybe this influenced Doug to a point that threw him off.
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