Jerry Springer, who can claim credit for being the initiator of the lowest common denominator tabloid television with his eponymous show that ran for nearly three decades, has died. A controversial show of exploitation and moral panic, ‘a relentless orgy of humanity’s worst impulses’, ‘bear-baiting’ and ‘mob rule’ it lowered the tone of television and arguably set the stage for where we are now, politically and culturally. “Without him plumbing new social depths in the 1990s, we might never have witnessed shows such as Big Brother, or Pop Idol, or Jersey Shore, which revolve around allowing the sofa-dwelling masses to sneer at the flotsam of society.”
Not that he was happy with his trailblazing role into humiliation television but he took the money and ploughed on anyway.
He was born 13 February 1944 11.45pm (from memory) in London in an underground shelter during a bombing raid and moved with his family to the USA when he was 4. He started his career in politics, then moved into television and found his niche.
He had a well-tied together, lucky and influential chart with a communicative Air Grand Trine of an Aquarius Sun trine Saturn trine a Libra Moon, formed into a Kite by Sun opposition a 10th house successful Jupiter. He also had a legend-in-his-lifetime Pluto in his career 10th conjunct the spirit-of-the-age North Node (like Len Goodman born two months later.)
Springer’s Pluto dragged him down into the depths perhaps because it sat on the midpoint of a trine between an 8th house Uranus Mars and a 12th house Neptune. He revelled in the dark side. His Venus in Capricorn was on the focal point of a Yod inconjunct Jupiter and Saturn which would also make him adept at shifting the culture.
His Saturn in Gemini would give him a serious side and his Libra Moon must have been appalled at the sorry social spectacles he rabble-roused. A complicated man.