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Don’t Quote Me: An Awful “View”

“I watched the show and I didn’t see any lesbians that looked like UPS workers. That’s how my girlfriends – they all look like the UPS worker lesbians.”

– Sherri Shepherd talking about the cast of The L Word to Cybill Shepherd and Jennifer Beals on The View, Jan. 9, 2008

When I tuned in to The View on Jan. 9, I wasn’t expecting to find evidence that The L Word has done less than I’d hoped to provoke straight women in media to have an intelligent conversation about “the lives and loves” of lesbians, but in just 8 minutes and 10 seconds I found more proof than I’d ever imagined.

From start to finish, the segment featuring L Word co-stars Jennifer Beals and Cybill Shepherd was a how-to for anyone interested in exploiting lesbians and the actresses who play them, as well as a lesson in mastering the many ways to conduct an uninformative and tasteless interview.

The segment began with View co-hosts Sherri Shepherd and Elisabeth Hasselbeck moaning “Oooh!” in unison as Shepherd embraced Hasselbeck in faux lust. Cheek to cheek, they smiled seductively as Shepherd introduced the stars. Hasselbeck turned the salaciousness up a notch by closing her eyes and head-butting Shepherd, to the delight of themselves and the audience. Looking more like adolescent girls starring in a homemade YouTube video than moderators of a top-rated daytime talk show, their attempt at humor fell flat in the eyes of many lesbian viewers. For all the good The L Word is doing, what became clear at that moment is that despite the hard work of its cast and the critical acclaim the show has garnered, its subject matter remains a joke in the eyes of uninformed and immature TV personalities.

Had Shepherd and Hasselbeck’s nuzzle-fest been performed at a sweet 16 party during a game of Truth or Dare, I’d be more forgiving. But because The View is a product of well-respected journalist Barbara Walters, the behavior of the women she hired to represent her was, on this day, an insult to lesbian viewers and, judging from the looks on the faces of Jennifer Beals and Cybill Shepherd during most of the segment, a slap in the face to the show’s guests.

Sherri Shepherd, who only a few months ago embarrassed herself and ABC when she admitted on air that she isn’t convinced the world is round, was the first to remind us that her research hasn’t improved.

“So, Cybill, you just joined the show,” she said matter-of-factly to the actor who plays Phyllis Kroll on the hit series.

“Yeah … no!” I wanted Cybill to say. But she was too gracious. She politely explained that she joined the cast of The L Word last year. Remember last year? That’s the year Rosie O’Donnell co-hosted The View. The year in which lesbians and queer subject matter weren’t exploited on the show, but rather often celebrated.

That was then.

Now, sadly, intelligent and informative conversations about lesbians take a back seat to juvenile, unimpressive and clichéd jabber, as evidenced by Hasselbeck, who interrupted Cybill’s answer to ask the question every seventh-grader in the audience wanted answered: “Biggest difference kissing a man or a woman?”

Hasselbeck’s eagerness suggested that she was sure there’s a difference – a huge difference! Poor, inappropriate Elisabeth. To her detriment, she’s always overplaying to her fan base. Could it be that the woman who spent two years as captain of her softball team at Boston College is also sure that there’s a little guillotine in the vagina of every dyke? Nah.

Caught off guard by the childish question, Cybill simply breathed, “Umm … biggest difference?”

What followed was a brief moment of silence. Awkward silence. But the look on Jennifer Beals’ face – a forced smile that conveyed she would much rather be water boarded by Ilene Chaiken than sit on that stage – screamed, “Get me the f— out of here!”

Cybill, who tried desperately but unsuccessfully to change the subject, finally replied, “It’s just fun, both of them … I like kissing both.”

Sensing her guests’ discomfort, The View‘s resident liberal, Joy Behar, quickly switched gears by asking Cybill and Jennifer what they thought of the New Hampshire primary results. Irrelevant, yes, but it served the purpose of taking us, momentarily, out of Stupidland.

In response, Cybill gushed over Hillary Clinton, then yielded time to the forever classy Beals, who offered the first intelligent statement of the segment:

What I like about Obama is that I feel a sense of urgency to get things done right away. I’ve heard him speak a couple of times and he is incredibly inspiring. And I think the first impetus towards change is to have the inspiration and to have the hope. He’s obviously very smart and I think he can be a great leader. But having said that, I’m really excited that there’s a race, because I think it keeps both people really honest, and it allows different issues to come out and be fleshed out.
True. But the clock is ticking. Will someone please inject some L Word substance into the conversation?

No. After those refreshing few moments, viewers were again treated to the failings of The View‘s research department. After referring to her note card because, as she confessed, “I can’t remember nothing,” Whoopi Goldberg turned to Beals and said, “My friend Marlee Matlin just joined [the cast].”

All together now: Yeah … no!

The mention of Matlin, who like Shepherd joined The L Word last year, provided the perfect segue for someone to ask Beals about her character’s (Bette Porter) on-screen relationship with Matlin’s character (Jodi Lerner), but unfortunately Whoopi chose to begin a discussion about sign language.

“I know, Jennifer, you’re signing,” Whoopi said. “And your daughter is signing also? How old is she?”

Old enough to sign, “My mommy has a blow torch and knows how to use it!” I thought.

Beals didn’t clarify that Whoopi was asking about her real daughter, not her character’s daughter. Why bother? The audience was never told that she has an on-screen daughter. And that made sense, since no was talking about The L Word, anyway.

So Beals simply told a funny story about her 2-year-old – a cute anecdote that prompted Joy to comment about the little girl, “Wow, she’s smart!”

Yeah, smart – it’s what was missing in the room.

Sherri, who will never be accused of being smart, couldn’t have appeared more disinterested in a discussion about intelligence, and she refocused on Cybill. “Cybill, your character – you have just come out.”

Again: Yeah … no! That happened last season, too.

Shepherd went on, “You left your husband … so now you’re into the lifestyle of being a lesbian.”

Let’s pause now to review the word “lifestyle.” Clueless people and those with a political agenda misuse it frequently to describe the lives of LGBT people. To be clear, a person’s sexual orientation is part of that person’s broader lifestyle, but being queer is not a lifestyle in itself. In other words, there is no gay lifestyle; there is no straight lifestyle.

There are, however, bad co-hosts with no style. And no one was more aware of that than Cybill, whose frustration at that point was so evident that I’m willing to bet that if she’d been handed a globe, she would have clocked Sherri upside her head with it.

“And what I thought was so funny,” Sherri blathered on, “was you were writing down all of the lingo of, you know, that you didn’t know. Now in the show, will you two maybe, possibly get together or [pause] you know?”

No, Sherri, they don’t know. You know? Nobody knows what you’re talking about. Ever. How the – you know – hell did you get your job, anyway?

Cybill answered the question tongue in cheek. “Well, I’m hoping so,” she said, “eventually.” Beals found that funny too, threw her head back, and laughed.

Sherri, who correctly assumed that she was being laughed at, rather than with, felt the need to then explain her question by referencing the scene in the Season 5 premiere of The L Word where Cybill’s character learns the term “U-Hauling” (for the uninitiated: it’s a verb synonymous with moving in together after the first date). Unduly proud of the fact that she’d watched one episode, Sherri then boasted, “I know more about this show than y’all!”

One last time: Yeah … no!

She did, though, know more than Whoopi, who asked if U-Hauling is like text messaging. And I don’t even know what to do with that.

Then Joy, who is much too smart to play so dumb here, unfortunately asked if U-Hauling is a “gay woman thing” or a “two guys” thing. Cybill responded by reminding Joy of one of the most basic facts of life: Love is sometimes fleeting.

“It happened to my character on the show,” Cybill explained. “Your coming-out affair – you can’t help but believe you’re going to be in love with that woman for the rest of your life. And then, guess what? There’s a lot of other women out there, just like in real life.”

But Joy pretended to not buy Cybill’s explanation, humorously alleging that only makes sense to her if the women “out there” are hot. “Most of the women on the show are gorgeous, like the two of you,” she said. “Aren’t there any ugly lesbians out there? I mean, c’mon, every lesbian is not beautiful like you are.”

Oh, Joy. Hardy-har, neener, neener. Put that joke in a bottle and cork it. Forever. Please. Recognizing the need to save us all from a likely conversation about mullets, Beals then stated the obvious, “Not everybody has two hours of hair and makeup.”

But the obvious was far too obscure for Sherri, who couldn’t let the cringe-worthy discussion go. “I watched the show and I didn’t see any lesbians that looked like UPS workers,” she said. “That’s how my girlfriends – they all look like the UPS worker lesbians.”

Yep, on the tiny corner of the large spatula of dirt Sherri calls home, all lesbians look the same – like ugly laborers burrowing their way through their “lifestyles” in large brown trucks.

So Beals again tried to save her hosts from themselves: “Not all hetero women look like women from Sex and the City, either.”

That observation shut everyone up except Elisabeth, who took the discussion even further afield by asking a question so moldy that it sounded like it was channeled to her through June Cleaver.

“Obviously you have, like, lesbian women who watch the show,” she said to Beals while nearly gagging on the word lesbian, “but you have straight women who are obsessed with the show. I mean, our producers here, our friends, they love the show. So are you surprised by that at all? What’s that all about?”

I would have answered, “P-R-O-G-R-E-S-S.” But Jennifer’s response was brilliant. “Not really,” she began, “because there’s a power in female friendships. Period … There’s an appreciation of the power that it can bring, that assembly of women.”

Not surprisingly, the irony of her comment was lost on every woman “assembled” onstage, including Cybill Shepherd, who unfortunately took the conversation where I feared it might go. “But a lot of heterosexual men really enjoy the show,” she said.

As Jennifer winced, Joy agreed. “It’s a turn-on for men to see two women,” Behar said.

“I think the most common fantasy for men is two women together,” Cybill chimed in.

You know what else is a common fantasy, ladies? A conversation about lesbians in which we’re all not all pictured as box-carrying, uniformed longshoremen or reduced to objects of male entertainment.

But, as Elisabeth Hasselbeck proved when she then pointed to a guy in the audience who was “smiling from ear to ear” (according to Hasselbeck), that is too much to ask for.

After more drivel about male fantasies and inadequacies, a brief discussion about Cybill’s daughter, Clementine (who is also on The L Word this season), Cybill’s reluctance to be filmed nude (“I wouldn’t want to stunt anybody’s growth”), Cybill’s age (58), and an announcement that every audience member would receive a DVD of the fourth season of show, the interview and the suffering were over …

… or so I thought.

As the camera pulled back from the stage and panned the studio, Sherri Shepherd’s voice was the only one to be heard above the audience applause. “Shane,” she screamed, referring to The L Word‘s most sexually charged and sexually active character, “is, like, Oh my God!”

Oh my God. Exactly.

Kim Ficera is the author of Sex, Lies and Stereotypes: An Unconventional Life Uncensored. Email her at [email protected].

For more analysis of this debacle on The View, watch Sarah and Lori’s recent episode of Who Thought That Was a Good Idea?

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