Hello all you devout seekers of shade-justice, Shade Court is back in session. Your honor had to take a brief recess because dealing with all these affronts to the sanctity of shade is hard on a girl. I would apologize for my absence, but it is my supreme belief that no one should ever apologize for lying on a beach. Now, onward and probably downward as we as a society continue to spiral out of control.
In this week’s Shade Court, two Real Housewives act exactly like Real Housewives, Groupon goes hard in the paint for Mother’s Day and Bloomberg Business has no idea what it’s doing.
Shade Court Docket #2015JZ000073
The Case: Carole Radziwill, who is a goddess, an actual princess and a Real Housewives of New York City cast member, is currently dating a hot young thang named Adam. Adam happens to be the ex-boyfriend of fellow housewife and the artist formerly known as Countess Luann’s niece.
In the most recent episode of the show, the two women discuss the fact that Carole and Adam are Doing It, but the conversation doesn’t go too far because, at the time, Carole and Adam weren’t serious about their relationship. Welp: fast forward to now because that ship has sailed. Carole and Adam are very much together (and quite cute) and Luann is pissed on behalf of her niece because I guess people have a lot of free time in the Hamptons.
Here’s a quick taste of the reasonable adult conversation they’ve been having about the situation:
The Defendant: Bravo
The Evidence:
The Deliberation: Man, Luann sure came in hot as hell to this fight. Cougar-shaming right off the bat? Damn, girl.
Now, one might argue that it’s much more embarrassing to publicly fight about the love lives of people who are not you, but then one would sit down with composure and sip one’s tea quietly because one already knows that one is the only sane person in the room.
Luann seems to be losing her mind. It’s a shame too because her propriety and graceful yet obvious air of superiority usually makes her an excellent shade-thrower. This is just bizarre and pretty goddam stupid.
The Ruling: Not shade
Shade Court Docket #2015JZ000074
The Case: This next case was submitted by a reader through the great and terrible medium of Twitter. She wants to know if an email she received from Groupon is throwing shade at mothers-in-law. Let’s investigate.
The Defendant: Groupon
The Evidence:
The Deliberation: I wish someone had been present to witness the guffaw I let out upon seeing this.
Listen, whatever Groupon thought they were trying to convey, they at least had to know what the visual impact of this would be. The poster is a bit confusing because the $5 number and the $50 number seem to be quantifying two different things. However, the message is definitely received.
Personally, I probably would spend a bit more money on a gift for my mother versus my (fictional) mother-in-law, but this discrepancy is just rude. And hilarious. Groupon secures it’s mother-in-law shade with the helpful suggestion:
“Show them how much you care!”
Five dollars’ worth—that’s how much care Groupon thinks your mother-in-law deserves.
The Ruling: Shade
Shade Court Docket #2015JZ000075
The Case: Warren Buffet is very, very, very, rich and haters just can’t let a playa live, apparently. At some rich white man convention in Omaha, a hedge fund manager named Daniel Loeb felt it was his place to talk shit about Warren Buffet because everyone knows that hedge fund managers are our nation’s moral compasses and are therefore in a perfect position to criticize the professional actions of others.
Loeb did so by rattling off a list of criticism pointedly directed at Warren Buffet.
“He criticizes hedge funds yet he really had the first hedge fund,” Loeb said. “He criticizes activists. He was the first activist. He criticizes financial service companies, yet he likes to invest in them. He thinks that we should all pay more taxes but he loves avoiding them himself.”
The Defendant: Bloomberg Business (????????)
The Evidence:
The Deliberation: Because I am a benevolent judge, I want to be completely fair here. Often, in this world of internet content creation, the person who writes an article and the person who writes the tweet promoting said article are two different people. That is what I have to assume happened here because, dear lord. The disconnect between the article and tweet is so wide that I’m going to go ahead and assume the authors had no hand in this.
If I had to guess, I would say that Chad the Overenthusiastic Intern got a little crazy with trying to bring coolness and relatability to Bloomberg Business.
In the actual story, the writers say that Loeb wanted to “throw stones” at Buffet. Perhaps Chad the Overenthusiastic Intern forgot his reading spectacles at home (spectacles are more business-like, after all) and got the words “stone” and “shade” confused. Or maybe Chad the Overenthusiastic Intern just needs to check himself because the readers of your site do not want or need your unnecessary and incorrect interjections of drag culture parlance into their daily business news.
The Ruling: Not shade
Shade Court Docket #2015JZ000076
The Case: The Good Wife creators Robert and Michelle King sat down with Vulture for a discussion about (SPOILER ALERT) the departure of Kalinda Sharma from show—which isn’t really much of a spoiler unless you’ve been completely isolated from literally all of the news about The Good Wife.
A tipster suggested to me that Robert and Michelle might have tossed a bit of shade in Shonda Rhimes’ direction following the recent and still entirely inexplicable death of Derek Shepard from Grey’s Anatomy.
The Defendant(s): Robert and Michelle King
The Evidence:
You didn’t kill off Kalinda! What went into your thinking about Archie’s exit? Did you leave the door open so she could return?
Robert: It’s not wrong to think that. But we also didn’t want to repeat the way we’d dispatched Josh Charles. We want the show to mimic real life. And we didn’t want to keep bumping people off. It seems almost rude. [Laughs.]
Michelle: Given that it’s a workplace show, it’s more realistic that people leave the workplace.
The Deliberation: Keep in mind that this interview came just eleven days after after Grey’s Anatomy killed off Derek in one of the worst TV deaths of all time. We have no way of knowing when exactly the interview took place, but I actually don’t think it matters.
I mean, Shonda, homegirl, I love you. Like, I LOVE YOU. Like, sometimes I work out of a specific cafe specifically because I’m pretty sure you live in the neighborhood and I’m hoping that maybe one day you’ll walk by and I’ll say: “Hey, Shonda! I’m a big fan. Did you read the post I wrote about you?” and then she’ll be say: “Yes, Kara, I did. Also, I love you.” (#normal)
HOWEVER, girlfriend has gotta chill with this Assassin’s Creed-ass plot development.
We see that the King’s didn’t mention anyone by name, but let’s consider the similarities:
- Grey’s Anatomy keeps “bumping people off”
- This bumping off of characters is often quite rude (see: Denny’s death which I legitimately still am not over)
- Grey’s Anatomy is also set in a workplace
It’s not the strongest case, but I would say the odds are high that they’re at least alluding to Grey’s Anatomy and Shonda’s proven track record of killing off her characters across literally all of her shows. Call it a judge’s intuition.
The Ruling: Shade
Images via Getty, Groupon. Top image by Tara Jacoby, featuring the shade artist at a young age.
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