Host Update: Rosie Perez is doing a play for the month of January and Whoopi has a bulging disc in her back and has to take some time off.  Ouch!  Feel better Whoop!  Rosie O and Nicolle were joined by guest co-hosts Kathy Griffin, Mario Cantone and Tracey Wigfield at the table to discuss today’s hottest topics.  Rosie came out on the stage dancing to Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off in a beautiful, blue, fitted dress!  This was all because the last time Kathy was on The View, Kathy’s mother Maggie (who you can follow on Twitter by the way) requested that Rosie wear a dress for once on the program.  So Rosie did!!  Rosie said she “felt a little bit like somebody dressed up for Halloween” but she pulled it off wonderfully.

Hot Topics:

Reality Television Talk: Kathy shamefully admitted she’s a bad feminist because she watched the two-hour premiere of The Bachelor last night.  She doesn’t believe any of the ladies on the show actually want to be with the bachelor.  She just thinks they want their time on Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood.  When Kathy alluded that Mario must watch these reality shows because he’s gay Mario shouted, “I am a gay American and I don’t watch The Bachelor!”  Tracey said they were going to send him to “gay jail” for this admission.  Mario admitted he doesn’t watch much reality television at all.  He only knows Teresa Guidice whom he said has a “hairline [that] looks like she’s wearing a hoodie.”  Rosie’s never seen the Housewives show either and said she was accused of being “insensitive” when they were discussing it yesterday. So, Kathy, the RHONJ expert, got everyone up-to-date.  She said the Guidice’s are “felons who have bilked people out of a lot of money.”  She gets that people are sensitive about the topic because of the children involved, but she can’t help but feel if they were people of color, they would have gotten a longer sentence.  Tracey feels like Teresa’s husband was really the one committing the fraud and that Teresa was just being “willfully ignorant” about the situation.  Nicolle doubted that theory.  She “studied up” on the story and thinks Teresa clearly knew what was going on because of the “wads of money” she carried around.  Nicolle asked rhetorically, “Where did she think they [the wads of money] came from, the paycheck?”  Kathy said on The Real Housewives of Atlanta, there’s a man [of color] who went to jail on a very similar charge for EIGHT YEARS.  Kathy believes the sentence was too light.  Mario said he’s embarrassed Teresa is a fellow Italian-American and pointed out that she’s going to have trouble tipping a table (as she loves to do) because in prison, the tables are bolted to the floor.  Rosie visited Martha Stewart when she was in prison and she felt like Martha’s sentence was unjust.  Rosie went to the prison thinking Martha would look down trodden in prison attire but when she visited her she looked fantastic!  She used the cream bleach for your mustache to do her own highlights in her hair and she taught everyone to knit.  When Rosie asked her what she missed the most about the outside world Martha replied, “The flavor of lemon.” Rosie said if she knew that ahead of time she would have smuggled one in her “who-ha” for her!

 

Palin Bites Back: Sarah Palin is getting a lot of heat from PETA after she posted a photo on Facebook of her son standing on his service dog like a step stool.  She was recently on The Today Show discussing the photo and her defense was that President Obama once tried dog meat in Indonesia as a child.  She told PETA to “chill” and said, “at least Trig didn’t eat the dog.”  Nicolle started having a little PTSD when they showed the clip of the snarky former Vice Presidential candidate.  Tracey saw Palin’s incredibly long post to PETA as evidence that she’s officially now sitting in Alaska descending into madness.  Kathy doesn’t think Palin writes her own posts on Facebook anyway because her comment about Obama, calling it the best “line” in the post, made it sound to her like someone else wrote it.  Rosie was appreciative of Palin’s return to the media.  She and Kathy called her a “comic’s dream” and likened her to “a warm-up act at a club in Rochester.”

The View Hits A Million Facebook Likes:  Rosie was pleased to announce that The View’s Facebook page just hit a million likes!  They thanked the viewers for their support.  And don’t forget to like Rosie’s Facebook page too!

Sheen Spirited: Charlie Sheen ranted about Kim Kardashian on Twitter recently after she refused to sign an autograph for a 6-year-old girl.In his rage-filled Twitter rant he said, “You are lucky that ANYONE cares about your gross and giggly bag of funk you dare call an ass.  My apologies to your hubby, great guy I’m sure, I hope his vision returns one day.”  Nicolle thinks he meant “jiggly” not “giggly” but Mario said Kim’s ass both flaps and claps when she jumps up and down, so it counts as both!  Tracey was surprised that Charlie Sheen, such a pillar of the community, someone we normally look to as such a great example, would say such a thing.  Kathy was confused as to who to root for in this scenario – Kim? Kanye? or Charlie Sheen?  There are no winners here.  Mario said, whether you like him or not, at least Charlie became famous because of his acting.  He continued, “Kim Kardashian wants a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. For what?  Best Supporting Actress in a sex tape?”

Is He or Isn’t He: There’s a new controversial special on TLC called My Husband’s Not Gay.  Mario mentioned how GLAAD has come out against the show calling it “irresponsible” and he agrees.  Nicolle read the statement released by the President of GLAAD.  Nicolle agreed and thinks the show sends a bad message to kids.  She thinks it states that you “should or could” change yourself if you want to badly enough.  She also thinks it’s irresponsible for a network to put this message on TV and present it as if it’s a viable option for gay people.  Kathy thinks the show will be primarily seen as humorous but also worries there are many parts of the country where this is thought of as a serious alternative.  She doesn’t think the show promotes not being gay as an option because it’s too humorous and he’s so obviously gay.  Rosie said, “There are many ways to be in the world and everyone has to find their way.  And for some people, facing their sexuality is insurmountable and they can’t do it so in order to live, this is the choice that they make.”  She thinks it’s sad but she said everyone has to “make and create their own reality.”  Mario had a friend once that couldn’t justify his religion with his sexuality and it was a struggle he had his entire life.  Nicolle worries there may be a young person, who is feeling isolated because of his/her sexuality, that will determine being gay is wrong because of this show.  And she thinks that’s dangerous.

Teens Return Home: The missing Connecticut teens, who gained national attention when Rosie mentioned them on The View and Nancy Grace profiled their case on her show have returned home!

The Mindy Project Tonight: Tracey’s episode of The Mindy Project airs tonight at 9:30 pm EST on Fox.  Don’t miss it!  Kathy asked Tracey to discuss the real ratio of male to female writers in comedy.  And Tracey admitted that a lot of the writers are “white dudes from Harvard.”  But she’s been lucky enough to write for Tina Fey for the show 30 Rock and now for Mindy on The Mindy Project.  And she admitted we have a long way to go.  

Losing Weight Not Always a Good Thing: There’s a new book entitled It was Me All Along, written by a woman who lost half her body weight and claims it almost ruined her life.  She became obsessed with counting calories and fell into a severe depression because of the weight loss.  Rosie said since her heart attack she’s lost almost 60 pounds and her doctor told her it takes your brain about three years to catch up with the changes that happen to your body.  She explained that she had vertical gastric sleeve surgery and she said her doctor is going to come on the show this month to talk about it.  Kathy asked Rosie if she thinks weight issues for most women stem from hunger or cravings.  Nicolle thinks it might stem from emotions too.  Rosie believes it’s a combination of all of those things.  For her she started to get heavy right when The Rosie O’Donnell show premiered in 1996. She became instantly famous.  Even though she had been in movies and standup, she was now super famous.  She thinks the weight became her “armor.”  Rosie also believes there’s a sudden vulnerability to losing weight.  Kathy also recommended the documentary Fed Up and Rosie, the documentary aficionado, seconded that recommendation.

Crowe Needs to Shut It: Russell Crowe claimed in a recent interview that women in Hollywood that complain about there being no good roles for women, need to stop going for the roles they’re too old for and start acting like Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren. Kathy thinks Russell should “stick with his garage band and go do cover tunes in Australia.”  She continued, “I mean really?  We’re listening to Russell Crowe about women’s issues?  Come on.”  Tracey thinks Russell is being sexist and she found an interesting article in Gawker where they charted the age of Denzel Washington’s wives in the movies.  As Denzel’s age increases the age of the women he’s married to plateaus.  Kathy thinks this is just a case of art imitating life but Nicolle didn’t agree.  She asked [rhetorically], “Every 57 year old guy has a 35 year old girlfriend?!”  Mario said this older man/younger woman issue in acting has been around since Cary Grant was around.  But he said, if it’s a younger man and an older woman, it’s a big scandal.

Guests:

Cast of Boyhood:  Stars of the ground-breaking, Golden Globe nominated movie Boyhood, Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, Ellar Coltrane and the writer and director, Richard Linklater, joined Rosie, Nicolle and Mario to discuss the making of the film.  The cast and crew spent 12 years making the film so the audience literally gets to see a boy grow up before their eyes along with the most poignant moments that shape his life.    When asked about the Golden Globe nominations, Richard said he was just trying to make a film about growing up and being a parent.  Ethan and Patricia weren’t scared about signing onto such a big undertaking.  He said they are both smart actors and smart actors know “you’re only as good as your opportunity and when someone comes to you and asks you to do something so original, you just gotta say yes.”  Patricia said it was exciting and amazing that Richard received financing for a movie that wouldn’t see a return for years.  Ethan said the whole making of the movie was an act of faith.  Ellar said the hardest part about making the movie was explaining it to his friends.  He told them he was making a movie but no one was going to be able to see it for over a decade.  Ethan joked that in a way, the movie is a “couples counseling session.”  He said it allows you to see life through each other’s eyes.  For Rosie, the scenes that dealt with divorce and what it does to children, were heartbreaking for her to watch.  Boyhood is available now on DVD!

Kathy Griffin: Kathy sat with her fellow co-hosts to discuss what taking over the show Fashion Police is going to be like for her.  She said it was incredibly hard for her to step into the late Joan River’s shoes.  Kathy said Joan was “her person” and she went to her for advice in ways she couldn’t go to anybody else.  Kathy referred to Joan as a feminist whether she liked it or not and said she blazed the trail for her and for many female comediennes.  She said a lot of people forget that it has been since 1988 that there has been a woman in nightly network television.  Joan was the first and the last.  She also thinks Joan reinvented the red carpet.  She wanted to continue the spirit of being fearless and “just going for it” while also having fun with people.  Kathy said the red carpet is ridiculous and it’s become this serious, cottage industry and she wants to take it all down!  They showed some of Kathy’s “worst-dressed” appearances as well as some of Rosie’s!  In the end, Kathy hopes people bring back a little humor and artistry to the red carpet.  Fashion Police returns January 12^th on E!

Audience Giveaway: Members of the studio audience received a copy of the movie Boyhood

Quoteables:

Rosie: [about the new TLC show My Husband’s Not Gay] “There are many ways to be in the world and everyone has to find their way.  And for some people, facing their sexuality is insurmountable and they can’t do it, so in order to live, this is the choice that they make.”
Nicolle: “Who do I get to try to kill me today?  PETA or Palin?”  
Tracey: “Oh! She’s [Palin] in Alaska going insane, she’s descending into madness.” 
Mario: “Kim Kardashian wants a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. For what?  Best Supporting Actress in a sex tape?”
Ethan: [about the film Boyhood] “The whole making of the movie was an act of faith.”
Patricia: [about the film Boyhood] “It’s such an honor to bear witness to children growing up.”
Kathy: [to Rosie] “Okay Grandma, we don’t say pocketbook anymore.”

Take a little time and enjoy The View!

written by Kelly Weist
KidRo Productions