Hosts of the all-women daytime talkshow “The View” agreed that Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina’s face “looked demented” as part of their day after debate analysis.
Co-host Michelle Collins started in: “You know what Carly said which really made me laugh? She kicked off her thing saying, ‘You know, people tell me that I didn’t smile enough during the last debate.’”
“She looked demented!” Collins said, with an exaggerated smile spread across her face. “Her mouth did not downturn one time.”
Joy Behar chimed in, saying she wished “Smiling Fiorina” was a Halloween mask.
“Can you imagine? It’d give me nightmares,” Collins responded.
Paula Faris tried to temper Collins’ digression, saying “I think demented is a strong word,” but Whoopi Goldberg defended using the term.
“As a comic, she means demented. I think as a comic we have to stand up for the words we use,” Goldberg said.
During Wednesday evening’s debate, Fiorina was referencing the sexist attacks about her appearance often leveled by her male opponents in response to the first question about the candidates’ weaknesses.
Watch the full exchange over at Mediaite.
This has been bugging me for about a week.
~shudder~
http://media.bakersfieldnow.com/images/101026_fiorina_short_hair.jpg
jw1
Oh, wow. Fiorina sorta set herself up for this kind of behavior. Years ago, Fiorina made a snide comment about Sen. Barbara Boxer’s looks. If I were advising Fiorina, I’d tell her to just stay above it all and not comment back … as she has done already. That said, I’m not a real big fan of attacking someone on their looks as I personally believe it belittles the person saying it just as much–if not more–as the target.
I agree there is plenty about Fiorina’s positions to attack without attacking her looks. OTOH, this was not an attack on her “face” per se, but on her “smiling face” which is a little different.
True. I got that, too. This was in response to Carly’s whining about other people’s comments … stupid move (on Fiorina’s part). Truth is … Carly Fiorina doesn’t smile a lot. She’s not a very positive personality at all. When I’m watching her, she’s almost always scowling and negative. It goes very nicely with her attitudes about those less fortunate than she, different than she. She is a very unempathetic person – and she proudly wears that ugly mask on her sleeve.
I’m just glad it was women making these remarks, or we’d be deluged with people insisting that it’s sexist to make any derogatory remarks about a woman’s looks. Sure, we can make all the fat jokes about Christie that we want or mock Trump’s hair endlessly, but we’re not allowed to make comments about a woman’s appearance.
And the thing is, I don’t even think of this as a double standard, because that’d imply that the people making these accusations were thinking at all. They’ve just got things compartmentalized, where talking about a woman’s appearance is automatically sexist and talking about Christie’s weight and Trump’s hair is fun.
I myself rarely comment on anyone’s physical appearance, since that’s not my style. But as long as people aren’t pretending that physical appearance means anything beyond their physical appearance, I don’t really see the problem. I think Trump’s remark that Fiorina was too ugly to be elected president was pushing close to the line, but technically speaking, he’s probably right, since the best looking candidates usually win. And besides, people who focus on superficial traits like physical appearance are saying more about themselves than their target.