The View didn’t see that coming

Troy Russell

Two weeks ago on “The View,” the hosts joked in what many consider “bad taste” about a monologue done by Kelley Johnson, the current Miss Colorado. The two hosts directly involved with this controversy are Michelle Collins and Joy Behar.

“There was a girl who wrote her own monologue, and I was like, ‘Turn the volume up, this is going to be amazing, let’s listen.’ She came out in a nurse’s uniform and basically read her emails out loud and shockingly did not win. I was like, that’s not a real talent,” said Collins.

As Collins made these statements, Behar chimed in asking “Why is she wearing a doctors stethoscope?”

The reaction to these comments weren’t what these celebrity hosts were bargaining for, to say the least. The Twitter hashtag #nursesunite blew up and made the trending list. There are what appears to be two reactions to this, one being the negative backlash that is getting a lot of talk and the other being not so serious.

“All in all, I think it was a bad joke made by someone on TV and that got taken a little bit too seriously,” said Patricia Carrillo, senior anthropology major.

Washburn has had a fairly neutral reaction, where the general sentiment has been a question of whether or not this is valid scandal in the first place.

Taylor Walker, junior elementary education major, expressed that maybe this will help people realize how important it is to think before you speak, but that something else will surely happen and this will be forgotten.

After the initial reaction, Collins got on Twitter and said, “I’m not taking an anti nurse platform haha. Like everyone prescribe yourselves a Valium and let’s just all relax… A woman talking about her job is not a talent.”

This may be the root of the problem and a good source for dialogue. As one reaction on campus was contrary to Collins’s Twitter post.

“Some of the things that we go through everyday, it does take talent, it’s a talent to use your medical knowledge and your judgement to provide the best quality patient care,” said Alexander Overbey, nursing major.

However, Carrillo said she would be inclined to agree with Collins, stating that it’s a dumb talent because it’s a profession not a talent.

So are we experiencing an exaggerated occurrence of political correctness or is it just another instance of celebs showing a lack of respect? Perhaps both?

Whatever it may be, it is having consequences, five of the shows sponsors have pulled ads from the show.

Johnson & Johnson, Eggland’s Best, Party City, Snuggle and McCormick said they pulled advertising from the daytime talk show as nurses reacted strongly to the show belittle their profession on social media.

Since the episode aired, they have tried to do damage control by inviting a sizeable number of local nurses on their show to discuss what the job entails. Allegedly this was a disingenuous tactic as a guest host claimed that off-air they still bad-mouthed and minimized the job.

Johnson said, “If it took a few comments that maybe upset a few people to bring that awareness to nursing and how hard they work, and how intelligent those people are, then it was worth every word.”