Editorial: Nasty views on The View

Issue of Feb. 6, 2009 / 12 Shevat 5769

It's a mystery why anyone would go out of her way to record "The View," the ABC daytime yenta-fest. For the uninitiated (read: those who have been spared), it features Barbara Walters and four other women sharing mostly banal thoughts and opinions with a studio audience and several million viewers.

Less of a mystery is why a B-actress guest on the show would seek a laugh with a nasty generalization. That's easy: she's there to get laughs.

In case you need filling in, we refer to Susie Essman. She's a matronly, middle-aged actress who recently played a Lubavitch woman in a made-for-TV movie called "Loving Leah." The improbable plot has her widowed daughter contemplating marriage to a secular brother-in-law so as to supposedly fulfill the biblical requirement of Yibum. Chalitza,  a ceremony relieving both parties of any obligation to marry one another, is practiced today, not Yibum, but that's beside the point.

The point is that, for reasons unknown, someone recorded the Jan. 21 episode of "The View" so YouTube users got to see one of the hosts, Joy Behar, ask Essman what she learned about the "Chassidic religion," and to see Essman reply, "I learned that they're not very good dressers."

"The wigs," Behar responded.

"The wigs," said Essman. "You know, they wear the wigs because G-d forbid a man should see your hair and be driven wild with desire."

"It's a little bit related to the Moslem religion," Walters chimed in helpfully.

"Yes. Cover up, cover up," Essman replied.

"I guarantee you that no man is going to be driven wild by seeing my hair,” Essman added. She's probably right, and while we're on the subject, her own dress wasn't anything to write home about, either. Perhaps she was still in character. But, we digress.

"Have you seen what these women look like?" she continued.

Behar, who had indicated earlier that Essman is a close friend of hers, apparently tried to help her friend get her shoe out of her mouth by observing that, "Some are pretty, and some are like everybody else," but Essman waved her hand dismissively.

You know she probably wouldn't have said it about Muslim women, or black women or anyone else, nor should she have, and Walters, who runs the show, clearly suffers from a mixture of ignorance and preconceived notions of her own.

Before Essman shared her views on the sartorial standards of Chassidic women, Walters asked how she got into character, how she found the emotions of a mother whose daughter was about to wed someone she disapproved of (in this case a secular Jew).

"I went to ... if my daughter was going to marry a right wing Republican."

That got a big laugh, of course. Then, she tossed off an apology to Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the lone Republican among the program hosts.

There was no apology, however, to any of the other women she had just mocked on national television and, apparently, no one meeting the description of ‘Chassidic woman’ was present to offer a comment in self defense.

If you'd like to politely share your thoughts about this, we're sure the nice people at ABC would love to hear from you. The switchboard number is 212-456-7777. The direct number for WABC-TV, which airs "The View" in New York is 212-456-3100.