The Scales of Justice are Tipped

Have you ever entered a contest of some sort before where your submission of yours was judged by other people?

I would assume that if you didn’t win such a particular contest and you took a look at other entrants, perhaps you thought to yourself, “Now I KNOW mine was better than that, how the heck did he/she win over mine?”

We all expect judges to be fair and impartial, right? The word judge might even conjure up some sort of image of the scales of justice with each side of scale in the picture at an even level. Sure, we know that there are unscrupulous people who get those jobs now and then, but when those are weeded out, don’t we normally feel pretty confident standing up in front of a panel of judges?

Even with the best of intentions, just because we are all just simply wired differently, results of judging a competition are subject to a plethora (was waiting for a great time to use that word) of personal criteria and biases of any particular judge.

There was a fantastic example of this on The Hair the other evening (and you know what show I mean.)
First, I should say that Christina Aquilera toned down her hair the other night and looked pretty hot. She didn’t have that florescent red lipstick on either…but this is beside the point.
Each of the four judges are also coaches of four singers each. When the competition was pared down to 16 finalists, Aquilera and Blake Shelton’s team all sang to move on to the next round. Results of that evening’s competition were held the other night. One singer was voted to get “saved” by viewers and the judges saved one more, eliminating two singers each.
Now that did have to be a tough thing for the judges/coaches to do but the picks were rather interesting.
Left standing on Aquilera’s team, ironically considering all of the fuss that I make about her hair, were two heavy women with absolutely no hair. Friggin bald as could be.
Shelton had two men and two girls on his team. One of the men was a country singer, and clearly someone who is going to record something somewhere. The other guy was kind of a country-rock sort of guy. The two girls were both rather demure and slight in build. The viewers selected one of the girls and Shelton chose the other one, the latter clearly a shocking pick even though she belonged in the final 16 to start.

Watching them all on stage really made it look like each judge/coach simply had a personal preference for a certain type of singer. It was as profound a display of what I started off this piece saying that I have ever seen in something like this.

Beverly McClellan - team Christina

Frenchie Davis - team Christina (booted from American Idol for "racy" pictures on the Net)

Dia Frampton - team Blake (I'd pick her too!)

Xenia - team Blake

Call it bias, prejudice, personal preference, or whatever you want to call it though, it’s just the way things work. We see it all the time. We try to run from it, chastise it, demonize it and regulate it, but its all to no avail.

It is what is it, it be what it be.

Speaking of B's, congratulations to the Boston Bruins for winning their first Stanley Cup since 1972 and Bobby Orr. Their win sent the fans of their opponents, the Vancouver Canucks, into the streets for a barbeque or two roasting marshmellows on burning cars and store fronts. One would have thought that the Detroit Pistons had just won another NBA title.

Done