Everything's Spewing Up Rosie
Television - Rosie O’Donnell is the Big Foot who threatens to stomp out “The View.” O’Donnell has the official title of moderator and a license to talk more than anyone else. Still, her jackhammering presence on the ABC daytime show is so loud, so overbearing, so overwhelming that she obliterates all other conversation. Viewers are left feeling exhausted by the garbled gab.
During the September 13 show, as O’Donnell rattled on about googling Lindsay Lohan’s private parts (she never explained why), Barbara Walters, the diva di tutti divas who recruited O’Donnell, finally had to step on Big Foot: “I must say,” Walters exclaimed, “it’s hard to get a word in.” O’Donnell momentarily fell silent, but then led the others to shriek the V-word as she proclaimed that she never said “vagina” so often as during her first days on “The View.” The meta message dangled as the audience at home and in the studio audience flashed on the L-word and O’Donnell’s psychosexual impact on the show.
Other panelists must be displeased with the new tableside task of vying for attention with O’Donnell. Certainly, Joy Behar, a stand-up friend of O’Donnell’s, can’t conceal her curled lips when Mt. Rosie spews. Behar had a similar facial tic when Star Jones prattled about her breast lift. You must wonder whether Behar feels nostalgic for the Starry old days.
When O’Donnell started raving on about how she “loved” Georgette Mosbacher, the lacquered Republican doyenne, she mispronounced her surname. Behar chided her and squeaky conservative mouse Elizabeth Hasselbeck wondered, essentially, whether Rosie wanted to sleep with Mosbacher. O’Donnell loudly explained she feels the same platonic way about Georgette as she does for "my Tommy” Cruise. Let's not go there.
Part of this chemistry problem is caused by a status shift. O’Donnell reminds her colleagues constantly that she once was a contender. “I used to have my own show and I didn’t have to listen to anybody,” she sniffed. Whatever. She can still get the last word on her blog, but, reportedly, she promised Walters she wouldn’t post indiscreet ramblings about “The View.”
O’Donnell is a compelling character. At her best, she’s an unfiltered hoot. She evokes a tough crowd I once hung with at summer camp -- Irish Catholic Long Island girls. She’s made her bones being brash and edgy, but on "The View," supposedly a collegial roundtable, O'Donnell must work well with others, which seems a problem for this chat hog.
