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Rosie stirs up a 'big, fat' o'donnybrook |
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Written by David Bianculli, MCT
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Thursday, 24 May 2007 |
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"Rosie — big, fat, lesbian, loud Rosie — attacks innocent, pure, Christian Elisabeth!"
That's how "The View's" Rosie O'Donnell predicted her on-air spat Wednesday with co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck would be spun in the media.
Much as I hate to disagree with O'Donnell, I'd prefer to describe Wednesday's heated, emotional argument another way.
As riveting, raw, refreshingly honest television.
Viewers didn't see it coming, probably because "The View" women didn't, either. The opening segment went just fine. It was after the first commercial break, when outspoken co-host Joy Behar pulled out and read a laundry list of what she said were President Bush's major failings, that all verbal hell broke loose.
The first five minutes were Behar vs. Hasselbeck, but that was just the warmup. Once Hasselbeck used the phrase "our enemies in Iraq," O'Donnell, who had been quiet up to that point, pounced. Still steaming from conservative pundits claiming that she had referred to American troops as terrorists, O'Donnell expressed outrage that Hasselbeck had not defended her.
And, for the next five minutes, the fight was on, big time.
They were on opposite ends of the table — fittingly, O'Donnell on the left, Hasselbeck on the right — and threw questions and comments at each other so forcefully ("You will not call me a coward, Rosie!") that even when the director switched to split screen, the TV set hardly could contain things.
Eventually, guest host Sherri Shepherd tried to throw to commercial, and Behar, who had started it all, begged for the TV equivalent of a referee's bell ("Is there no commercial in this show?"). All to no avail. It ended only after O'Donnell decided not to argue any more, because the media would continue to blast her for picking on "poor little Elisabeth."
O'Donnell sneered, "So for three weeks, you can say all the Republican crap you want."
I really hope that's an idle threat. With only three weeks left until O'Donnell leaves "The View," this is the time for big, fat, lesbian, loud Rosie to speak up, not shut up.
What she's helping to stir up on "The View" is live TV at its most unpredictable — and so long as she keeps talking, it's going to be one of the only appointment-TV events of the summer.
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David Bianculli:
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