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I am considerably late to the game of criticizing Rosie O'Donnell. Rosie often draws fire from even her longstanding fans for acts of ego and hubris, but I will admit that until recently, I was a Rosie O'Donnell apologist.
I've felt soft towards her, even though she's hard to cuddle, because since publicly coming out in 2002, the media has been hard on her. She's taken the brunt of some sickening homophobia and hate, some of which was channeled through the nightmare portal of The Donald. Maybe even worse, she's had it tough as the least appealing of a small class of out lesbian talk show hosts: Ellen is much cuter, Rachel Maddow is much smarter, and people are always trying to coax dynamic Oprah and charismatic Tyra into at least admissions of bisexuality. What's Rosie, chopped liver? Seriously, think of a time in your life when you were a visible minority, and you can relate to that pressure.
I've also been her champion because she's earned respect as an out leader. Rosie has served as a vocal activist for gay foster care and adoption after being discriminated against and having her foster daughter removed from her care in Florida. She has traded her own privacy to showing that gay families are just as loving and dorky as straight ones. She is unabashedly political, stating that her well-publicized marriage to partner Kelli Carpenter in 2004 was in defiance to the Bush Administration's oppressive policies and Defense of Marriage Act. She is noted for being a generous philanthropist with her multi-millions, founding and helping a diversity of causes.
So with all of those positives, I've always felt as though I could forgive some of Rosie's offensive and bizarre acts, including her frequent abuse of the English language in the haiku-esque blog entries she publishes at r blog (which incidentally is in the BlogHer advertising network).
Rosie is drumming up publicity right now for her new HBO documentary on diverse families, called
"A Family is a Family is a Family" (oy, whoever named that deserves a timeout). Premiering on Sunday, January 31:
This 40-minute documentary from show-biz superstar Rosie O'Donnell celebrates family, showcasing a diverse range of living situations as it spotlights everything from same-sex and mixed-heritage parents, to single-parent homes, to families with adopted kids.
Sounds great. But Rosie stumping for viewers means that we'll be hearing even more from her than usual, and I'm not sure that is a good thing. In the last few months since launching her Sirius radio show, Rosie has fallen from even my forgiving graces, with one too many WTF Rosie? moments to bear. Here are the top three reasons Rosie has worked my last nerve:
1. Crazy Talk. Shock talk, I can deal with, and I've defended plenty from here. But lately there is just too much, too wrong about what Rosie says. Anyone telling Rachel Ray's audience, as Ecorazzi reported, that "Exposure to the sun is not dangerous" deserves to be shot down. And, yes, we all have opinions about NBC's stupid move to slide-puzzle Jay Leno's show back into the Tonight Show slow. Just ask Twitter. So did Rosie truly need to weigh in and throw down in support of Team CoCo? Perhaps. She notes on her blog that she has reason for a grudge against Jay, and I would never deny a woman her chilled moment of revenge.
But she absolutely did not have to make a bad joke at the expense of Haiti. USA Today reported that when asked about Jay v. Conan, Rosie said, "That question today is like asking if I'd want to have a vacation in Haiti. While I hear that's an enjoyable place, this isn't the time to go." Haiti? No, Rosie, just no. These are the types of thoughtless comments that I just can't explain away any longer.
2. Relationship Drama as PR. The flip side of using your happy lesbian family as a poster child for happy lesbian families is that the U-Haul might make a round trip. Rosie confirmed rumors in November that she and Kelli Carpenter had indeed split up last year. On the heels of that announcement, in December, she shared on her radio show and in interviews that she has been happily paired up since last fall with artist and gay family and foster care activist Tracy Kachtick-Anders, mother of six children. The timing of
