Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Not So Rosie


the right one (<- click link to play)

"I always think: Go big or go home." Rosie O'Donnell

Rosie O'Donnell is one of those entertainers who takes no prisoners. And in the process, it looks like she's become her own captive. At least for now.

I don't watch The View. Have never seen it. Don't care to. Don't need to. Ms O'Donnell's frequent public--and sometimes private--imbroglios are well covered by the news media and the Internet.

I never watched The Rosie O'Donnell Show in the 90's either. Although I recognized her appeal and had some personal contact promoting the popular show online during AOL's glory days of Internet dominance before blogs, news and entertainment web sites took over.

It's clear Rosie's easy, breezy, tough-but-vulnerable persona transcends typical boundaries and connects with audiences of all ages, interests and persuasions.

Rosie is bold, brash, brazen and ballsy. She's pretty brainy too. Her commitment to causes supporting children in foster care, 911 first responders, Iraqi war vets, anti-war and anti-Bush is why I'm not alone in my willingness to overlook her often vulgar comedy style in favor of her obvious real life substance.

But. No matter her many laudable qualities, the woman annoys the hell out of me. It's as if she deliberately goes overboard to move the needle past Offensive into just plain Stoopid. Sophomoric. Dumb.

Watch the video above from her blog and tell me it's not off the Idiot scale. Then somebody tell me why an intelligent, funny, savvy entertainer would go to such lengths for cheap laughs when she's talented enough to get the real thing.

I frankly don't know how I feel about her remarks at the Matrix Awards luncheon as shown on Fox TV. I certainly don't agree with Bill O'Reilly's smarmy allusion to Rosie's lesbianism and his assertion that "the woman can't control herself on any level."

Donna Dees, founder of the Million Mom March rightly tells O'Reilly that any woman who's worked in media has heard the f-word and many other vulgarities. And that the high school girls everyone's worried about weren't damaged by Rosie's off-color humor. Go find a teenager who'd be shocked by Rosie or anyone else in this day and age.

But that's not the point. Blue, rude humor makes me laugh too when it's well placed. It's the fact that Rosie allowed herself to be suckered by a sleazy wheeler-dealer and lowered herself to his level by engaging with him at all, much less with cheesy vulgarity.

Donald Trump is dumb like a fox and Rosie is truly dumb for helping him promote his boring TV show at the expense of her credibility and deserved gravitas. He needs the publicity, good or bad. She doesn't.

She's got it now ... almost all bad. Maybe that was her goal all along. And for the life of me, I just can't figure out why.

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1 Comments:

Blogger Leah Goodman said...

Cheap laughs? I found that whole thing so deadly boring that I couldn't watch past 2 minutes.

1:09 PM  

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