Let it be known, if The View is ever in need of a guest, I’m available.
I understand it’s called The View, and not Five Slightly Different Views Plus a Sixth Guest View That Blows the Rest Out of the Water. I understand that in their post-Elisabeth Hasselbeck era, ABC only dares represent a quasi-conservative position with someone who will gladly let Whoopi walk all over her.
And I understand they’ll want to schedule Stacey Abrams for her fourth (or is it fifth?) appearance so she can tell us, yet again, how everything was rigged against her.
But imagine turning on your television midday to hear someone take on Goldberg’s distasteful, anti-Semitic takes, someone who won’t roll over when Sunny Hostin likens Republican women to roaches. Imagine someone who’d take the crew to school when Behar buzzes about “fundamental human rights.” Someone who wouldn’t need to begin her sentence with, “I respect your opinion but…”
And picture this: all the while, every seal in the studio audience is looking for instructions from the flashing neon signs in front of the stage:
Laugh? Clap? Hiss?
At least for one woman at the table, namely me, it would be a good time.
The quarter-century-old daytime gossip session is a bleak daily spout of words devoid of logic. But before we give it the old Roseanne Barr treatment, allow me to borrow some stump campaign tricks from the Democrat Party.
I will never lose hope in the battle for the soul of The View.
Recently, there’s been an aggressive increase in violent rhetoric among the View crew. To combat this seizing-pouncing-weaponizing, I think I’ll promote myself to executive producer and install some new rules for the ladies.
Rule Number One: No anti-religious rhetoric is to appear on your otherwise camera-ready hoodie.
Last Tuesday, the morning after a disturbed shooter murdered six people at a Nashville Christian school, Whoopi Goldberg arrived for air in a black sweatshirt displaying the words “Thoughts & prayers” in white with a dramatic strikethrough. Underneath read “Policy & change.”
We must remind ourselves that the fondly remembered Whoopi of Sister Act was merely a role. The sick message on her sweatshirt was not only blasphemous, placing government above God, but also entirely tone-deaf in the wake of a targeted onslaught of religious youth and their educators.
So I’d implement a dress code requiring political and theological neutrality. Whoopi would need to refrain from bashing those who know prayer works.
Rule Number Two: If the bookers feel the need to book an octogenarian like Jane Fonda again, she is not permitted to propose murder as a viable option to do away with things she doesn’t like.
Earlier this month, the former Mrs. Ted Turner (and Tom Hayden) joined The View to pontificate on last summer’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and subsequent anti-abortion statutory laws across life-affirming states.
“We have experienced many decades now of having agency over our body, of being able to determine when and how many children to have,” Fonda harrumphed. “We know what that feels like. We know what that’s done for our lives. We’re not going back. I don’t care what the laws are.”
Joy Behar probed the Barbarella star. “Besides marching and protesting, what else do you suggest?”
Fonda responded, stone-faced. “Well, murder.”
Sunny Hostin attempted to save the midmorning conversation, contending Fonda was only joking. “They’ll take that and run with it,” she said in her own self-interest. Fonda showed no signs of concession.
If that doesn’t fit the Left’s re-definition of “inciting violence,” society is doomed.
Then, for a little bit of light-hearted camaraderie and healthy competition, I’d implement a cutesy Rule Number Three: The first person to mention race picks up the talent’s lunch check that day.
Race can become a crutch in discussion today, and I wish to challenge the ladies to use an alternative method to convince me abortion is totally cool, guns should be confiscated from law-abiding citizens, and that Donald Trump belongs behind bars.
I’m not saying the panelists are barred from mentioning race. As a fan of eating out, I may even encourage it.
In fact, my implementation of Rule #3 is out of charity. I want to boost Joy Behar’s career in commentary by having her use different verbiage than “white supremacy” to express her distaste for a domestic or foreign policy choice.
I want Whoopi Goldberg stop embarrassing herself by saying things like, “The Holocaust wasn’t about race.” I want to save Ana Navarro from the doubtless shame she felt forgetting about Tim Scott when she mentioned black US Senators or Sunny Hostin from basically shrugging off Muslims in China’s concentration camps—yikes.
Who’d be charging five salads to her card first? My vote is Joy, hands-down.
This three-pronged approach is necessary to prevent the demise of The View…before it’s too late. We need to save the soul—as well as the vocabulary—of ABC’s late-morning show.
Out of love for daytime television and hatred for violent rhetoric, I volunteer to take on The View’s complete overhaul.