Shape of Earth Uncertain for Sherri Shepherd
September 19th, 2007 by Roderick Russell“In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.”
There is a struggle inside me each and every day. On the one hand, I feel that I should continuously dumb-down my performance material so as to appeal to the masses - an artist has to make a living after all. Yet on the other, I believe strongly in my conviction that one should not pander to the masses for fear of perpetuating the sickness. It’s a difficult struggle - I enjoy my expensive coffee and organic food - and it’s challenging not to lose sight of your own standards when thrown into a world that so highly values and rewards reality television, pop icons and stupid stunts. Then I see things like the above clip from The View and I’m reminded why I hold a commitment to education and reason in such high regard.
From the transcript:
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WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Is the world flat?
SHERRI SHEPHERD: Is the world flat? (laughter)
GOLDBERG: Yes.
SHEPHERD: …I Don’t know.
GOLDBERG: What do you think?
SHEPHERD: I… I never thought about it, Whoopi. Is the world flat? I never thought about it.
BARBARA WALTERS: You’ve never thought about whether the world was round or flat?
SHEPHERD: I tell you what I’ve thought about. How I’m going to feed my child–
WALTERS: Well you can do both.
SHEPERD: …how I’m going to take care of my family. The world, is the world flat has never entered into, like that has not been an important thing to me.
ELIZABETH HASSELBECK: You’ll teach your son, Jeffery, right?
SHEPHERD: If my son, Jeffery, asks me ‘is the world flat,’ I guess I would go…
JOY BEHAR: You know, didn’t some person already work this question out? I mean, why are we doing this again? (laughter, applause)
We’ve all said stupid things under pressure - goodness knows that I’m guilty of this act. The shape of the earth, however, should never be mistaken regardless of the amount of stress and strain you’re under!
Sherri Shepherd is presumably a respected, educated person. She is a visible pop culture icon and though there is no educational prerequisite to being thrust into the public view or being a comedian - though there should be - she worked previously as a legal secretary, a job which requires at least a modicum of critical thinking skills. The very fact that she’s featured on The View tells us that people view her as representative.
Then she tells us that she doesn’t know whether or not Earth is flat. She’s never thought about it. Yet she put in enough thought to decide that she should become a born-again Christian. Should we consider her representative of that group as well?
Wikipedia tells us that on today’s broadcast of The View she offered up the excuse of being nervous and confused on the previous show, and that she knows that Earth is not flat. But how can one recover from a blunder like that, if indeed it was a blunder?
If playing to the masses perpetuates this type of thinking, I want none of it.
Thanks to The Daily Background and Boing Boing for the heads-up.
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tags: pop culture, sherri shepherd, television, the view
