14 DAY TRIAL // The backlash against ABC’s morning talk show The View continues, after 2 of the current co-hosts, Michelle Collins and Joy Behar, mocked Miss Colorado Kelley Johnson at the beginning of the week. During the talent section at last weekend’s Miss America 2015, Johnson showed up in her nurse’s scrubs, with a stethoscope around her neck, to discuss one of her Alzheimer’s patients.
The idea was that she was presenting her job as a nurse as her talent, and she made sure to stress in her monolog that she was more than just a nurse: she was a lifesaver, someone who was there for her patients and who treated them with respect and as human beings.
The moment was meant as a tribute to nurses all over the world, but especially in the US, but the deeper meanings were lost on the co-hosts. The View is now paying the price for it.
More advertisers pull out
The two videos below show Johnson’s monolog and the jokes it subsequently generated on the talk show, as well as Joy Behar’s formal apology the next day.
She claimed she didn’t know Johnson was a nurse in real life, and that she assumed she was in “costume,” which is why she didn’t understand what she had meant to achieve through the monolog. She found the moment funny and ridiculous because she believed it wasn’t based on real experience.
Behar admitted she wasn’t paying attention to the show, so she jumped to conclusions.
Upset viewers refused to accept the apology, and so did advertisers.
The day after the apology, Johnson & Johnson and Eggland’s Best pulled their ads from the show. More companies followed suit some hours ago, TMZ confirms.
Snuggle, McCormick spices and Party City have also decided they don’t want their ads during the show, because of the offensive jokes about the nurses.
“Like you, we also value and admire nurses, so we have paused advertising on the daytime television show,” McCormick says. Adds Snuggle, “Please join us in thanking and celebrating nurses for the critical role they play in our healthcare system.”
The View goes in full damage control
Producers on The View have fully grasped the scale of the scandal and they’ve gone in full damage control mode.
Yesterday’s show included appearances from several nurses who discussed their jobs and the challenges they faced at work on a daily basis. Prior to the show, ABC made sure to announce the special guest appearance on Twitter, saying they had reached out to the NYU College of Nursing to make it happen.
By the looks of things, advertisers and the public are still not buying the apologies.
