Walters' interview with Palin aired on "Good Morning America," November 17. (AP Photo/ABC, Steve Fenn)
Barbara Walters is a name that is almost synonymous with news. Throughout her career she has blazed the trail for all female journalists that would come after her. Her early career is especially noteworthy for breaking down the walls of the male dominated journalistic world. When Walters started her journalistic career as a writer at CBS News, she was extremely limited by gender politics:
According to Walters, she was not allowed to write for the male correspondents or to ask questions in “male-dominated” areas such as economics or politics, and she was forbidden to interview guests on-camera until all of the men on Today had finished asking questions. Source: Museum of Broadcast Communications
She went on to be the first official female co-host and regular on The Today Show for fifteen years. She joined Hugh Downs as co-anchor of the prime time news show 20/20 and she created and produces the morning magazine show The View. These are only her more well known accomplishments. Seeing her in this trailblazing light makes it even more difficult to understand what has happened on the most recent Barbara Walters Special “The Most Fascinating People of 2009”.
The aforementioned “Most Fascinating People” were: Michelle Obama, Lady Gaga, Glenn Beck, Tyler Perry, Kate Gosselin, Adam Lambert, Sarah Palin, Brett Favre, Jenny Sanford, and Michael Jackson’s Three Children. Walters’ interviews were handled with her usual penchant for asking “hard questions” that have been known to make guests squirm – as well as a controversy that is no stranger to Walters.
Two of Walters’ interviewees happen to be a part of the BLGT community – Lady Gaga, who stated in her interview with Walters “I’ve certainly had sexual relationships with women, yes.” and Adam Lambert, who states in his interview, “I’m a homosexual, deal with it.” and “It doesn’t really matter who I’m sleeping with. What matters is I’m singing, it’s my voice.” While there is no controversy in the interviews themselves, both straightforward pieces of journalism, the controversy lies in the handling of each of the star’s sexuality.
In Lady Gaga’s interview, Walters includes a statement notating that “kissing women and scantily clad outfits are not exactly a father’s dream for his little girl.” This statement is augmented by video clips of Lady Gaga’s video “Love Games” including a clip in which Lady Gaga shares a very steamy, suggestive same sex romp with another woman dressed as a police officer.
Check out her video:
By contrast, in Adam Lambert’s interview, Walters chose to show a clip of Lambert’s controversial performance at the American Music Awards of his song “For Your Entertainment.” And as in Lady Gaga’s interview, Walters made a statement about the performer “You groped a female dancer, you kissed a male musician, why did you do this?” though in this interview, she chose to forego the clip in favor of another statement: “He also turned the music industry inside out doing things we won’t show you here.”
Check out his full video:
If you missed out on the guy on guy kiss, don’t think you can just pop over to YouTube and see it – the full AMA performance is blocked there. A low-res video does exist, however.
This latest example of the saying “same sex relationships are okay as long as both women are hot” is the last thing to be expected from a journalist of Walters’ integrity and reputation – the journalist herself having shared a same sex kiss with Julianne Moore, not once but twice, most recently on The View. It has been immortalized in song that a kiss is just a kiss. Madonna, Lady Gaga, Julianne Moore and several other women have made it okay for women to kiss each other on television and in movies, but Barbara Walters “Ten Most Fascinating People of 2009” leaves us with the knowledge that a kiss is not simply a kiss when shared between two men. Adam Lambert himself put it best in his interview with Walters “Freedom of expression should be alive and well, and sadly its not.”
About Adam Borders (Managing Editor)