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I had avoided watching this Sitcom as it seemed from its ads to be a painful rehashing of stupid archetypes thrown together as a vehicle for a big name (?) star. I caught an episode last night while waiting for Will & Grace to come on, and was pleasantly surprised by the in-your-face, somewhat ascetic, ascerbic and yeah, a bit shrill political commentary. Whoopi let Bush really have it last night, and I was surprised to see this in prime time.
In this show, she portrays a one-hit-wonder former diva who got out of the music business and opened a small hotel in New York. Far from being the cutesy pleasant centerpiece of the show, Whoopi is caustic, bitter, chain smokes, drinks and bitches her way through the episode. She is a staunch liberal, and very outspoken about this. Her brother is directly the opposite, a conservative republican, married to this white woman who has to talk and act like a "sister".
Anyway, in last night's episode, the president is in some kind of public appearance, and comes into her hotel to use the can. She sputters prior to meeting him about just how much she hates him, how badly he has screwed up the country, destroyed the economy and basically hitting all of the liberal talking points about the suitability of Bush to run the country and what he has done to it. She says she is really going to give it to him when she sees him. When he finally comes in to use the bathroom (he is seen from behind), he immediately charms her by mentioning how he was a fan of her song that was a hit. She falls for his charm, becomes all smiles, and her anger and disgust for him becomes unspoken. Her exchange with him is filmed and later shown on network TV. After he leaves, she is ashamed that she did not tell him exactly how she felt, and kicks herself for being swayed by trivialities having nothing to do with his performance as president. In this way, Whoopi was making a rather subtle commentary on the state of the media today.
Anyway though the course of the show, she gets invited to some sort of appearance by Bush, and she is all set to blast him and tell him exactly what is on her mind. At the appearance, she meets one other black couple who congratulate her on coming out Republican. She is totally miffed by this, declaring her liberal leanings. A verbal fracas ensues, and the conservatives start bleating "Get her out of here, she is going to trash the president!" During the ensuing confusion, she manages to vocalize the absurdity of a black Republican, essentially wondering WHY a black person who has been screwed every which way by the conservatives would be a Republican. She even tells her brother were it not for the Democratic party, he would not be allowed to have his white wife.
True, the show is a bit shrill in typical sitcom fashion, but it was surprising, refreshing and somewhat breathtaking to hear such anti-Bush, anti-conservative rhetoric actually vocalized during prime time.
Catch this in rerun, if you get a chance.
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