This week, Sharon Osbourne achieved the previously unthinkable by making “The Talk” more of a conversation than “The View”. Okay, your ABC rival got off to a strong start on Monday, but all it took for Osbourne to topple Whoopi Goldberg and Meghan McCain was to side with Piers Morgan in their one-sided war with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and the Duchess of Sussex, and did not understand why the public responded by accusing her of racism.
To review: Morgan reminded us of what a peach he is on Monday in responding to the vulnerability that Markle showed during Sunday’s special “Oprah with Meghan and Harry” on CBS, including her confession that at one point she “didn’t want to” be more alive, “declaring in ITV’s” Good Morning Britain “that he didn’t believe a word she said.
In response, some 41,000 viewers complained to the network about Morgan’s comment, including the Duchess herself. On Tuesday, his colleague Alex Beresford criticized him for his odious obsession with Markle, prompting Morgan to interrupt the set in the middle of the show and submit his resignation.
That alone would have given Osbourne and everyone else on “The Talk” a pile of thoughts to organize. But she unconsciously (and perhaps without judgment) redirected the storm back over her, tweeting “@piersmorgan, I’m with you. I’m by your side. People forget that you get paid for your opinion and that you’re just telling your truth” For reasons clear to almost everyone except Osbourne herself, the public turned against her.
This brings us to Wednesday’s episode of “The Talk”, which is safe to say that most people saw approximately two minutes and 20 seconds.
In the meantime, Osbourne tries to approach her gaffe head-on, letting us and co-presenters Sheryl Underwood, Elaine Welteroth and Amanda Kloots know how restless she is about being called a racist. You see, she did not say this as clearly as she proved, subjecting the audience to an insistent and reckless speech while, in an explosion of extreme irony, attacked Underwood, one of her black colleagues.
Osbourne looks calm at first. “I feel like I’m about to be put in the electric chair because I have a friend that many people think is racist. It makes me racist, ”she says. “And for me, at 68, having to turn around and say, ‘I’m not a racist.’ What does this have to do with me? “
Then the hinges start to come off. “I am,” – at this point the censor presses the mute button before interrupting his diatribe – “OK? How can I be racist about anyone? How can I be racist about anyone or anything in my life? How can I?”
Blinded by his fury, Underwood does his best to launch a commercial with “Well …” before Osbourne interrupts with an aggressive “Well, what ?!”
“Well,” sums up Underwood, “we’ll be back soon. We have more topics, so don’t go.” Before the producers cut the microphones, they take another angry piece of Osbourne: “And I think we should stop this fu-“
I don’t think the word is “fun”.
After the break, production is halted, while Underwood is visibly shaken talking. “We’re doing live TV right now,” she says, her voice trying not to break as she tries to save Osbourne from herself. “But I want you to hear from me -“
“I’ll ask you again, Sheryl,” Osbourne fires at Underwood with fervent indignation, holding a tissue in his hand. “I’ve been asking you during the break. I’m asking you again. And,” – she points her finger at Underwood – “don’t try to cry because if someone should be crying, it should be me! Situation. Tell me where you heard him say – educate me, tell me – when you heard him say racist things. Educate me! tell me! “
Underwood is under no obligation to do this, but she does her best anyway, explaining that the words themselves don’t have to be racist – the implication of what Markle understood is enough. For Morgan to try to dismiss this or minimize the fact that gravity is racist, Underwood continued before adding, “But now, I’m talking to a woman I believe to be my friend. And I don’t want anyone here to watch this and I think we’re attacking you for be racist. And that, if I articulate – “
But Osbourne is not moved. “It’s too late!” she sniffs. “I think this seed has already been planted.”
To deal with this kind of struggle, “Inside Amy Schumer” once produced an infomercial parody for a place called “Generations”, heralded as “a revolutionary new facility where we give your elderly loved ones the politically correct social skills they need to get along in the modern world. “
On its offer menu are several classes designed to help customers overcome deeply ingrained stereotypes, including a “two-week Asian intensive”, where “your loved one will first learn what the words are ‘never says'”.
Although “Generations” was made in 2014, this sketch came to the surface of my conscience last year because of an increase in meetings and exchanges like Osbourne and Underwood. Or perhaps it is not that these moments have increased as much as the feeling that black women have grown tired of treating them with a dignity that these questioners do not provide them with in return.
Perhaps it is knowing that people who shout “Educate me! Tell me!” they do not seek understanding as much as they want absolution without reparations. They are content to apologize in order to feel better and want to be able to say that they have apologized without honestly making an effort to understand the reasons why they were wrong. “Never says” is not the problem; it is what they are doing, refusing to do and refusing to acknowledge.
Namely, read Osbourne’s mea culpa by tweet.
– Sharon Osbourne (@MrsSOsbourne) March 12, 2021
One of the unfortunate roles that we assign to daytime personalities cast on panel programs like “The Talk” is the obligation to express views that segments of the audience are feeling, but do not have the confidence or the knowledge to articulate.
Because of this, it can overwhelm some cast members with the expectation of having all the answers, while others can play with their personality and skate free from the disasters they have created. Paroxysms of this magnitude are not typical of “The Talk”, but people who tune in to see Osbourne think of her as the wild but cheerful mother of “America’s Got Talent” or “The Osbournes” on MTV. They like the woman who threw a ham over the fence to protest against a noisy neighbor and ignore the fact that she also did things like kneeling on a man’s balls after he failed to pay the money she owed.
To be clear, the unfortunate one here is not Osbourne. It’s Underwood and Welteroth, who convincingly take on the emotional work that Osbourne wouldn’t do for herself. That part can only be witnessed in 20 full minutes of comings and goings around that viral clip, and if you care enough to find out why Osbourne’s reflective support for Morgan went to many women like a punch in the eye, it’s worth it. worth a watch.
A closer look at Osbourne’s collapse does not exonerate her, you see. At the very least, it will remind viewers that, despite their protests, no one should expect Sharon Osbourne to be particularly enlightened when it comes to racism. This is a woman who has spent most of her life isolated within a bubble of fame with an opaque membrane.
Instead, the reason for watching it is to see how Underwood and Welteroth deal with their colleagues’ outbreak to understand why this clip irritates black women in specific and distinct ways. The short answer is that many of them have some version of Sharon Osbourne in their lives, they are forced to navigate and appease. But they don’t have a camera filming when these interactions take place, guaranteeing them the agency to tell these people to do their own homework, knowing that they probably won’t.
Underwood and Welteroth could not do this without being open to criticism about their inability to verbalize why Osbourne was wrong for all viewers who identify with her. As such, they find themselves with extra chores on their plates.
What we didn’t see in that two-minute clip was Underwood saying to Osbourne, “to talk about something and not accept that what she’s saying, what Meghan has been saying – may be true … And the fact that you don’t want to nor take into account that your desire to want to end your own life is linked to your race, that dismissal makes you a racist situation ”.
The clip also doesn’t show what Welteroth said to Osbourne before his implosion to explain why expressing support for Morgan was not a good look. “Right now, we need people to fight for anti-racism,” she explains. “People think he is racist, they have receipts. I wish we had them today so that we could really go deeper into this conversation, so that people could see why people think he is racist and sexist. And I mean, there are many , but we don’t have those receipts here. “
With that, Osbourne only thinks about asking Welteroth to explain what she means by “receipts”.
Remember that Underwood and Welteroth arrived on the set that day hoping to discuss the cancellation of the culture and Pepe Le Pew and have a chat with Lisa Vanderpump. This is what makes it unfair. They did not expect to teach a masterclass in misogynoir to a woman who does not understand why she cannot be with her friend in a time of need.
Welteroth has an answer for her: “When we kind of give passes or give space to people … who are saying harmful and harmful things, what we are doing is allowing,” she says, before introducing Osbourne to the term unconscious bias. Mrs. O’s head explodes anyway, but not due to the excess of new information.
“The Talk” stands for “The View”, her ABC rival, what curling is for hockey, meaning her fans show up to enjoy her kindness and perhaps laugh at Mrs. O’s thorny ignorance. the show since its debut, when creator Sara Gilbert imagined it as a show speaking from the perspective of a mother, as opposed to a kaffeeklatsch of friends.
That’s one of the reasons “The Talk” attracts about half the audience for “The View” – people like conflict and especially love to hate McCain. This is not to say that “The Talk” should add more trauma to its programming to be successful, but to observe what made people realize and discuss this show is exactly what nobody wants to talk about, staging in our face.
If “Generations” were real, this episode would be the central material for an advanced class in armed privileges and tears for white women, gas lighting and the expectation that many white women place on black women to encourage them to be anti-racist .
Underwood, Welteroth and fellow co-host Carrie Ann Inaba, who left on Wednesday, should never experience such discomfort or be forced to try to dispel a co-star’s ignorance.
“This is a challenge,” said Welteroth. “It is really a challenge to talk about it on national television.” Yes it was. But she and Underwood getting up to face this challenge ended up having much more staying power than a meme, and more meaning than just facing stupidity and moving on with a simple “Okaay. “
The March 10 episode of “The Talk” is being broadcast on Paramount + and CBS.com.