I have been a fan of Saturday Night Live for some time now. And although it was after my bedtime and so thus I never saw it live, I still enjoy Gilda Radner and all her various regular characters.
There’s only one thing. I thought her “Baba Wawa” character (based on Babara Walters of course) was hilarious the first time I saw it. But now I learn Ms. Walters didn’t enjoy it at all. In fact, according to Walters, it basically ruined her life.
Does that mean it is not morally acceptable now to enjoy Baba Wawa? I mean, everyone is a little insulted from time to time. But Babara said it ruined her life, no less. What do the rest of you think?
Her salary in 2007 was 12 million dollars (Barbara Walters - Wikipedia) so her net worth must be in the tens of millions of dollars. She’s been in the business since the early 60s and a signficant figure since the 70s. She’s one of the best known and most influential reporters/interviewers in the US media.
If this is a ruined life, may mine be ruined a thousand times over.
The media seems to attract a fair number of narcissists or people with a pathologial need for status. I guess they don’t take well to being made fun of.
Yeah, some half funny show takes insignificant cheap shots at you. Just laugh about it on your way to the bank.
I have an unfortunate compulsion to watch The View at lunch every day, and I have learned that Baba Wawa is a conceited, materialistic, rude, entitled hypocrite who looks down her nose at the “little people” she must endure on a daily basis. Watching her descent into dementia is fascinating, as no one is bold enough to pry her claws off the stage. I applaud any gentle ribbing that has caused her the slightest discomfort as payback for the way she routinely treats her cohosts and guests.
I haven’t heard about BabaWaWa or Gilda Radner in DECADES. This is a blast from the past! Just goes to show there is no bit of minutiae that won’t be dredged up someday.
In what way was Baba Wawa’s life ruined? She’s a dull, vacuous, dried up old woman making a billion dollars a year to talk funny on TV. Ruin my life that way please! (please make me a dried up old man though).
Yes, how was Ms. [del]Wawa’s[/del] Walters’ life alleged to have been ruined? In the same way as a teenager’s life is ruined by not being allowed to use the car on Saturday night?
If you really want to debate the harm that SNL ridicule can do to a celebrity, aren’t there better candidates than Baba?
What’s not morally acceptable is participating in the production and delivery of “news” programming on television. Miss Wawa has been doing that and accepting obscene amounts of money for it for several decades.
Enjoy away. She’s not getting anything she doesn’t have coming to her.
I thought this thread was going to be about the morality of enjoying humor based on someone’s speech impediment. Barbara Walters can boo-hoo-hoo all the way to the bank with her “ruined life.”
Where did BW say it ruined her life? I found this recent articlethat says she was certainly less than thrilled with Baba Wawa, but eventually she came to accept the character.
Sounds like everyone has permission to continue enjoying Baba.
Wish I could remember where I read it, but years and years ago I saw a quote where she was explaining that she simply refuses to accept coffee in a Styrofoam cup, as somebody of her status should be shown the courtesy of a proper ceramic mug.
It is, I think. I don’t know what Walters said about it, but it didn’t ruin her life even though I’m sure she didn’t enjoy having her speech impediment made fun. My take on things like this is that we all laugh at our differences; it’s more or less instinctual and I don’t think there’s a moral issue. Mistreating people individually is different from that kind of instinctual reaction. And Walters is in the public eye, which does mean she has to expect some mockery for standing out.
No one is doing it maliciously, so it’s fine. I mean, it’s not like anyone actually thinks Walters is a bad journalist/TV host because of her speech impediment–heck, they usually admire her for being able to cope with it so well.
Doing it on a sketch comedy show is not the same thing as doing it behind her back with her friends at elementary school.
Oh, and even if she were offended, that by itself doesn’t make it wrong to laugh. If that were the case, anyone who liked any insult comic ever would be a horrible person.
My personal philosophy has always been that celebs are fair game for ridicule. The perks of stardom are offset by the drawbacks, and getting ribbed on SNL is a ‘drawback’ they should be willing to live with.
Regarding her wanting a real mug instead of a paper cup. I’m with her on that. She’s right; she has earned it. If she wants a ceramic cup, she should get one.
I always considered Barbara Walters’ unique voice to be more akin to an accent than a speech impediment. Was it much worse in the early days of her career? I’m familiar with Gilda Radner’s portrayal of her on SNL, and consider it to be simply a caricature of someone with a distinctive voice, not unlike Darrel Hammond’s Sean Connery or Chris Parnell’s Tom Brokaw. Does she (or did she) actually have a legitimate speech impediment, with a name and everything? Or did she just have an idiosyncratic accent from whatever neighborhood she grew up in?
