ABC's The View Plays Kissyface with Katy Perry

The ladies on The View went head to head with America's most powerful woman politician this morning, but their segment with the latest controversial pop singer was all coos and kisses.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sat down with Barbara Walters et al. on July 28 and faced some tough questions from both right-leaning Elisabeth Hasselbeck (on the success of the surge in Iraq) and leftist Joy Behar (on why Pelosi has not advocated for impeaching President Bush).  But by the time Hasselbeck and her co-panelist Sherri Shepherd spoke with controversial pop singer Katy Perry after she performed her number one hit “I Kissed a Girl,” it appeared that The View's budget for tough questions had been used up.

Instead of asking Perry about turning away from her career as a Christian recording artist to create a racy, controversial new persona, or what her preacher parents have to say about her kissing girls,  Hasselbeck and Shepherd followed other media outlets' pattern [1] of embracing the controversy. 

Shepherd briefly brought up the criticism leveled at Perry for encouraging young girls to experiment with lesbianism, or for being “homophobic,” but Hasselbeck quickly broke in to change the subject.  At the end of the interview, Hasselbeck pronounced: “To the naysayers, who cares! We love her.”

Transcript below:

ELISABETH HASSELBECK: Wow! Incredible energy. This song you just for performed for us which had everybody out of the house has been number one on the Hot 100 list for five weeks in a row. This is the song of the summer.

HASSELBECK AND SHERRI SHEPHERD [singing]: I kissed a girl and I liked it! 

HASSELBECK: Do you feel like this has been sudden success? I know you put a lot of work in. You're 23, right?

KATY PERRY: Yeah.

HASSELBECK: You've been working hard for a few years now.

PERRY: Five years, yeah. I was definitely signed and dropped and signed and dropped. And they said oh you're damaged goods, you'll never make it, go back home.

HASSELBECK: What would you like to tell them now?

PERRY: Look at me now. I'm on The View!

HASSELBECK: That's right. We love her!

SHEPHERD: And you know, Katy, some of your songs have caused a lot of criticism. "I Kissed a Girl" and "Ur So Gay." Some people have said encourages girls to experiment and "Ur So Gay" might be homophobic. What do you have to say to these people?

HASSELBECK: Madonna by the way, had said in a recent interview "Ur so Gay" was her favorite song of the summer.

PERRY: That was crazy, by the way. It was like having a poster of her jump out and say you are the chosen one. You're like really? I've been looking at you my whole life.

HASSELBECK: Whoopi, come on up.

[PERRY KISSES WHOOPI]

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: I liked it.  I liked it. 

SHEPHERD: Did you like her cherry Chapstick Whoopi?

HASSELBECK: There's some controversy!

SHEPHERD: That's what you have to say to the critics.

PERRY: Oh, you know, I think, you know the song for me is about curiosity that you know some people have. For girls, we're very touchy feely when we're growing up, having slumber parties and we're like doing choreographed dance moves in our pajamas and painting each other's nails and practicing kissing on our arms cause God knows that first kiss the boys just swallow our face.

HASSELBECK: It's more like a dear diary. You know what? We love you. We absolutely do. We wish you the very best. To the naysayers, who cares! We love her.

PERRY: Elisabeth loves me!

The View ladies proved earlier they're capable of tough questioning.  Unfortunately they're just not capable of it all of the time. 

Colleen Raezler is a research assistant at the Culture and Media Institute [2], a division of the Media Research Center.   See Justin McCarthy's post [3] at Newsbusters.org for more on Nancy Pelosi's interview on The View.  For information about sex, drugs and violence in today's popular music, see CMI's study “Listen to Those Lyrics [4].”