Rosie O'Donnell: Bad for Women, the Gay Community, and All Who Can't Stomach Donald Trump

She is making Star Jones look reasonable, and for that, Rosie O'Donnell must be taken to task. With all the yelling and sniping surrounding the vociferous View host, the natural response is simply to shake your head and reach for the remote. Unfortunately, the impact Rosie O'Donnell has on American culture is a weighty one, and there are some factions of society, with whom she has aligned herself, that she is doing a great deal of harm to. The images of women in positions of authority and of the gay community have taken a real beating with Rosie setting a very public example of what representatives of those groups may look like. People who have long wished that Donald Trump would go away are just plain confused.

So, we can just choose not to watch Rosie O'Donnell, and all will be well, right? Why complain about her knee-jerk social and political agendas, and the public distancing-embracing game she has played in regard to her sexuality? The answer is simple. The Jerry Springer show has been on since 1991.

Rosie O'Donnell is Bad for Women
The Queen of Nice. For six years Rosie O'Donnell helmed her popular daytime chat fest, The Rosie O'Donnell Show. She was gracious and warm to guests, pithy and smart, and had an every woman quality that was refreshing to viewers. She was not ashamed to admit that she watched a lot of television, to confess her crushes on celebrities, or to talk openly about her favorite junk foods. She was the anti-elitist, and the American people could not only relate to her, but they found catharsis in hearing this successful, much beloved television personality reveal that she was no different from any of them.

When Donny Osmond made his infamous joke about Rosie O'Donnell's weight during a 1996 guest appearance on her show, she did not take the hit- she hit right back. And she did so in spectacular fashion, while never losing her nice. In a nation where approximately 2/3 of the adult population was considered overweight or obese in 1996 (WIN Statistics Related to Overweight and Obesity), Rosie O'Donnell's refusal to simply smile and laugh off Osmond's barb about her weight was panacea for the more massive masses.

After creating her own production company, KidRo Productions, co-executive producing her talk show, and starting her own magazine, Rosie, Rosie O'Donnell seemed the model of strong female leadership. Perceived warmth and accessibility did not diminish her strength as a businesswoman. Rosie seemed on top of the world, and women everywhere applauded her for it.

So, where's the beef? Well, it's sitting, spoiling, under the heating lamp of a very greasy spoon. Rosie O'Donnell left The Rosie O'Donnell Show in the height of its popularity, and seemed poised to take over any endeavor she chose to take on.

What she chose was a new public persona, brash and demanding, making a 180 degree turn from the Rosie O'Donnell who sang and danced her way into viewers' good graces on The Rosie O'Donnell Show. Continuing with her magazine Rosie, reports of diva antics and wall shaking tantrums began to surface, and suddenly staff members were talking- painting a picture of O'Donnell as an unpredictable, explosive tyrant; Shannen Doherty meets Leona Helmsley.

In 2002, Rosie ceased publication amidst a very public, very nasty battle in the press and the courts between Rosie O'Donnell and her publishers, Gruner+Jahr. One former employee testified that O'Donnell had attacked her for remaining silent during a meeting to discuss the magazine's problems. O'Donnell told her that her silence was tantamount to lying. "You know what happens to people who lie?" the former Rosie employee quoted O'Donnell as saying to her, "They get sick and they get cancer. If they keep lying, they get it again."

The former employee was a cancer survivor- a fact known to Rosie O'Donnell at the time.

The witness testified that she then said to Rosie O'Donnell "Your mother died of breast cancer. Was she lying?"

"Yes," responded Rosie.

O'Donnell acknowledged the conversation, stating that she had later called the woman to apologize.

During that time period, it seemed that every week Rosie O'Donnell was shocking us with new antics and incendiary speeches. Her current media blitz in the Rosie-O'Donnell-Donald Trump-Barbara-Walters rixe-a-trois is just nastiness ad nauseam.

So what? How does this make Rosie O'Donnell bad for women? It's all in the judgement and the juxtaposition. Her behavior casts a dark shadow on the image of women as positive role models and strong forces in the working and entertainment communities as ruses. With enough women like Rosie O'Donnell around, successful, empowered women doing constructive work in fields still dominated by men will come to be construed as ticking time bombs- unreliable and instable. She lends credence to old arguments that insult women by suggesting that they cannot hold positions of political power because they might experience a nasty bout of PMS and detonate Wichita because an old boyfriend lives there. Women have been working for a long time to erase the barriers that are no longer officially recognized or socially accepted, but still keep them from obtaining financial and political equality with men.

Furthermore, Rosie O'Donnell's transformation from the "Queen of Nice" to "Über Bitch" was bad for women as much for it's disingenuousness as it was for it's dishonesty. After years of referring to herself as the "Queen of Nice" on The Rosie O'Donnell Show, in an interview aired on the Oxygen Network, O'Donnell told designer Isaac Mizrahi, "I was always nasty. I'm not that nice. I'm a very biting, caustic, sarcastic person."

Rosie O'Donnell is Bad for the Gay Community
As one of a handful of the most successful, most prominently placed out lesbians in entertainment, Rosie O'Donnell is an outspoken, and generally well-spoken, advocate for gay and lesbian rights, for the rights of gays and lesbians to adopt and marry, and has provided the public a look at gay and lesbian life through the lens of a long-term committed relationship- a marriage- and as a parent.

She has worked to change the legislation in some states that bans the adoption of children by gays and lesbian couples. Her relaxed openness with her homosexuality and the natural way she discusses her family, even in front of staid The View matriarch Barbara Walters and conservative Christian co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck, is just the type of image Rosie O'Donnell projects that promotes gay and lesbian families as "not 'other'."

So, why does she keep opening her mouth and projecting negative of images on the gay community she supports and belongs to?

Rosie O'Donnell's reluctance to confess her homosexuality as a fledgling stand-up comedienne and actress, and during her stint as America's favorite cheerful chat-chandler, was not a problem for the gay community. The odds of a woman- nonetheless an overweight woman of simple tastes- to achieve the success that Rosie O'Donnell found in film and on television were incredibly short. Coming into the homes of viewers of all shapes and sizes, all political and ideological leanings, and all religious persuasions- it is hard to fault Rosie O'Donnell for being less than out, publicly at least, as a lesbian. We might very well have never seen an episode of The Rosie O'Donnell Show if she had. These were not the days of The Ellen DeGenerous Show.

Enter Tom Cruise. Rosie O'Donnell's choice to use the Top Gun, as a beard, was wearying, and disconcerting. It was unnecessary, and it distanced her from the gay community.

It particularly distanced her from the gay community in the eyes of the straight population. With her Tom Cruise bits, which spanned the length of The Rosie O'Donnell Show, she could play the straight man without ever explicitly denying her homosexuality.

It was not a fatal flaw. While her "dummy in the road" had well-coiffed hair and well aligned teeth, the public was more than willing to buy the ruse and look under their seats for free Ho-Ho's. But, Rosie O'Donnell could not be silenced for long. In the same interview with Mizrahi, she stated that she never "pretended anything." O'Donnell said, "I think you can live your life as a gay person in the way that I did- never hiding it from anyone, attending every event with (now wife) Kelli. Never pretending to have a boyfriend."

In a 2005 interview with the Associated Press, O'Donnell claimed, "I have lived my life very openly and very truthfully. When I was with a man, everyone knew who my partner was. And when I was with a woman, everyone knew who my partner was. There was never any secret or any hiding."

Other than a well-contrived smoke screen, perhaps? The utilization of an icon of American male sexuality- one who had (at that time) a wholesome image, a history of media speculation about his sexual orientation, and a long-standing, committed marriage was brilliant.

But, even more disconcerting is the recent pre-Trump controversy Rosie O'Donnell inserted herself into soon after the November 17, 2006 Kelly Ripa-Clay Aiken brouhaha. Aiken was co-hosting an episode of Live with Regis and Kelly, and playfully and awkwardly inappropriately placed a hand over Ripa's mouth as she began to respond to a question from guests Emmitt Smith and partner Cheryl Burke from ABC television's Dancing With the Stars.

Ripa removed Aiken's hand from he mouth and sternly rebuffed him. "I don't know where that's been," she said.

An awkward television moment became a major discussion about discrimination, instigated by Rosie O'Donnell. O'Donnell accused Ripa of making a homophobic statement in her remark to Aiken, whose sexuality had been called into question in the media recent to the airing. Rosie O'Donnell used her pulpit on The View to denounce Ripa's statement as discriminatory against the gay and lesbian community.

The American people said "huh?"

Rosie O'Donnell's statements about the homophobic nature she perceived in Kelly Ripa's comment to Clay Aiken were tremendously irresponsible and potentially harmful to the gay community. Regardless of her intentions, her need to insert herself into the discussion surrounding the Live with Regis and Kelly event, in the manner in which she chose to do so, was not only unhelpful, it was angry, out of context, and counter productive to each and every discussion about homophobia and the image of gay and lesbian life that is portrayed in the media occurring today. She reported a mugging, where a stadium full of people saw a quarterback get sacked.

Rosie O'Donnell is Bad for People Who Cannot Stomach Donald Trump
Defenders of Donald Trump used to look crazy. Rosie O'Donnell out crazied them. Furthermore, she did so, and continues to do so, very publicly. Rosie O'Donnell is bad for people who cannot stomach Donald Trump.

Rosie O'Donnell presents herself in the media as a woman who can not stop talking to save her life. Picking fights, assigning blame, making moral judgments- all the while crying foul at the moral judgments made by Donald Trump- Rosie O'Donnell has become that rarest of birds- an entertainment personality who makes The Donald come across as slightly less wacko.

She jumped into Trump's Miss USA Pagent debacle on one of the highest rated morning programs on national television to lash out at Trump's decision to give hard partying beauty queen Tara Connors a "second chance" before stripping her of her tiara, and sending her to rehab. Denouncing his decision to pose as the "moral compass" for 20-year-olds, Rosie O'Donnell launched into an extended tirade on The View that attacked everything Donald- from his marital history, to his hair, to his finances. Knowing that Donald Trump can not hear discussion about trumpets or trump cards without responding publicly, Rosie O'Donnell willingly lead Trump into one of the nastiest, loudest, most juvenile public brawls in recent history, and Donald Trump could not be more in his element. Rosie O'Donnell immediately became Donald Trump's best friend- by becoming is greatest enemy.

Thanks to Rosie O'Donnell, the American people are now treated to angry Trump, to indignant Trump, to lawsuit waving Trump- and all in oversized, extra-strength doses. Now Donald Trump feels free and encouraged to use every media outlet at his disposal to dispense with highbrow hyperbole like "Rosie's a loser" and threaten to send one of his friends over to her home to "pick up her girlfriend."

And how did Rosie O'Donnell respond? By blogging, and... wait for it... updating Donald Trump's Wikipedia entry. That's right. Thanks to Rosie O'Donnell, we have now discovered a new way of bickering publicly- by altering the life histories of our foes in an online encyclopedia.

The American people said "huh?"