audience comment: those who defended her performance and those who
criticized her roundly and pursued the issue of an apology.^9
A short examination of the weblog comments and her responses
provides insight into what seems to have been O’Donnell’s sometimes
conflicted feelings about the whole incident. Please note that I have
corrected typos but left abbreviations in common use across the web as
they are used, and further, these are not all the comments, nor do they
necessarily appear in this order. Read these with the strategies discussed
above in mind.
Excerpt from http://www.reappropriate.com, Rosie O’Donnell blog post,
October 9, 1998. Reprinted by Permission of Blog Owner.
(1) Rosie: for someone who comes off to be so sensitive and aware
of lgbt issues, why did you think it was alright to mock Chinese
people and the language on The View (re: danny devito: ching chong
...)???
RO: it was not my intent to mock / just to say how odd it is that danny
drunk was news / all over the world even in china / it was not meant
to mock
(2) Rosie, what made you think it was okay to make fun of the way
Chinese people speak?
RO: the joke was about the danny devito drunk news / making
headlines all over the world including china / just comedy folks / no
intent 2 harm / peace
(3) JP writes: Hey Rosie, why aren’t you getting your head out your
butt and be more sensitive to Asian-Americans. Don’t post this
message and see how you are hiding your true facade. You suck and
need to get off tv.
RO: go fuck urself, jp
(4) Leema writes: U r a great role model. I respect ur courage. I’d
like 2 know what makes u imitate a foreign language as a joke. It’d be
funny if u knew how 2 speak it, it sounds racist and ignorant, which u
r not.