I've heard people either love her or hate her. How can that be? To hate Rosie is to hate the best part of ourselves. The part that is real.
I just finished Rosie O'Donnell's book celebrity detox Like the poet ee cummings, Rosie writes in lower case and speaks the unvarnished truth. She is incapable of being phony. Like the poet ee cummings, she is ridiculed for being unique. In a nation at war, afraid and hated around the world, we hide in groups of conformity. But, not Rosie. ee cummings wrote:
"...here is the deepest secret that nobody knows. Here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud, and the sky of the sky of a tree called life which grows higher than the soul can hope or the mind can hide."
The root--the bud--the sky--the soul--and the mind. The essence of the girl who turned into a woman on her own following her mother's death. How could anyone NOT like Rosie? As long as there are Rosies in America, women will never wear Burkas. If someone tries to make them, at least the offender's DNA will be under her fingernails. She fights back. In a man, this is called courage. In a woman, this is labeled "self destructive."
The Rosie's of this world do not let the world define them, they define the world, and they teach our daughters that being objectified is not the same as being loved. They show our daughters that interesting women come in all sizes and they teach our daughters to think for themselves by displaying intelligence and humor.
She is the kind of woman insecure men both hate and fear. Hers is a voice that will not be silenced by the absurdities of government and corporate ordained lies of our times. In return the worst-kind-of-men vilify her. This is why the best kind of women and men must stand up for her.
Last week I turned on my computer and there on the Comcast home page was another picture of Rosie. My eyes widened, my brows buckled together, yikes it was scary. It was the sort of manipulated picture of Rosie that frightened-little-men like to photoshop into a caricature. Her face was snarled and contorted like a Halloween mask. She was probably caught acting silly, but the video was manipulated and frozen into a still frame that would have scared trick or treaters. She won't conform, so she is defiled.
Comcast, of course, America's largest purveyors of pornography, were the culprits. Objectifying women is one way Comcast makes its billions. What do they do with a woman who refuses to be objectified? They make her ugly. How predictable. Take a "Velveteen" heart and paint on an ugly face. Do we really expect Comcast and the likes of Donald Trump to see Rosie? You have to be real to recognize it in another. Thank God they don't like her. What a relief.
When my niece was a little girl, her father heard the kids outside complaining, "You always get to be the leader," they said accusingly. My niece, eight years old at the time, turned to the kids and said with exhausted impatience, "Okay," pointing at the other kids in the yard, "You're a leader, you're a leader, and you're a leader,-- now all the leaders follow me!" That's Rosie.
Last night my daughter walked in while I was finishing Rosie's book. She said, "Oh Mom, can I read it when you are done?" "Sure," I said. She walked into the other room and yelled, "Rosie is such a beautiful woman with a vision, I love her. How could they put her on a show called The View and then demand she not have one?"
Bingo.