Let’s jump right into things. In this week’s Shade Court, Jeopardy makes my brain explode, somebody at ABC is not a Lena Dunham fan and business doesn’t have to be cool.
Shade Court Docket #2015JZ000040
The Case: Thursday night’s episode of Jeopardy featured the category, “Throwing Shade.” Naturally, I was highly skeptical going into this and that skepticism was proven to be entirely warranted. Make your way down to the evidence to view the most boring video of your life.
The Defendant: Jeopardy
The Evidence:
The Deliberation: TREES. THE WHOLE CATEGORY WAS ABOUT FUCKING TREES.
I know Jeopardy’s thing is to be clever and they love their little wordplays and puns, but now they’ve gone too far. My problem is that they have exposed their idiotic definition of “throwing shade” to an audience that doesn’t realize it’s meant to be a joke. To most of the people who watched last night, “throwing shade” means, “answering stupid questions about dumb trees.”
And their silly pun doesn’t even work. Not all trees provide shade. What about palm trees? What about in the winter when they’ve lost all their leaves? JOKE’S ON YOU, JEOPARDY.
Seriously though, this was so lame it caused me physical pain. If all those Jeopardy people are so damn smart, I would like to call them in for a quiz. The first question will ask them to correctly identify a picture of Dorian Corey. I am preemptively failing the entire team of white people (because, sorry, you know they were) who thought this was clever.
The Ruling: Not shade and they are never allowed to utter the word “shade” ever again
Shade Court Docket #2015JZ000041
The Case: Just a few weeks ago we learned that Lena Dunham had landed a guest role on Scandal. This week, we were blessed with the first images from her performance.
The Defendant: Someone in the Scandal hair and makeup department
The Evidence:
The Deliberation: Listen. Listen. This is so rude.
I don’t know if someone in the hair and makeup department is holding a grudge over Dunham’s comments about sympathizing with the homeless dogs in India more than the homeless people, if they didn’t like that whole, maybe-did-maybe-didn’t-sexually-assault-her-sister stuff, or if they just find her grating and easy to mess with. Either way, this was deliberate.
You know who else wears wigs on the show? Bellamy Young. And her hair looks fantastic, if sort of enormous. We know that ain’t Kerry Washington’s real hair either, but I doubt most white people could even notice that.
This is so rude.
It looks like somebody swung by Ricky’s and picked this up for $19.99. Perhaps ABC already blew threw their wig budget for the season, or they just didn’t want to spend it on Lena Dunham. Whatever it is, this ain’t right.
You know this is shady because there’s no way someone who deals with hair for a living looked at this rug and thought it was flattering. Hell, I don’t even like Lena Dunham and I almost feel bad for her.
This is so rude.
The crux of the shade lies in the fact that yes, they allowed her to be on one of the most popular shows on television, (the carrot) but they’re going to make her look like a fool while doing so (the stick).
The Ruling: Shade
Shade Court Docket #2015JZ000042
The Case: I thought last week was enough punishment for Business Insider to learn their lesson, but it seems that my words didn’t stick. Rather than get too deep into any one incident, I would just like to broadly look at a few of the missteps that occured this week.
The Defendant: Business Insider
The Evidence:
The Deliberation: Let’s start with the least offensive. Linette Lopez wrote an explanation of shade for Business Insider this week. Now, her definition isn’t, but the question is of necessity.
You all shouldn’t be throwing this phrase around your website anyway, so there’s no real need to explain it to your readers. Further, since just about all of your writers use shade incorrectly, you’re just setting up the readers to be misinformed. This piggybacks on what I talked about last week: I’m not sure why Business Insider feels the need to do this! Leave all the “hip” talk to a place that isn’t trying to explain pressing word issues. Stop trying to be cute.
I don’t know who the hell Lloyd Blankfein is, but what he said to Warren Buffet was not shade.
And then there’s Business Insider politics reporter Colin Campbell’s tweet. We all know that the White House has a tendency to be rather shady, but ironically, that’s what kills this for me. The White House has pulled some real slick moves in the shade department—this seems way too elementary for them. Plus, Campell’s decision to call the move “huge shade” is so egregious that I cannot allow this to be associated with the beauty of real shade.
Business Insider needs to call me over for a staff meeting because I don’t know what the hell is going on over there.
The Ruling: Not shade and please stop using this word
Shade Court Docket #2015JZ000043
The Case: Apparently Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus don’t like each other. I’m shocked.
Selena Gomez appeared on the cover of the most recent issue of V Magazine—a magazine that Miley frequently appears in, usually naked. Miley posted a picture on Instagram where is posing seductively (I guess?) and holding Selena’s cover in her hand.
On the same day, V Magazine’s Instagram account posted another picture of Miley with the cover.
Defendant: Sugarscape
The Evidence:
The Deliberation: Miley is, in general, naive and ridiculous, but she does have her clever moments. What I like about these pictures is how she’s not paying any attention to, or acknowledging Selena Gomez’s presence in either of them.
In the V Magazine post, she’s reading a totally random, dated issue instead of simply grabbing one of the many Selena Gomez issues right behind her. For her post, you know Miley made sure that she was looking damn good before she took that picture. Plus, she’s got that sexy-but-completely-bored look going on. Selena’s cover is present, but its out of focus and looks like its going to slip out of Miley’s hand in about two seconds.
The message in both photos is: “Selena, girl, you’re here, but you don’t matter. This is about me.” This is a nice brand of subtly that you don’t see often from Miley. I have no idea what Selena Gomez did, but by the looks of these picture, she definitely knows.
The Ruling: Shade
Images via Getty, ABC, Business Insider; Top image by Tara Jacoby, featuring the shade artist at a young age.
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