What Happened to the It Girl Talent Show Judge?: The Faded Splendour of the Ladies of Saturday Night TV
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From Paula Abdul on American Idol to Cheryl Cole on The X Factor, a staple figure of 2000s culture was the glamourous talent show judge who was simultaneously a celebrated popstar. It was a job that conferred huge cultural capital at the time - signifying the ultimate It Girl status - but often boiled down to being a token woman on a panel of men; the role granted simultaneous distinction and disposability.
This role has radically evolved as terrestrial Saturday night programming today no longer carries the same zeitgeist currency it once did - The X Factor and the like haven’t been engines of monoculture for at least a decade, what with YouTube democratising talent finding opportunity and streaming services fundamentally altering people’s viewing habits, as well as their appetite for different types of media.
Now we are forced to suffer through the embalming of the talent show’s dead format in the form of: The Masked Singer’s grim dystopia, tepid offerings from The Voice, and obsolete variety shows with golden buzzers that would do well to have exploding mechanisms. Where a pop star taking up the position of talent show judge once proved their golden girl cachet, it now raises the red flag of a stagnant music career - see Katy Perry’s enduring presence on American Idol and absence from the charts.
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Consistent with a lot of recent reckonings of 2000s media in which prevalent toxic practices are now understood as such, we can see clearly the dark side of a supposed halcyon era of TV, most strikingly in the imbalanced gender dynamics - the exhaustive list of positive attributes the women judges seemed to be expected to display compared to their male counterparts at the time as well as being regularly, unjustly vilified in the media.
With the masses invested and the female judges as the nuclei of the shows, these women were endeared into living rooms up and down the country, becoming huge figures in the public consciousness. For contestants, personalised mentorship from the female judges was most desirable - carrying ‘People’s Princess’ fondness, a “yes” from them was tantamount to papal benediction.
In the UK, Cheryl Cole’s reign as a judge on The X Factor was the apogee of the popularity associated with this role (herself a graduate of a televised talent show contest). As a direct result of her prominence on the show, her status was elevated (I remember feeling suitably stylish wearing my “TEAM CHERYL” T-shirt purchased from George at ASDA). Platforming her winning combination of girl band background, charming Geordie accent, WAG status, good-looks, and bubbly personality on X Factor, amassed her enough clout to quickly develop an international profile. It was only after joining the show that her solo career launched and though her music hadn’t even broken America, incredulously, Rihanna was proclaiming her love for her. That’s power.
During this 2000s to 2010s period other pop girls shining on the prime-time stage included Geri Halliwell on Popstars: The Rivals; Tulisa, Rita Ora, and Danni Minogue on The X Factor UK; Demi Lovato and Britney Spears on The X Factor USA (Kelly Rowland and Nicole Scherzinger pulled transatlantic double duty on both iterations); Jessie J on The Voice UK; Alesha Dixon on Britain’s Got Talent and Strictly Come Dancing; and Jennifer Lopez, Nicki Minaj, and Mariah Carey on American Idol. And whilst there is no exact science to being an arbiter of talent, no template CV that shows what constitutes being a good judge, it was evident that the male judges on these shows did not have the same level of multi-hyphenate experience and full-package allure as the women (in a truly laughable example, Piers Morgan served as a judge on both America’s Got Talent and Britain's Got Talent for multiple seasons, putting into question the legitimacy and integrity of the whole project). Compared to the men, the female judges had to demonstrate a taxing level of well-roundedness typically only expected of competitors in Miss World pageants.
The female judges contrasted starkly with the businessmen next to them, who would’ve been totally unrecognisable to the public if it was not for their positioning on the show (safe for a few industry stateside titans like L.A. Reid and Randy Jackson). We were told Simon Cowell, overlord of the talent contest format, experienced great industry success in the 80s, had a third eye awareness of “gaps in the market” and just knew what he was talking about when it came to the makings of viable modern pop stars. These shows, Cowell’s business babies, were perhaps more smoke and mirror, Oz-like vehicles to craft and project an image of credibility for himself. The keystone of these projects was his supposedly discerning instinct and yet any valuable intuition and profitable decision-making on the show came from the female judges (Nicole Scherzinger was the brains behind One Direction's formation, Kelly Rowland behind Little Mix’s). These women actually knew what life as a recording artist was like in the 21st century.
“The female judges on the panel were positioned as the middle diplomat, there to diffuse the bad vibes and tension between the men on either side. They had to maintain a positive disposition as grumpiness and mood swings were reserved for the Simon Cowells, Craig Revel Horwoods, and Nigel Lythgoes.”
Significantly, it soon became customary for the female judges to be the ‘nice one’, and this came with unfair trappings. Like obedient schoolgirls being switched seats to be between two unruly boy classmates so as to neutralise their bad behaviour, the female judges on the panel were positioned as the middle diplomat, there to diffuse the bad vibes and tension between the men on either side. They had to maintain a positive disposition as grumpiness and mood swings were reserved for the Simon Cowells, Craig Revel Horwoods, and Nigel Lythgoes. These guys boldly called the shots, even prematurely halting auditions with a contemptuous raised hand à la Joaquin Phoenix’s thumbs-down gesture as the emperor in Gladiator (2000). They were allowed to be cutting and ruthless in their feedback, whereas the women had to be magnanimous, forever bending over backwards to let contestants down gently. Imperious and devoid of charm, the male judges were not likeable personalities by any metric. Entire shows were built around Simon Cowell’s cruel temperament.
Natalia Kills notably suffered from being more outspoken during her time as a judge on The X Factor New Zealand (in daring to be more firm with negative feedback she was swiftly fired and branded a bully in such a trenchant way that her career never recovered). Her being headstrong was received as unforgivable rudeness. And on The X Factor UK, Tulisa received unjust backlash of classist and sexist caricature in the press as a result of her male colleagues' provocation; Gary Barlow’s infamous, unprovoked “fag ash breath” comment on was one of several different adversarial exchanges in which she was needlessly targeted. There was a pervasive put-her-back-in-her-place air to her treatment, as if she was getting too big for her boots. (It’s worth noting she was 24 at the time and Barlow, 41.) Even though the role was desirable, the multiple pressures it came with didn’t, on reflection, seem worth it.
If the job’s 2000s value was applicable today, by now Dua Lipa and Olivia Rodrigo would’ve been tenured fixtures - no longer a valuable notch in the belt of a young celebrity brand, when Ariana Grande took on the role of a coach on The Voice USA in 2021 there was an outcry from fans suggesting it was an ill-advised career move to take on the passé mantle.
In terms of TV girlies today with commensurate cultural currency, the only figure that is truly reminiscent of the 00s golden era is Maya Jama, moving with charisma and ethereal beauty as Love Island host. Maya carries the It Girl baton with a singular charming essence. Engaging panellists on RuPaul’s Drag Race inspire some viral moments for the girls, gays, and theys, but beyond that it is influencers like Molly Mae who are the recipients of the mainstream attention and admiration we once poured into the pop girlie judges.
The girl judge of 2000s Saturday Night TV is officially a figure of a bygone era, the last avatar of an old fashioned showbusiness model before we lived almost wholly digital lives. May we hold nostalgia for their impact, recognise the conditions they were under, and keep their glory immortalised on Love of Huns.
Words: Lucy Fitzgerald